Bizarre Marvel comics meme just became MCU canon thanks to Loki episode 5

The latest episode of Loki featured references to some pretty odd moments from Marvel’s history.

Following the events of last week’s intsalment, in which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) found himself pruned by Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), he finds himself transported to The Void, a place filled with a series of discarded variants.

This is the place where all pruned variants are sent by the Time Variance Authroity (TVA) after creating their own Nexus events, and the makers had a lot of fun peppering in background nods to more outlandish Marvel comic book moments.

One such nod was a battered looking yellow helicopter with Thanos’ name written on the side. For those who don’t know, the Thanos Copter is ripped straight from the pages of the arc “The Cat and the Cosmic Cube” in which the Mad Titan (played by Josh Brolin) is seen flying a bright yellow helicopter.

In Spidey Super Stories #39, he tries to steal the Tesseract while flying the helicopter – and fails after being arrested by the police (yes, really).

The image of one of Marvel’s most fearsome – and largest – characters piloting such a small vehicle made the moment become a popular meme among readers.

These readers now cannot believe it has become canon in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).

“I can’t believe Marvel actually put in the helicopter,” one bemused fan wrote, with another adding: “THEY PUT THE GODAMN THANOS COPTER IN EPISODE 5 OF LOKI@LokiOfficial You absolute legends.”

The Thanos reference comes days after a viewer spotted a tantalising detail about the villain tucked away in the show’s end credits.

Loki concludes with its sixth and final episode next Wednesday (13 June).

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The series is available to stream on Disney Plus.