Comic Review: Loki (2019-) #1

Loki #1

Marvel Comics

Writer: Daniel Kibblesmith

Artist: Oscar Bazaldua & David Curiel

The War of the Realms is over. Asgard and the Avengers won and managed to maintain the nine realms safe once more. Loki turned out to be a great deal of help in defeating his father, ruler of the Frost Giants, King Laufey. With this, Loki became the rightful leader of Jotunheim. Marvel’s new title covers Loki and Thor’s stories as they both became kings at the same time.

The first issue serves as a set up for the main story arc. Loki is not fond of being a ruler full-period and leaves the throne unattended for a night out on Midgard, which is where the reader first meets him. He is then met by Thor who was summoned by a mysterious elderly figure (that resembles Thor himself). We get a brief Nightmare apparition although it serves much more for Loki to make a point to his brother rather than being an actual threat.

The story is conducted charmingly by Kibblesmith who does so with humor and wit, reflecting Loki’s main character traits nicely. Most of the dialogues are dominated by the trickster making for a fun read whenever he’s on the page. By the looks of it, Kibblesmith is planning a quite ominous story arc for Loki however it is unwise to assume this is certain. The author is, at least in this issue, writing in a comedic manner and the build-up of the gravity of this first arc may be used as a humor device (disguising something as dead serious but then showing it’s really nothing is very common nowadays).

The comic is Drawn by Oscar Bazaldua and he delivers. Although I’d rather see Bazaldua’s work on cover art, since it feels it’d be much more satisfying, the artist knows the medium well and executes beautifully in every panel, especially regarding his use of motion lines and shading. In this reviewers opinion the artist’s style make the elements in the foreground stick out too much (probably because of the thick outlining), which make some of them look like stickers in an unrelated background, but that’s just me being picky (there’s also a panel where Thor is missing his eye patch, those are the kind of things I notice, I’m sorry). Curiel’s coloring work is delightful. It complements Bazaldua’s art perfectly adding lighting elements as well as a glimmer on magical ones. Those, when well executed, are always a treat for the readers’ eyes.

The first chapter took unexpected turns after the tease we got on War of the Realms: Omega. It felt like the book would be more about Loki and his newly found right-hand man Drrf. Instead, we’re getting a tale of two brothers, each with his own kingdom, as they learn to rule together… or not. I could be wrong. In any case, if you’re a fan of recent iterations of Loki you can’t miss this story as it promises to deliver the best of the God of Lies along with gorgeous artwork.

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