No, That’s Not Mephisto in ‘Loki’

Pretty much since the second Disney+ launched their Marvel series, one name has been on fans’ lips: Mephisto. The devil incarnate (or at least, one of them) from Marvel Comics is an uber-bad who potentially could rival Thanos (Josh Brolin) himself. But in case you wondering if Mephisto appeared in the Loki series premiere, the answer is a definitive “no.”

To take a step back, a lot of the speculation about Mephisto started with WandaVision, which found the main characters trapped in a surreal, often hellish sitcom world. So was Mephisto pulling the strings? Was he going to be played by Al Pacino, who was rumored to have taken a meeting with Marvel? Was the fly that showed up in the second to last episode secretly Mephisto in disguise???

Obviously for those who have watched the show, you may have noticed that the only red, powerful figure who showed up there was Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). But the theories took on so much of a life of their own that fans even joked about Mephisto showing up in the next Marvel series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, despite that being a relatively grounded buddy action movie, versus having anything to do with magic and hell dimensions.

Hey, you know who does have something to do with magic and hell dimensions? Loki (Tom Hiddleston). So it’s natural that, once again, those Mephisto theories reared their ugly, horned head. And speaking of horned heads, the series premiere of Loki, titled “Glorious Purpose,” dropped one image that led to a fair amount of confusion with viewers. I’m talking about this one:

Spotted during the scene where Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) is investigating the murder of several Time Variance Authority soldiers back in time in France, a young kid is asked who killed the TVA officers and they point to a stained glass window depiction of the devil. Who is the devil in Marvel Comics? Mephisto. Ergo, Mephisto did it.

…Except he didn’t. The kid is talking about another variant of Loki, who Mobius reveals at the end of the episode is why he’s recruiting “our” Loki: it takes a god of mischief to catch a god of mischief.

Director Kate Herron confirmed as much in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

“It’s honestly just a super weird coincidence,” Herron said. “Like, it’s genuinely a reference to Loki — the horns, he was cast out of heaven, that’s what it’s a reference to. Because we filmed that a long time before– I think WandaVision must have been in post when we filmed that. I did see all the stuff about that online and I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be interesting.’ [Laughs] But no, it’s more relevant to the themes of our show and it’s not a nod to that character.”

Could Herron be lying at the behest of Marvel, a company that seemingly makes their actors and talent lie constantly about everything in order to protect secrecy and surprise? Heck, it could even be a tribute to Loki himself, he’d love it if the director and showrunners straight up lied about Mephisto being in their show.

But no, that stained glass window is clearly about Loki, not Mephisto. We’ll just have to wait for the big bad devil to show up in, I don’t know… Hawkeye.

Stream Loki on Disney+