With the Hollywood strikes now over, actors are allowed to talk about their current work once again. So, with the Loki season 2 finale still a very recent memory, Tom Hiddleston has been reflecting on what his character’s new powers mean, and he discussed the possibility of a return for everyone’s favorite Avenger: Tony Stark.
Speaking on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the MCU legend was asked whether Loki’s control over his time-slipping powers would allow him to bring back Robert Downey Jr’s Marvel character. “Time-slipping technically gives Loki some interesting moves he can make,” said the British actor with a grin, being intentionally coy and vague about the prospect of Stark’s return.
“I suppose, yeah,” he continued. “[Loki] can move between the past present and future… speaking for myself Loki’s died a few times and I’m still here, so I don’t know that death is necessarily — death is up for grabs as an existential question!”
Confused? You should be. Knowing that both Fallon and the audience were aware that he wouldn’t be able to give any answers either way (such is Marvel’s infamous secrecy), Hiddleston was intentionally rambling and giving the most ambiguous answers possible.
He was essentially satirizing the fact that in interviews such as these, actors have to give an answer, but can’t really give the answer. Trying to take his words seriously, or taking them out of this context, isn’t anything other than a misrepresentation of Hiddleston’s comments, which you can see for yourself below.
What Hiddleston was being serious about, however, was the fact that the former Marvel villain‘s new time-slipping powers gave him near-infinite options. In doing so, he doesn’t rule out the possibility that Loki could, theoretically, bring back Iron Man in some upcoming Marvel movie like Secret Wars.
We’re here to tell you that Hiddleston’s wrong. To be more specific, his vague implication that Loki might restore Tony Stark is almost certainly not going to be the case. Sorry to disappoint you.
Firstly, as the Marvel series‘ finale showed, Loki is now the proctor of all timelines after the destruction of the Temporal Loom. With his magic, he’s holding all the realities together: maintaining and defending them has become his glorious purpose. That means Loki is now bound to his throne. If he were to time-slip now, he’d be abandoning his duty, which would see time and reality fall into chaos.
So, there’s that. There’s also the fact that going back in time to save Tony Stark would completely undo Iron Man’s contribution and sacrifice in defeating Thanos. If you were to pull Tony out of the past and into the future, half of the galaxy would die. You can’t just go messing with time and reality like that: it’s too interwoven and complex.
Hiddleston, of course, knows this. We would never dare to undermine his own knowledge of the MCU. He was just playing along with the format of the interview, and trying his best to have fun while dodging the questions. But anyone taking his words seriously should think again.
For more Marvel fun, check out our Loki season 2 episode 6 recap and review, as well as our The Marvels review. Or, check out our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order, and find out what we know about Deadpool 3.