The world of Marvel Comics is vast since Marvel Comics #1 was first published in 1939. Characters have lived and died, worlds destroyed and rebuilt, a zombie infection and every team-up imagined. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, has only begun to scratch the surface of the potential of Marvel heroes. Endgame raised and snapped the stakes, Wandavision reopened the wounds and began the healing, Falcon and the Winter Soldier started the new beginning and Loki, the series following a Loki “variant” outside time itself, proved no character has a truly preordained path via the comics. With that kind of base, the MCU can do anything. Like a Sylvie and Valkyrie buddy team-up.
In 2017 the third Thor film, Thor: Ragnarok directed by Taika Waititi, crash-landed Thor on a garbage planet called Sakaar. There he’s captured by Scrapper 142 whom he discovers is Valkyrie, an Asgardian warrior who exiled herself to Sakaar, the garbage planet, as the sole survivor among her sisters who fell to Hela, older sister of Thor and the main antagonist of Thor: Ragnarok. It’s all very Norse.
Initially, Valkyrie is reluctant to help Thor or anyone having succumbed to a numb lifestyle in grief and survivor’s guilt. She comes around, unable to stand by as Hela threatens her home and people again. After another back and forth betrayal of Loki, an escape from Sakaar, the full destruction of their home in space Asgard (the aforementioned event Ragnarök), and the grand events of Infinity War and End Game, Valkyrie makes her home on Earth settling her citizens in New Asgard (Norway) eventually becoming their reigning sovereign in place of Thor.
Sylvie’s background is a little more complicated but not impossible to follow without having been invested in the entirety of the MCU to this point. Everything stated above, is one timeline. In that timeline, Loki dies at the hands of Thanos in Infinity War. In the follow-up, Endgame, a Time Heist (time travel plot) comes into play where Loki in 2012 (effectively the 2012 The Avengers) escapes with the Tesseract into time. This creates a second timeline with a second Loki at which point he is immediately captured by the Time Variance Authority or TVA. And the concept that there could be infinite other versions of characters, or variants, is introduced. Also that everything fought for and lost in the pervious MCU films either has all or no significance.
Regardless, the TVA’s purpose is to destroy any rogue timelines that branch off from the Sacred Timeline and neutralize any variants of said rogue timelines. Disturbing their work is a dangerous and mysterious Loki variant. A woman. Sylvie, as she prefers to be called, is taken from her timeline as a child, growing up a fugitive jumping from apocalypse to apocalypse in her efforts to destroy all the TVA is. The 2012 Loki tracks her down, becoming her first experience of connection through trust and another’s desire for her to be okay. A connection Sylvie ultimately tosses away in favor of her mission, possibly seeding a multi-universe war.
Two Asgardian women, born for greatness, ripped from their homes and left standing on the precipice of doom. One who made it past the end game and forged a new home under her leadership. The other committed to the idea they have no home as they wear a broken relic of their past on their forehead. That’s a buddy film waiting to happen.
How to Make a Buddy Film
A buddy film isn’t just a team-up. It’s an action or comedy (or both) story where two contrasting characters go on a quest like a road trip or to thwart a drug trafficking ring. Historically, a buddy film would involve two male characters over two female characters. The MCU isn’t too far off this trend. To date, two of the twenty-four released films and three of the fifteen released series have featured a female protagonist. And of the films and series where more than one character could be considered the protagonist, the women featured rarely have a relationship that doesn’t begin contentiously or moves beyond idle conversation.
“Don’t Worry, He’s Got Back-Up”
And Marvel knows this. In recent development, there’s been a greater push for more diversity and more inclusion both in projects and the staff hired to create these works. And it’s showing. Three of the five MCU properties led by women were released in the two years and the field of diverse characters has widened exponentially.
However, the field of women pairings is pretty slim despite the introduction of a multiverse. Captain Marvel will be having a tense team-up with Photon (Monica Rambeau last seen in Wandavision) in 2022’s The Marvels. Wanda has a date in time and space with Dr. Strange in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as does Wasp with Ant-Man in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Gamora and Nebula have family work and Black Widow and Agent Carter are dead.
But, in Valkyrie and Sylvie, there are now two strong female characters, whose backgrounds are very similar yet their personalities contrast, and for whom the MCU isn’t completely dependent on their inclusion in other properties. Valkyrie believes in responsibility to your people and the trust of good leadership. Sylvie is a product of mismanaged chaos with no trust in leadership and a deep need for home. And yet both have a beautiful dry wit and burn up an action scene. It’s a buddy film (or series) just waiting to happen! It’s Marvel’s Lethal Weapon!
“Whatever it takes”
It’ll happen. Or it could happen. After an incredible season of MCU series from Wandavision to Falcon and the Winter Solider to Loki and the upcoming series on Disney+, in over 80 years never have there been so many doors open in Marvel for more varied story-telling. Season two of Loki has been announced and there’s a lot lined up so it’s hard to imagine what the MCU will look like even a year from now. But will so many options, the anticipation only grows.