By: Hemal Jhaveri
March 28, 2018
Misunderstood villain Loki won the Marvel Cinematic Universe bracket challenge as the most popular MCU character, beating out Winter Solider with 73.76 percent of the vote,
The bracket pitted 32 of Marvel’s best and most important characters against each other in a franchise match-up similar to what we’ll see in Infinity War. We ranked them based on relevance to the MCU, general popularity and overall dopeness. While there were plenty of upsets (none of our No. 1 seeds made it to the final) none was more surprising than Dr. Strange beating out Black Panther. That will never make sense. One thing that was clear early on in the voting was that Loki consistently demolished all his opponents. He defeated Scarlet Witch, Thor, Captain America, Rocket and finally Winter Solider to capture the crown. Aside from Rocket, that’s not an easy draw.
Through the 10 years of MCU films, Loki has evolved from a temperamental trickster to someone working towards redemption, which has endeared him to fans. He was the principal antagonist for Thor in the first two films of that franchise, but the first Avengersmovie turned him into a proper villain, which a large swath of fandom rebelled against. The latest Thor: Ragnarok not only successfully rebooted that franchise, but it retconned a lot of Loki’s character as well, making him more a misunderstood antagonist than a narcissistic psychopath. It remains to seen where Infinity War takes the character, but Loki offering up the tesseract doesn’t look good.
Thanks to everyone who voted in this poll, and let’s hope Infinity War doesn’t kill him off.