" I am Loki of Asgard… and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” Glorious purpose indeed. Loki — Tom Hiddleson, walking a perfect line between hammy and pitch-perfect pizazz-y performance — has just been ejected into the Gobi Desert, minutes after stealing the Tesseract cube from Avengers: End Game. Before Loki can convince the gathering of simple locals of his divine godly presence, doorways open out of thin air and enforcers with heavy armour and headgear pop out. According to their captain — listed as Hunter B-15 in the credits (actress Wunmi Mosaku) — Loki is a “variant” from the “sacred timeline”, and has to be apprehended and tried for his crime.