Loki, a Disney+ series starring Tom Hiddleston in the title role, was the first Marvel TV show I heard was coming after the dramatic conclusion of Avengers: Endgame. I wondered then how a series, spotlighting a power-mad villain who is primarily a hero's antagonist, would work.

Granted, Loki had something of a redemption arc in the Thor and Avengers movies, but that Loki was dead -- killed by Thanos at the start of Avengers: Infinity War. And it wasn't a death he seemed likely to come back from, as he had so often in the past. Although Endgame provided the means -- dropping Loki's means of escape from Avengers' custody at his feet before his death could occur -- that also meant the surviving Loki had not gone through the same character evolution. This Loki was still a bad guy.

It turns out that watching a quick video of the life you were supposed to have can have the same basic effect.

Loki lacks the quirky inventiveness of WandaVision and the grit of Falcon & the Winter Soldier, but it makes up a lot of ground through the relentless charm of its two leading men: Hiddleston, of course, and Owen Wilson as Mobius, a bureaucratic time manipulator.

Let's sum up the storyline. Loki manages to get away from the Avengers shortly after the Battle of New York that climaxed the first Avengers film. But, by changing the timeline -- the real Loki continues on through the path of history as expected -- this new, variant Loki is quickly apprehended by agents of the Time Variance Authority, a secret organization that slips in and out of the timeline repairing rifts and "pruning" (by which they mean "killing") variant forms of still-living characters. But Loki evades pruning, not through any cleverness of his own, because Mobius already has a Loki problem; it turns out there have been a lot of Loki variants over time, and one of them -- a female variant who goes by Sylvie (played by Sophia Di Martino) -- is causing them a lot of trouble, killing TVA agents and generally mucking up the timeline. Mobius thinks maybe this Loki can help catch that one. And to Loki, that seems better than death, so he agrees.

Hijinks, sometimes wacky, ensue. Loki and Mobius learn that all is not as it seems at the TVA. Loyalties are tested. And there's a big reveal at the end of time itself.

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this series fits in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ... and I'm not sure I like it there, anyway. The TVA is too powerful, and the agency's existence invalidates much of what has gone before in the MCU. The series even points out its own internal inconsistencies at one point: Shouldn't they be upset with the Avengers for all that time-travel hooey in Endgame? Nah, they were supposed to do that, so the TVA allowed them to.

Apparently, the plot arc of Loki is crafted to set up future movies featuring Ant-Man, Wasp and Doctor Strange, as well as a second season of Loki. I guess we'll see where that goes. Maybe it will work.

What I do know is that this series, taken by itself, is a lot of fun -- mostly because of the interactions between Hiddleston and Wilson. They're good together. They're fun. Wilson's Mobius is a competent bureaucrat who proves willing to step outside his established role once he learns new information about his employer, while Hiddleston's Loki struggles with his inherent tendency toward mischief and "glorious purpose," and his nascent conscience and heroic ideals. Some part of him, as he proved in earlier movies, really wants to be the good guy, and maybe he's not so willing any more to accept collateral losses as he strives to reach his goals.

There are pacing problems in the series, with some episodes moving too slowly and others simply existing for fast-paced action and special effects. It does come together neatly by the end, however, and I am curious to see what Marvel does with this new MCU reality. I'm sure I'll be there to see whatever comes next.

Oh, fans will surely get a kick out of the other variant Lokis who pop up in the series. As Sylvia proved, they don't all look like Tom Hiddleston, and the Golden Age Loki played by Richard Grant is a hoot.