Loki’s Strongest Time Variant Could Be MCU’s First Mutant
MCU’s series Loki introduced many variants of the God of Mischief across the multiverse; but it didn’t touch one of the most tragic and powerful versions from Marvel’s many alternate realties.
But the Loki of Earth -9997 is not a God but rather a powerful mutant- the one who discovered the lie at the core of Asgard and then underwent many transformations to set things right.
Earth X ( created by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger) is an alternate universe in which all of humanity gains superpowers after the Inhuman king Black Bolt releases the Terrigen Mists worldwide and sees the tragic fall of heroes like Captain America and the Fantastic Four.
The Earth X series and its sequels Universe X, Paradise X, Marvels X – reveal the hidden history of the reality with a lot of focus on the machinations of Celestials and in the ways they manipulated the Gods of Asgard.
On Earth – 9997, it’s revealed that the Celestials have manipulated life on Earth to protect Celestial on the planet.
As the part of this manipulation, Celestials make it so that beings who reach the third tier of mutation, lose any sense of individuality.
Loki discovers that the Asgardians are an alien race turned into the Norse gods ; that’s how they were seen when they first arrived on Earth – an effect cemented by a Norwegian villager named Donnerson, who was manipulated by Mephisto into becoming the pantheon’s Odin, helping to lock them in a useful form.
As Loki’s true nature is revealed to him by Aaron Stack aka Machine Man; the replacement Watcher of this reality. He does everything he can to free the Asgardians proving their true nature by convincing them to resurrect themselves from death by force of will.
As the Celestials defeat the Asgardians, Loki continues his quest and learns to define his own nature and embraces Thor as an ally to free the people.
They both eventually reveal the truth to Asgardians who still decide to live on as Gods.
Thor goes on to becomes his human form Donald Blake, Loki choses to define himself as new version of Thor and gains his bother’s powers and new version of Mjolnir.
The series doesn’t answer whether this Loki variant will continue expanding his abilities or choose to be cemented as Thor, but he is able to surpass even godlike power by learning the truth of the Celestials’ manipulation.
In the modern stories, Loki fights to escape his role as the snake of Asgard’s Eden.
On Earth-9997, he mages to succeed, discovering that the limitations others placed on him were always a lie, and gaining supreme power as a result.
He ultimately chooses to become his bother! (which is ironic for “Loki”)
