Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 Review

The title for the first issue of Loki: Agent of Asgard -- "Trust Me" -- should be your first indication that you're in for something special. As the God of Mischief (or Evil, depending on who you ask), Loki is usually the last person any sane individual should trust. And yet, in this inaugural issue, writer Al Ewing and artist Lee Garbett, show us that trust is a tricky thing, and that even tricksters can have good intentions.

Loki's road to redemption continues in his new solo series, and as we saw in Young Avengers, it's riddled with potholes. When Loki asks the reader, in his voiceover narration, to trust him, he's asking for more than that. He wants to be seen for who he is now, not who he was. It's a small leap from "Trust me" to "Believe in me," and while that might be a somewhat saccharine interpretation of Loki's innermost desires, there's something fundamentally relatable about his quest to achieve redemption, especially when few people (save, perhaps, his brother) want to see him succeed.

Garbett's art and Nolan Woodard's colors are every bit as lively and playful as one could expect in a book starring everyone's favorite mischievous immortal. Loki, even in this imagining, isn't a truly good person, and there are a few clever visual cues that hint at his position as an unreliable narrator, like the Cheshire cat grin that appears in the air after he activates his invisibility cloak. The book's opening scene -- of Loki stabbing Thor through the chest -- reads as a bit cliche, but the reasoning behind it given later in the book (I shan't spoil it for you here) might be enough to justify it.

And it wouldn't be a Loki book without a little moral ambiguity. Unlike Black Widow, another book that focuses on dealing with one's shady past, Loki isn't after absolution. When he hacks into the Avengers' database, he wipes his slate clean. He doesn't want forgiveness. He wants to the Loki of the past to be forgotten. But, as we're shown on the issue's final page, the past is not so easily erased.

Melissa Grey wears Green Lantern pajamas to bed and writes stories for a living. She can be found on MyIGN at MelissaGrey or lurking on Twitter @meligrey.

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