Thor: Ragnarok nearly set up a different fate for Loki in Infinity War. Marvel Cinematic Universe fans were shocked to see Thanos kill the God of Mischief within the first few minutes of the movie. Those same fans were still pretty upset by the time that Avengers: Endgame hit theaters, even though it proved that a different version of Loki is alive and well within the MCU. In fact, the character even has his own show coming up on the Disney+ streaming platform.
A new book on the making of Avengers: Endgame shows that Thor: Ragnarok was at one time going to have a different ending for Loki. The Thor movie leads directly into Infinity War and sees Loki on the ship carrying the Asgardians who escaped the wrath of Hela. Loki has the Tesseract safe and sound, but originally, he was going to go off to Jotunheim to protect himself and the Tesseract. This would have set up Infinity War to begin with The Mad Titan heading there to retrieve the Infinity Stone and ultimately kill Loki.
Even though Loki was going to die in either scenario, it looks like the Russo Brothers were right to take the character in the direction that they did. Having Loki on the ship with the other Asgardians showed his story arc and his sacrifice. Fans had wanted to see the character end up on the right side of things for years and finally got to see it, albeit briefly, in Infinity War. Now, it appears that the character will be back to his trickster ways in his upcoming TV series.
As with just about anything that Marvel Studios does, the Loki series is shrouded in mystery. It will apparently take the God of Mischief through Earth’s history as he helps change events, while also being on the run at the same time. “There’s a huge time travel component,” Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard says. “There will be a man on the run quality to it and we get the chance to explore more human sides of Loki.” This sounds like the perfect storyline idea for the fan-favorite character and it will be interesting to see how it’s all pulled off.
Thor: Ragnarok was an important movie for the MCU. For one, it set up an entirely new tone for the Thor character. Chris Hemsworth was pretty sick of the way he had been playing the character in the past, so he and Taika Waititi shook it up, which had a huge influence on the next few MCU movies. Avengers: Endgame would not be the same movie had Taika Waititi not taken the script and flipped it for Thor. We also were able to see the start of Loki working with his brother. You can see the alternate concept art below, thanks to the Marvel Boss23 Twitter account.
New Avengers Infinity War concept art shows an alternative death scene for Loki where Thanos hunts down Loki to his home planet Jotunheim in order to find the Tesseract!#avengers_endgame#loki#mcu#AvengersInfinityWar#thanos#thor#avengers#deathofanavenger#marvelcomicspic.twitter.com/Ctf7keZ668
— MarvelBros23 (@MarvelBros23) November 24, 2019
