Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 – Review

By: Al Ewing (story), Lee Garbett (art), Nolan Woodward (colors)

The Story: Loki proves that backstabbing may be the sincerest kind of love.

The Review: No matter how good a comic book is, no matter how well it renders a character, there is simply nothing that compares to the exposure a major film (or TV show, as the case may be) provides.  Surely it’s no coincidence that Journey Into Mystery began starring Loki in the same year Thor was released.  Call me a downer, but I doubt that without Tom Hiddleston’s popular film portrayal of Loki, Loki: Agent of Asgard would ever have been greenlighted.

Which is why it’s our good fortune that Loki has become the pop culture icon he is, because Agent of Asgard is a great premise, well-executed.  Every decent person loves a good redemption story, and boy, Loki can really use a lot of redeeming.  There’s no doubt that he’ll inevitably return to his dastardly deeds someday, but even with that foregone conclusion, you want to see him succeed at doing good for as long as he can.  Loki, a hero?  What’s that even like?

Judging from this one issue, it looks like it’s pretty awesome.  Given his talents, Loki is perfectly suited to the role of a mythic spy, and replacing high-tech gizmos with magical ones is a wonderful twist that probably renders other writers secretly jealous they don’t have an excuse to use the idea themselves.  Though you only see all-too-brief glimpses of the Seven-League Boots, his vanishing cloak, and Gram, the sword of Sigurd, you can tell these will be fun tools for future adventures, and they hint at even cooler mystic gadgets to come.

Of course, the title wouldn’t work if you didn’t enjoy following its star around, and Elwing has about as good a handle on both sides of Loki—the playful, cocky side and the side that longs to be taken seriously—as Kieron Gillen, who basically created the modern comic book Loki.  Wanting to do good hasn’t made Loki any less interesting—quite the opposite, in fact.  Every hero to some degree struggles with his baser instincts.  Loki’s very nature is to deceive and trickery is at the core of his identity; imagine the struggle required to master that degree of fallibility.  This issue is rife with musings on truth and lies, and how story can invert one to the other.  The suggestion is that Loki’s greatest magical feat, perhaps an unattainable one, will be to convince himself that he is the hero he wants to be.

But these are serious questions for another arc down the line.  For now, you’re quite content to bask in the energy and humor of the series, which is very Whedon-esque in its self-aware deprecation (Black Widow remarks on Hawkeye’s status in the video game he’s playing: “You have the army after you and no health and you’re falling out of a crashing plane…  It’s a bass fishing simulator, Clint.”) and pop culture references (“You’re sure this is Loki?  He looks kind of…One Direction-y.”).  Elwing doesn’t overdo it, and there’s definitely commentary at work behind every joke.

If this first issue has any flaw, it’s in the underdevelopment of Loki’s first mission, the purpose of which only reveals itself, suddenly, when the mission is nearly over.  Elwing offers only a single page to establish the vague “corruption” that’s somehow infected Thor at some undetermined time, and that hardly seems enough considering the lengths Loki has to go through to remove it and also what this corruption actually turns out to be.  Honestly, this is a story more appropriate for a first (or second) arc than a first issue, though Elwing tells it well.

I remember Garbett’s art quite fondly from his days on Bryan Q. Miller’s Batgirl.*  Artists tend to have a difficult time getting across a generally friendly, cheerful tone in their work while simultaneously making it look sophisticated, but Garbett is one of the few who can manage it.  If anything, his skill has only improved since his DC days.  He’s lost none of that youthful energy, so essential to the new Loki, but his detail is finer and sharper than ever.  Woodward tops it all off with a soft shimmer in his coloring that’s not overly dazzling, but still has enough pizzazz to make the issue look top-class.

Conclusion: A very entertaining first outing that perhaps gets a little overexcited and rushes through its various components, though it’s all well put together.

Grade: B+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: * Speaking of which, I love the face Black Widow has as she recounts Loki’s multitude of crimes.  I remember that look.  I’m pretty sure Stephanie Brown had that look any time she got snarked.