I Can't Lie To You... This Is Pretty Great
I'll be honest; up until recently, I've had no interest in the Asgardian adventures. I only first became acquainted with Thor and Loki truly in The Avengers, which is a fantastic film. However, going back to the Thor standalone film, it was pretty bland and poorly written. Couple that with a needless sequel and and youthful Loki that didn't seem to hearken much to the film adaptation, and I wasn't too keen on looking into the series.
That is, until I finally decided to pick up The God Butcher last week. Wow. After that experience, I decided to give Loki: Agent of Asgard a go, especially after I noticed that Al Ewing, writer of the most recent Mighty Avengers, was behind the wheel. At first glance, I saw a modern, older Loki (well, older than the Young Avengers at least) who could actually step into the role that he has taken on for years. Funnily enough, this book is all about breaking those norms.
And it works. Really well.
You tell me a book is pretty much centralized around character development, and I'm pretty solid. Couple that with some brilliant artwork and some fun writing, and I'm pretty solidly hooked. Sure, this issue is somewhat flawed, but, similarly to Loki himself, we can overlook those issues and still enjoy this story for what it is.
Plotwise, this isn't the best, but it acts as a good introduction to what is to come. We're shown some of what's in Loki's bag of tricks, which is a pleasure, especially in this setting (I've never been a big Avengers person, personally). But, where this issue really shines is the self-reflections that Loki has. They're pretty deep and rewarding ventures, providing some great insight and building his persona up into this new figure. Plus, this is a fantastic jumping-on point. I needed to know nothing about this character to earnestly enjoy what was in store.
With an ending that leaves me wanting a whole lot more, this issue does it's job, and well; it starts of the series simply with promises of what's the come, it looks great with some really awesome panels to check out and varied panel arrangements, the dialogue is both insightful and occasionally hilarious (I caught myself laughing a few times), and leaves us with a juicy little detail that is just as devious as Loki is. I'd recommend giving this a shot, even if you aren't the biggest Loki fan; after all, this isn't the same Loki that you're used to.