MULTIVERSE — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

What Makes a Loki a Loki?: Managing Multiplicity in Loki (2021)

Marvel Studios’ most recent foray into television content, Loki (Michael Waldron, 2021) marks the start of a new phase in the development of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – one guided by multiplicity. Multiplicity is an inherent feature of franchised media products, an inevitable consequence of the sharing of intellectual property sources across multiple sites of production. In its attempt to unleash multiplicity upon the MCU, Loki engages in a metacommentary on the structures of industrialised creativity.

EDITORIALMadeleine HunterJuly 30, 2021MULTIVERSE, MARVEL, NARRATIVE, FICTIONAL WORLDS, TELEVISIONComment

The Multiverse of Animation

A scientific experiment goes awry and rips a hole in the fabric of reality. It is a gateway to a parallel universe, similar to our own in some ways, yet vastly different in others. The concept of alternate universes coexisting within a broader multiverse has been a staple of science fiction and fantasy since Michael Moorcock first adopted the trope in his 1963 novella The Sundered Worlds. A fictional multiverse opens up an extraordinary range of new possibilities for creative storytelling, unconstrained by a single world’s established history or even its laws of reality. It is that malleability that makes multiverses the perfect narrative framework for a crossover story.

EDITORIALStanyo ZhelevFebruary 28, 2020TELEVISION, CROSSOVER, MULTIVERSE, ONTOLOGYComment