After sitting on the sidelines for all of 2020 (not by choice, mind you), Marvel Studios is roaring back in 2021 by dominating pop culture headlines and programming something new for virtually every month of this calendar year. WandaVision kicked things off in January, and has kept Marvel fans riveted to Disney+ every Friday with an unfolding mystery that has introduced all new heroes and villains. WandaVision is about to pass the baton to the next Marvel series, The Falcon and the Winter Solider, which begins airing its first new episodes on March 19. After that, it’s Loki starring Tom Hiddleston, and we now know when that show will air on the streaming service.
Walt Disney and Marvel participated in a TCA panel on Wednesday, and during it, they revealed start dates for several anticipated series. Loki was one of them, and Marvel Studios finally let on that the show will begin on June 11. This means that there will be a decent gap on the schedule between when The Falcon and the Winter Solider wraps (after six episodes) and when Loki begins.
In between that, the Marvel marketing machine will focus on Black Widow, as that prequel now sits on a May 7 release date and expects to be able to play in theaters.
Outside of the new release date, Marvel Studios is keeping a lot of details regarding Loki close to the vest. The synopsis that was provided as part of the Marvel TCA Panel reads:
“Loki” features the God of Mischief as he steps out of his brother’s shadow in a new series that takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.” Tom Hiddleston returns as the title character, joined by Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku and Richard E. Grant. Kate Herron directs “Loki,” and Michael Waldron is head writer.
But most of that was confirmed by the Loki trailer that Marvel Studios released earlier this year:
I’m curious how Loki will play out over the course of its first season. Like WandaVision, it comes after the events of Avengers: Endgame, but where WandaVision seems to be dabbling in grief given Wanda’s immense loss, Loki will pick up after the God of Mischief has slipped away from the Avengers using the Tesseract, and therefore can go in so many different directions.
The introduction of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) from the Marvel Comics books also adds a fascinating wrinkle. The mysterious organization monitors timelines, and we know that the Avengers traveled across a few of them in Endgame to try and retrieve Infinity Stones before Thanos. Will the TVA ask Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to interfere with that action somehow? Did that action cause ripples that Loki will have to correct?
We’ll start to unpack this series soon enough, as Loki streams on Disney+ beginning on Friday, June 11.
