Tom Hiddleston is prepping for his very own Disney+ series, but a new casting for the streaming service’s Loki hints that the Trickster God could be joined by a female counterpart. While the cast of the Thor spin-off is being kept a closely-guarded secret, a potential female lead has everyone guessing.
According to Deadline, Into the Badlands‘ Sophia Di Martino has been cast in Loki ahead of its six-episode freshman series in 2021. The site says a “source close to the production” claims Di Martino is joining the comic book show as a female Loki.
Those up on their Marvel comics will know female Loki appeared after the Avengers: Disassembled arc. Following Ragnarök, Loki stole the form used by Lady Sif and reemerged as a villainous woman full of Loki’s trademark tricks.
Gamers have also seen both female and male Loki appear as playable characters in 2015’s 2015’s Marvel Heroes MMORPG. Although comic Loki eventually returned to her masculine body, the character has flipped between both genders over the years and become one of the franchise’s growing number of LGBTQ+ characters.
We already know Loki will tie into the upcoming Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, meaning this isn’t just another throwaway series like Inhumans. It’s also hinted that Loki will pave the way for Hiddleston to reprise his role in Thor: Love and Thunder. If Di Martino is playing female Loki, it’s unclear whether she’ll just appear in the show or whether she’ll cross over into the main line of MCU movies.
Hiddleston has definitely made his mark since his introduction back in 2011’s Thor. As well as being the big bad of The Avengers, Loki rocked up in Thor: The Dark World and had a redemptive comedy arc in Thor: Ragnarok. However, it was Loki’s heartbreaking ‘death’ in Avengers: Infinity War that hit us harder than most.
Even though Kevin Feige promised the Infinity War deaths will be permanent — and Thanos said “No resurrections this time” — Avengers: Endgame sort of got round the Loki issue.
The movie’s complicated time heist plot gave 2012 Loki the Tesseract and saw him zoom off into the Multiverse for his own Disney+ series. Interestingly, there could be a woman’s touch to the whole of Asgard thanks to Natalie Portman’s return to the MCU as a female Thor.
We’re not even Low-key (wink) excited for this one. Personally, I can’t wait to see what happens in Loki and whether he’s finally met his female match.
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[Featured Image: Marvel/Disney]