Burdened with glorious queerness: Loki's queer identity and erasure in comic books and film

Abstract

Loki is one of the most influential Marvel characters of all time, and his relevance continues to soar as he is continuously included in new comic book storylines and within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character’s long history within Marvel has allowed for a continuous process of change and development, one of the more recent and prominent changes being the increasingly out identification of Loki as queer. Loki’s history displays an always queered identity, but as Loki’s queerness became more pertinent to the character’s identity, there has been a shift away from harmful queer-coded stereotypes portrayed on the character. Across mediums Loki has frequently practiced a gender non-conforming performance and the explicit inclusion of Loki’s queer identity has mediated some of the harmful portrayal written into Loki’s character.