Was D.B. Cooper the god of mischief?
Was D.B. The new Loki show finally got going on Disney+ and boy do I have a problem with it. The show itself is actually pretty interesting, as Loki - the chaotic-evil brother of superhero Thor and the main villain of Marvels first Avengers movie - is whisked away to a parallel reality where bureaucrats and paper-pushers maintain the time line of the universe. They're a lot like time cops, but nothing like the movie Time Cop.  In the show, the Time Variance Authority reviews Loki's life. Just a smidge of it, as he is over 1,000 years old. At one point, they show him on an airplane where he has a bomb and then makes off with a bunch of money. At the end of this clip, Owen Wilson, one of the time cops, plainly says to Loki, "You were D.B. Cooper?" I hated that. Either you know about D.B. Cooper and you get the reference, or you don't. Stop spelling out and explaining everything to people who might not get it. It could just be a funny and interesting moment for our character. If it's not funny and interesting, and is simply a reference, then don't do it. This scene walked that line a bit. If you've never heard of D.B. Cooper, it was just a weird moment in a weird show. Thats probably true of a lot of people watching Loki.  But then there are people like me, who know way too much about D.B. Cooper - including who he really was. People like us were extremely bothered by the airplane scene depicted in the episode. It shows Loki jumping out of the plane with a lot of stolen money and a bright blue sky behind him. This on a flight that actually took place at night, in the rain. This was a big element to get wrong, too. The fact that it was raining and dark is one of the main reasons people feel D.B. Cooper died, because of the incredibly risky jump he made. For Loki, what a missed opportunity. In the first Avengers movie a thunderstorm happens, and Loki recoils at the idea of Thor being responsible for it. To recreate the real-life weather conditions that the real life D.B. Cooper committed his crime during would have been such a great nod to the actual events of that night, and would tie in better to the lore Marvel was initially establishing. Itd be easy. Just show Loki on the plane watching the storm. Of course, they'd probably ruin that by overtly referencing Thor. But it still would have worked better for the series, as well as being more historically accurate. Especially since Loki seemed to indicate he was young when he did the D.B. Cooper thing, and lost a bet and had to do it. Which is another interesting line. This line did bother other people. I'll point out, after Loki departed Asgard as seen at the end of the first Thor movie, we don't see what happens to him. Then, when he reconnects with Thor he says, "I've seen worlds you've never known about. I have grown, Odin's son, in my exile." As if to say, he feels very different than who he was, even during this brief time away. It's a shame we never got see what those events were. Luckily the Loki show is giving us a bit of a taste of how Loki quickly adapts to his environment and will insert himself to be useful if he is ever seen as disposable. So at least the show is letting audiences fill in the gaps there. We never saw it, of course, but he must have done this self-preservation thing with Thanos to get an army in Avengers and yet again in Thor Ragnarok, to become close to the Grandmaster. And no, Im not going to explain those references. Anyway, exploring all this is in the new TV show is finally letting us see the god of mischief get into it, or out of it, as need be. As for D.B. Keep reading my articles. I'll reveal it eventually. Oliver Graves is a stand-up comic and writer, whose column runs every other week in the Argus-Courier. Find out more at OliverGraves.com or on his Facebook page.