Written by: Megan Carnegie / Photo: (YouTube/FilmSelect Trailer)
The author of Marvel’s new three-book historical fiction series has revealed she is planning to write the character Loki as queer.
Author Mackenzi Lee announced the news on Twitter over the weekend, prompting a flood of support from readers excited to see an LGBT+ character portrayed in a mainstream superhero narrative.
The YA fiction writer, who penned The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, will be focusing on the “super awesome morally grey anti-heroes from Marvel”.
The first book of the series will focus on Avenger Thor’s adopted brother Loki Laufeyson, who was inspired by the Norse god of the same name.
When asked whether Loki would be represented as queer in the new novel, YA author Lee replied by saying: “Loki is a canonically pansexual and gender-fluid character. So.”
Confirmation doesn’t get clearer than that, right?
A shapeshifter who has changed into animals and women in the past, Loki has also had relationships with men and women, but there has been no clear orientation before the book’s proposal.
But one fan took to Twitter to complain to Lee about her master plan.
The angry Marvel enthusiast said “I don’t mind if there is evidence to support this claim. But I have a problem if the LGBT want to say he is just so they can feel represented.”
Lee came back with the perfect response:
Tom Hiddleston has played Loki in four Thor movies: Thor, The Avengers, The Dark World and Ragnorok, so he knows the character inside out.
In an interview in 2013, Hiddleston said he thought of Loki as bisexual.
He will return as Loki in Avengers: Infinity War, which will be released in 2018.
Readers, however, will have to wait a little longer to read Mackenzi Lee’s queer representation of this mischievous trickster.
The first of the three-part novel series will be published in early 2019.
Despite the long wait, there was an outpouring of excitement from fans after the announcement at the weekend.
But Loki is not the only member of the LGBT+ comic community who is getting a moment in the spotlight.
America first appeared in the publisher’s comics in 2011 but the new comic all about its eponymous hero, called America, was met with great support from fans.
Writer Gabby Rivera, herself a queer Latina, said Chavez is “a foxy, badass, hard femme Latina who dates women and punches into other dimensions.”