Tom Hiddleston says he's a "temporary torchbearer" for Loki

While the first season of Loki on Disney+ closed with an immediate confirmation of the adopted Asgardian’s return in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, maybe don’t get your hopes up for a season three. As reported by Variety, star Tom Hiddleston referred to himself as a “temporary torchbearer” for the character, whom he has been portraying since 2011's Thor.

“It’s a great role,” he said. “It’s an archetype, the trickster god, the agent of chaos. I’m just here interpreting that for the time being. Loki has been here for centuries and will be here for centuries more and I’m just stepping into that silhouette for now.”

The actor was participating in a Loki panel for the Royal Television Society alongside co-star Sophia Di Martino, director Kate Herron, and writer Michael Waldron, who noted that he originally wrote a scene where Di Martino’s character Sylvie kicks a laser-shooting armadillo like a soccer ball.

However, in a Q&A last year, Hiddleston also said he would “absolutely” play the God of Mischief for the rest of his life, and Loki is the only live-action Marvel series on Disney+ guaranteed to receive a second season so far.

The concept of legacy characters was previously established in the MCU, with Steve Rogers notably passing the Captain America shield to Sam Wilson in Avengers: Endgame. Wilson’s own successor for the Falcon title, Joaquin Torres, was introduced in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.

Loki, of course, showed us an absurd array of variants of its titular character, including Sylvie and the immediate fan favorite Alligator Loki. While the Tom Hiddleston iteration eventually parts ways with his deeply chaotic peers, it seems unlikely that we’ve seen the last of Jack Veal’s Kid Loki, as other Marvel properties such as Hawkeye and WandaVision have added more youthful characters that appear destined to assemble as a live-action version of the Young Avengers or Champions.