Loki’s costume could have had this ‘wacky’ look in the first Thor movie

Tom Hiddleston’s costume for Loki could have had a completely different look from the trickster god’s classic comic book style. It can only be described as totally wacky.

There’s nothing more iconic about Loki than his classic green and gold look, topped off with those devilishly bold gold horns at the top. That’s what makes Loki who he is (well, besides his propensity for turning into snakes and stabbing his brother). But if things had gone differently, Loki could have had a completely different look altogether.

An early character design for Loki shows that his costume could have looked a lot more futuristic and robotic than what we first saw from him. Charlie Wen worked on that design as the co-head of visual development at Marvel during the first Thor movie, and finally showed it off to fans on Thursday.

Posted by Charlie Wen on Thursday, August 9, 2018

Wen described his idea behind the costume in detail on Facebook, saying:

"Wacky Loki! My first sketch of him as someone a bit off for the first #thor. There were other options but this is the looniest one so I wanted to share. As I think of his backstory and focused on the manipulative bent than his relationship with his bro Thor which develops later, I put more character depth in his final version. At this time I also wanted to play with the idea that Asgard had magic based on science beyond human tech understanding. I’ll post the final Thor I Lokis next!"

One of the most interesting details about this costume is the armor. Here, Loki looks more like Doctor Doom than himself. And that’s probably to accentuate the magic-turned-science idea Wen was trying to get at. Although, it ends up making him look more like a cyborg than anything else. Which, a robotic Frost Giant god of a brother would be pretty odd, to say the least.

At the top, you’ll also notice Loki no longer has his gigantic “look at me, I’m begging for attention” horns. Instead, it’s a much more toned-down sort of helmet that screams “you can use me as a bottle-opener, too.” Also, what’s going on with those big curved spikes coming out of his back? Looks like somebody who doesn’t like to be close to people — which, okay, that’s pretty true to his character.

The huge cacoon/cape looming over him seems to be the weirdest of all the bits of detail here. But that’s why the artist called this one of his wackiest designs. Let’s just be glad they decided to go with his classic look instead. And when they eventually did want something “fun” for Loki (in Thor: Ragnarok) that just meant slightly changing the color scheme of his costume. Because it’s better to play things safe.

Now, who do we talk to about making sure Loki comes back to life in Avengers 4. If it means he has to wear this silly costume, that’s fine. Just bring him back already!