A fun fact about Norse mythology,
Loki was never portrayed as Odin’s adoptive son and his heritage was never a
secret to anyone in the myths. No, his Jotunn (Frost Giant) heritage was well known
and he was more of an advisor to Odin than a son or student. He had a certain
level of brilliance to most of his plans. Although, his plans often went awry
due to his overconfidence, or when he got super drunk. His placement as
Thor’s adoptive brother (and functionally displacing Thor’s actual sibling Balder),
was an invention of Marvel Comics. Same with turning Thor into a clean-shaven
blonde. Yeah, seriously, most of the Norse tales that describe Thor mention his
incredibly thick and curly red beard. Crazy
right? Anyway, enough about the ‘true’ Loki, were here to talk about the
supervillain. Let’s get to it.
Loki’s tale begins ages ago, before
Odin was known as the All Father, even. Odin’s father, Bor, was waging war
against the Frost Giants. Bor followed a wounded Giant to the cave of a
powerful sorcerer. The sorcerer surprised the king of Asgard and turned him
into a pile of snow. Odin came upon his father as he was blowing away, and the
sentient snowdrift begged his son to find someone to restore him. When Odin
didn’t raise even a finger to help his father, Bor cursed his son to raise the
son of a fallen king. Not sure how that fixes his current snow predicament or
punishes his boy for screwing him over in any way, but hey, I’m just a mortal.
A few days later, Odin fought and killed Laufey, the king of the Frost Giants.
Another Marvel alteration, as the Laufey of Norse myth was in fact a woman. Way
to deny us the sheer awesomeness of Loki’s bad ass mom, past Stan Lee and Jack
Kirby. Just saying. After killing Laufey, Odin discovered a small, Asgardian/human
sized baby hidden in the fortress. Turns out the Frost Giant King had hidden
his boy, fearing his subjects would ridicule him for siring a tiny boy. Odin
took the child in and raised him along side his sons Thor and Balder.
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| He's green with envy. |
While things were good amongst the
Aesir of Asgard for a while, as the boys grew, Loki developed an intense hatred
for Thor. The Asgard, warriors by nature, valued strength and bravery above all
else, and while Thor had those qualities in spades, Loki was somewhat lacking.
He did make up for this with an incredibly devious mind and a talent for magic.
He used his powers in at first very minor pranks that quickly began to escalate.
He went from shaving off Lady Sif’s golden hair and replacing it with the black
hair of the dwarves to actively trying to murder his brother by getting Asgard’s
enemies to take shots at him. This included making deals with Frost Giants, and
releasing imprisoned Storm Giants to do battle with the elder Odinson. Odin
eventually grew tired of Loki’s antics and sealed him in a tree for a few hundred
years. He remained trapped in the tree until someone shed a tear for him. In
classic Loki fashion, he eventually found a work around and used his magic to
make a leaf hit Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost bridge, in the eye with a
leaf and the tear landing on his tree.
Freed for the first time in
centuries, Loki traveled to Midgard (Earth) and sought out his brother who was
living there. He engaged in battle with his brother several times. Occasionally
they’d fight one on one, but more often then not he’d coerce or create enemies
to fight Thor as his proxy. He’s a cautious being by nature, after all. The
most brilliant attempt of this being tricking Thor into fighting the Hulk. He
used illusions to get the two to engage in a fight. This unfortunately
backfired in a big way, as it led Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp into the fray
as well and the five heroes formed the Avengers to defeat Loki.
To recount Loki’s many, many
attempts on Thor’s life and bids to take over Asgard would take days. I’ll just
sum it up as the Frost Giant is incredibly stubborn. He personally created a
number of Thor’s enemies like the Absorbing Man (aka Crusher Creel), and used
the invincible Destroyer Armor on his brother more then once. But these
attempts were fraught with failure. He also accidentally created a modern team
of opponents for his brother in the form of the Wrecking Crew. Loki had struck
a deal with another Asgardian power, Queen Karnilla, to reclaim powers that
were sealed away by Odin. A smalltime criminal named Dirk Garthwaite broke into
Loki’s hotel room, knocked him out and put on his silly helmet while he looted
the place. Karnilla mistook Garthwaite for Loki and gave him Asgardian power. Garthwaite
transferred this power into his trusty crowbar, and split it with his team of
fellow construction worker turned criminals, forming the Wrecking Crew. I think
that Loki has ultimately decided that this was a fair trade, as he later
regained his powers and Wrecker and his Crew are regularly recruited as henchmen
for his schemes. Talk about finding the silver lining. More recent stories have shown Loki attempting
to earn a certain amount of redemption for his eons of plotting, but the son of
Odin always seems to fall back into his “God Of Evil” position before too much
time passes. He’s conquered Asgard more then once, watched it burn in the fires
of Ragnarok, been reborn, died and been reborn again. And yet he always tries
to settle that score with his dear brother Thor. Whom, you guessed it, is
always shocked when Loki betrays him. He thought they were cool.
Loki is a diminutive but powerful
Jotunn, a Frost Giant. While smaller and weaker then his colossal clansmen, he’s
still stronger, faster, and more resilient then most superhumans. This heritage
makes him nigh invulnerable to all but the strongest of opponents and the
mightiest magics. The Jotunns like the Asgard are incredibly long lived. I
think his exact age varies, but most stories agree he was around for things
like the black death and the fall of the Roman empire. And I think by his
people’s standards he’s probably not even 30 yet. He’s a genius, but his ego
often causes him to flub up otherwise foolproof plans. He’s an expert in the
field of magic and uses the power to create force fields, illusions of every
size and kind imaginable, created energy blasts, fly, and shapeshift to varying
degrees. He’s also able to astral project over incredibly distances and
occasionally read minds.
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| He's the best villain until Killmonger, I will accept no other answer. |
Loki is one of Thor’s most
recurring and recognizable antagonists. There’s just something about watching
two brothers fight that audiences just love. I’m glad I don’t have that
relationship with my brothers. Or maybe it’s his enormous horned helmet that people
keep coming back for. Who knows? He and Thor have had their ups and downs, but
I doubt there’s been a series where Thor trusts his brother again after
learning about what a snake he can be.
In The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Loki served as the overarching
antagonist for the first season. He appears in the episode “Thor the Mighty” in
which he tricks some of his Frost Giant brethren into fighting Thor. Thor
defeats the Jotunn’s and captures Loki. Loki is then sent to a magical prison
called the Isle of Silence by Odin as punishment. This was ultimately revealed
to be a ploy to convince Thor and the other Asgard that he’s out of commission,
as Amora the Enchantress quickly frees him. He then uses his powers to disable
the biggest super prisons on Earth to unleash a steady stream of villain to
keep Thor busy on Earth, and has the Enchantress form the Masters of Evil with
Baron Zemo when he decides Quality is better then Quantity. We don’t see much
of Loki again until the three-part season finale. It’s revealed that in Thor’s
time on Earth, Loki has usurped Odin’s throne and conquered much of the nine
realms. He’d tapped into the “Odinforce” to steal Odin’s power, and leave the
All-Father in a perpetual “Odinsleep.” He’s eventually defeated when the
Avengers attack his palace, the final blow being dealt by Hank Pym ripping out the
Tree of Life from the ground. This caused a new, non-corrupt tree to spring
forth, separating Loki from the power and reviving Odin. As punishment for his crimes,
Loki was locked in a swamp-like dimension, entangled in vines as the Midgard serpent
Jormungandr dripped poison directly into his eyes. Which must mess with ol’ Jormy
at least a little, as Loki is his dad. Just saying.
Tom Hiddleston has portayed Loki in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Thor was
released back in 2011. In his first outing as a villain, he ruins his brother’s
coronation as king of Asgard, and then just kind of uses the opportunity of his
brother’s banishment and his father succumbing to the Odinsleep to try and
prove he’s the better sibling. This culminates with him falling into an open
abyss after the Bifrost Bridge was destroyed. It’s revealed that he survived,
and had possessed Thor’s friend Dr. Selvig and was helping SHIELD’s tesseract experiments.
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| Considering his punishments have included being stuck in a tree, snake venom being dripped in his eyes, and trapped on an isle of silence, falling for a half hour probably isn't all that bad. But it's probably the most humiliating. |
He returns in The Avengers with a scepter that can take over peoples minds in a
bid to conquer Earth. While he’s able to launch a full invasion of Earth using
Selvig and the Tesseract, he’s ultimately defeated by The Avengers. Thor uses
the reclaimed Tesseract to return them to Asgard for punishment. He’s kept imprisoned
for Thor: Dark World but is freed by
Thor so he can help defeated the Dark Elves and their leader Malekith the
Accursed. He’s seemingly killed in battle, but in the final minutes it’s
revealed he’s alive and has taken on Odin’s image to rule Asgard.
In Thor: Ragnarok, his brother comes home and is none to pleased to
learn what Loki had been doing while he was away. He forces Loki to reveal
where what he did with Odin. After a run in with Doctor Strange, where Loki was
stuck falling “For THIRTY MINUTES!” they find Odin somewhere in Norway. The All-Father
bids farewell to his sons but warns them that their sister, Hela, would come
for them once he was gone. Hela appears almost instantly, destroying Mjolnir in
a fight with Thor and casting her brothers into the void. They arrive on Sakaar,
where Thor is forced to fight as a gladiator while Loki cuddles up to Sakaar’s
king, the Grandmaster. Despite an attempted double cross, Loki does side with Thor
in the end, and they help the bulk of the Asgardians escape while the Fire Giant
Surtur destroys Asgard and Hela with it.
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| In life, he was the Liesmyth. In death, he was a son of Odin. |
He has his final big screen performance
during Avengers: Infinity War. In it,
The Asgard ship is being hit by Thanos and his Black Order. They’d come for the
Tesseract, which Loki had stolen from the treasure room. Loki offers the Tesseract
and the Space Stone hidden within, to Thanos. But this is revealed to be a feint
as Loki tries to stab the Titan in his giant chin. Thanos doesn’t fall for it and
ends up strangling the life out of Loki, much to Thor’s horror. He lived a
villain, but died a son of Odin.
It was later revealed that a Loki television
show, presumably a prequel to his death, will is being made for Disney’s Disney+
streaming service. Tom Hiddleston is set to reprise his role. Should be interesting
if nothing else.
Loki is a fun villain. Even before
Hiddleston gave his show stealing performance in Thor, the God of Mischief and Lies has always been fun to watch.
Brilliant, deceitful, often cruel and on a few occasions noble, it’s usually a
ton of fun to see how his devious mind works. I’ve always like that, while Thor
is his personal enemy and his target, the threat he creates is usually so
massive that it requires the rest of the Avengers to step in and hold his
forces at bay while the brothers duke it out. The movies have captured the best
elements of him, showing off that the character can be charming as well as
devious when the situation demands. His ultimate sacrifice at the beginning of Infinity War wasn’t completely shocking,
but it did surprise me to see him go out so nobly. Dying in a vain attempt at
ending the fight before it really began, that’s totally not his usual modus
operandi. I’m interested to see what his limited series will spawn, and to see
him in more projects. He’s the deviously dark and downright demented lord of
lies, the mischievous Loki.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/26462558
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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