YMMV / Journey into Mystery (Gillen)

• Continuity Lockout: While Gillen's run tells a mostly self-contained story, in order to understand where Loki and the various other characters are at the beginning of the arc, you need to be familiar with Gillen's run of Thor, the J. Michael Straczynski run that preceded it, as well as Siege. Also, at one point Thor is replaced with a mysterious imposter, who then disappears when the real Thor comes back, and none of this is explained at all, so you need to read Matt Fraction's Thor run too, if you want to know what the heck that was all about.
• Cry for the Devil: Journey into Mystery (Gillen) brings Hela into a more tragic light if she really is the version of Leah created by Kid Loki. Created simply as a Plot Device to stop The Serpent, she was left without a purpose or story, even as she has the memories of her namesake, and became Surtur's herald out of resentment. Then, she was casted back in time where she spent most of her life in isolation until she became the Hela that people fear and hate. The new Thor series makes her even more pitiful after Thanos breaks up with her. She looked genuinely heartbroken since it's the second time that someone she loves has abandoned her again.
• Fan Nickname: Journey Into Misery.
• Fridge Brilliance: If you re-read Loki's story, you'd notice that Ikol only appears and talks to Loki when Loki is either alone or in the company of people/beings that either already know Ikol's true nature, or they wouldn't care. This is really subtle foreshadowing of the fact that Ikol doesn't exist outside of Loki's head. One point early on Ikol directly interacts with Thor, but Thor himself doesn't even recognise that the bird was even there, and seems to think the message they relayed was just a 'strange feeling' they got.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Kieron Gillen's decision to kill Kid Loki off in order to preserve his Character Development and prevent his relapse into a villain ends up becoming the right call. Under Jason Aaron's run of The Mighty Thor and The Avengers, Story!Loki, the latest of Loki's incarnations, would be characterised as a card-carrying Anti-Villain.
• I Knew It!: Several fans were able to guess that
  • Leah was Hela's hand
  • the Leah revealed at the end of The Mighty Thor 19 was the one Loki wrote into the Serpent's story
  • Leah would become Hela
  • Ikol only existed in Loki's head
• Iron Woobie: Kid Loki is a massive qualifier for this. Reincarnated with none of his past self's malicious traits, he's still given the All the Other Reindeer treatment by almost everyone, who still see him as the villain of the past. Even as he tries to do good and make up for his past incarnation's crimes, life for him continues to be one big Trauma Conga Line. In the finale, it almost seems like he has finally earned his happy ending, he turns out that his past self had turned him into an Unwitting Pawn and undo everything Kid Loki had worked hard to accomplish. Despite all that, Kid Loki still kept on fighting for the sake of those he loves.
• Moral Event Horizon: The original Loki crossed it when he gave Kid Loki a Sadistic Choice causing the latter to be assimilated by the former, all so he could ride on the coattails of Kid Loki's heroics and redemption. This only cements the fact that the Loki of old can never change for the better.
• Toy Ship: Kid Loki and Leah.

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