Loki Officially Confirmed as Marvel’s Most Powerful Hero

There is only one hero who can stand toe-to-toe with Marvel’s most powerful villains, the Beyonders, and that’s Loki. The version of the character who appears in Defenders: Beyond is the returning fan-favorite Goddess of Stories, and it looks like not even the omnipotent Beyonders can escape her “meta” powers of narrative.

The Loki appearing in Defenders is not the same seen in Thor. The “original” Loki died during the Siege event, after planning his death to escape his role as the “God of Evil”. He was reborn as a younger version of himself, eventually reinventing himself as a roguish loose cannon rather than a villain. When the Marvel Multiverse was destroyed by the Beyonders, this Loki survived annihilation by becoming the God of Stories, creating and stepping through a door labeled to “Next”. The official return of this version of Loki was a moment that fans of the character have been waiting years for.

God of Stories Loki was created by Al Ewing, who is also the writer of Defenders: Beyond (with art by Javier Rodrìguez), the series where the character returned in a new, female form. The Goddess of Stories is now a member of the Defenders, a group of multiversal protectors assembled by Eternity to protect reality from a new, mysterious threat. In issue #2, the team travels to what is left of the second iteration of the Marvel Multiverse, the Second Cosmos, where they meet the Beyonders. A confrontation ensues, and Loki is able to unexpectedly create trouble even for the all-powerful creatures. As long as the Goddess of Stories is around, even the Beyonders have to play by the laws of narrative, including the one that says that underdogs get an advantage over otherwise unbeatable enemies.

Loki is not able to defeat the Beyonder, just stall him, but it’s still an impressive feat considering that these creatures ended the entire Multiverse with ease. While the Beyonders’ weakness to “narrative” may seem just a convenient plot device, it actually makes sense. In this same issue it is revealed that the Beyonders were created by the Celestials in the Second Cosmos, an iteration of the Multiverse where narrative did not exist, thus creating a blind spot that can be exploited. This is the second time that Loki’s powers fool the Beyonders, as they already allowed the rogue god to escape the end of the Multiverse caused by their Incursions. This proves that while Hulk’s might and Doctor Strange’s magic are nothing to the Beyonders, narrative manipulation is a weak spot of these otherwise omnipotent creatures.

The Beyonders were created by the Celestials as limitless life-forms. Loki’s powers, on the other hand, create limits and boundaries, as that’s what stories do – they give form and direction to concepts. Caging an infinite being within such boundaries makes the Beyonders go mad, exactly as happened to the Beyonder who appeared in Marvel’s original Secret Wars. Considering that even Loki’s brother Thor or other mighty heroes such as Hyperion and the Starbrand were powerless against the Beyonders, Loki‘s impressive feat confirms that her unique abilities as the Goddess of Stories make her the most powerful of Marvel heroes.