The ‘Loki’ season premiere features a subtle callback to ‘Iron Man’ that you might’ve missed

• "Loki" director Kate Herron spoke to Insider about a nod to "Iron Man" that's included in the show.
• An early scene showed Loki waking up in a desert after escaping with the Tesseract in "Endgame."
• "I wanted that to be an homage to 'Iron Man,' when he wakes up in the desert," Herron said.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Loki" director Kate Herron said that the first episode of the new Marvel show included a subtle nod to "Iron Man."

The season premiere of the series, released Wednesday on Disney Plus, picked up after the events of 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," in which the 2012 version of Loki escaped from the alternate timeline with the Tesseract.

The opening minutes of the show revealed that after Loki vanished with the time stone, he ended up in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, only to be arrested by the Time Variance Authority seconds later for "crimes against the sacred timeline."

Herron told Insider in an interview on Tuesday that the desert scene (which was part of the teaser released by Marvel back in December 2020) was a nod to "Iron Man," the 2008 movie that starred Robert Downey Jr. and kicked off the MCU.

"That first shot of Loki in the desert, I wanted that to be an homage to 'Iron Man,' when he wakes up in the desert," Herron said.

The director was most likely referring to the scene in "Iron Man" when Tony Stark crashed into a desert after testing out the first version of his armored suit.

A similar shot also appeared at the start of "Iron Man" after a military convoy carrying Tony was attacked in Afghanistan and a missile exploded near the billionaire, causing him to be knocked off his feet.

The director said that there are "little teases" like the desert callback sprinkled throughout "Loki."

And when asked if the six-episode season of "Loki" will show the titular God of Mischief revisiting past Marvel moments, Herron said: "I wouldn't want to spoil anything, but I would definitely say it's Loki's show and I think there are definitely nods to the MCU."