[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Loki, Season 1, Episode 1, "Glorious Purpose."]
Easter egg hunting is a tried-and-true tradition in the comic book movie world. From in-your-face nods to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it winks, you’d be hard-pressed to find a comic book project that didn’t include an Easter egg.
Loki, which amounts to looking at the MCU through a multiversal kaleidoscope, is perhaps the most primed to be chock full of Easter eggs given the very nature of the series. The minds behind the show have already confirmed as much, as both director Kate Herron and head writer Michael Waldron confirmed as much in recent interviews with Collider’s Steven Weintraub.
Said Herron:
“We've got a lot of fun stuff like that across the TVA, stuff that doesn't necessarily exist in our time now on Earth but the TVA can get that kind of stuff, which is fun. I also have a few references to Marvel across it, like there's a shot that's an homage to Iron Man which I think any fan of Iron Man will probably spot quite quickly. Those are the kinds of things, but I wouldn't want to lead the witness too much because it's fun to spot that stuff, right?”
Waldron agreed, saying that “every” scene is worth examining for details:
“I think folks should definitely always be on the lookout. I think every scene is worth hitting pause [on], if for nothing else because of how beautiful the sets are and the lighting and everything and how remarkable everything looks. And you never know what you might find as you're screen-grabbing.”
With those marching orders from the Loki brass in mind, we dove deep into the premiere episode to try and unearth all of the tasty Easter eggs littered throughout the series.
“And I am burdened with glorious purpose.”
Some of the first lines spoken by Loki in his own series are some of his most famous: as the God of Mischief wakes up in a barren Mangolian desert, he immediately launches into his famed “I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” His diatribe doesn’t last long, though, as the Time Variance Authority almost immediately shows up to put Loki in his place.
A Skrull can be seen at TVA check-in.
Self-explanatory. The MCU seems to be sprinkling Skrulls all over the universe, including at the TVA HQ.
The Tesseract
Our old friend The Tesseract very obviously comes into the possession of the Time Variance Authority following Loki’s arrest.
It's kinda like that Galaga bit from The Avengers.
Remember the guy who asks Loki to verify everything he’s ever said? He can be seen playing Solitaire on his space/time computer.
Kang the Conqueror makes his MCU debut.
While Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror has been officially confirmed to appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the time-keeping “space lizard” is set to have a major influence on the events of Loki, with the character first being seen in Miss Minutes' infomercial about the multiverse. Kang is then seen again all over the TVA HQ, usually in statue form alongside his fellow Timekeepers. (In the image above, he's said to be the one in the middle.)
Speaking of other MCU movies...
In that animated infomercial, Miss Minutes hints at the “madness” a “multiverse” would create. “Now the Time-Keepers protect and preserve the proper flow of time for everyone and everything,” she explains.“But sometimes people like you veer off the path the Time-Keepers created. Stepping off your path created a Nexus Event, which left unchecked could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. TO make sure that doesn’t happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA.”
Whatever multiversal mess the God of Mischief makes in Loki, it may be up to Doctor Strange to clean it all up when he goes into The Multiverse of Madness.
Loki Laufeyson
Loki’s last name, at least in the eyes of the TVA, is confirmed to be Laufeyson, a surname he received as a result of being the biological son of Laufey, the ruler of the Frost Giants in Jotunheim.
The TVA looks like Coruscant from Star Wars.
Right after Mobius “rescues” Loki from his trial, the pair stroll down a hallway where the TVA, in its entirety, can be seen, with the grandiose and seemingly never-ending cityscape resembling that of Coruscant from the Star Wars universe.
A potential hint at the show's true villain?
This one goes out to all the people who miss theorizing about the villains to come on WandaVision. While walking down the aforementioned Coruscant-viewing hallway, Loki begins to wrap his head around what exactly the TVA is, determining that “This place is a nightmare.”
Mobius is sure to quickly correct Loki, though, pointing out that nightmares are “another department," adding “Now that department, I’ll help you burn down.”
Nightmare — one of the many names that fans speculated would be the “big bad” in WandaVision — is a Marvel comics villain, traditionally doing battle with Doctor Strange, that comes from the Nightmare dimension.
Given that the Time Variance Authority is essentially the bureautic guardrails of the universe, referring to another “dimension” as a different “department” would fall in line with the purposefully administrative vibe of the organization.
Josta Cola
It's kind of hard to miss its presence on screen, but if you didn't squint to read the label and/or aren't up to date on your 1990s soft drink history, you might not have know that Mobius's preferred beverage is Josta Cola, a short-lived PepsiCo "energy drink." If you've never heard of it before, perhaps your appreciation of its inclusion will be heightened by the below fact from its Wikipedia entry:
Josta used the slogan "better do the good stuff now." In a commercial for Josta an old man speaks to a younger man. The older man tells the younger man about his life as a youth, and how he wished he had more fun.
D.B. Cooper
D.B. Cooper is simultaneously one of the most famous and most mythical criminals in American history. Having hijacked a Boeing 727 on the afternoon of November 24, 1971, Cooper ultimately escaped with $200,000 in his possession by skydiving out of the plane. Cooper, nor the ransom, was never found, thus creating one of the most fascinating mysteries in American folklore — and a perfect figure from history to have secretly been Loki this whole time.
"Brother, Heimdall, you better be ready."
Loki’s brother is, obviously, Thor. Heimdall is Idris Elba’s character, the guard of Asgard's Bifrost Bridge — a nice reminder that Loki's D.B. Cooper stunt took place before the events of the first Thor film.
Infinity Stones from other timelines.
Strangely one of the pilot’s most emotional moments, Loki comes to realize he’s essentially powerless against the Time Variance Authority once he comes across a drawer full of useless Infinity Stones from other timelines. Having spent his entire MCU life chasing the Tesseract, he's clearly affected by the realization that, depending on the context, it’s no more powerful than a shiny paperweight.
New episodes of Loki premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.