The Untold Truth Of Loki

In Journey Into Mystery #85, readers were introduced to Loki, the trickster God of Mischief after he had already been imprisoned. Loki was bound within a tree until someone was compelled to shed a tear for his imprisonment. He eventually escaped this trap by utilizing his control over the tree's limbs to drop a leaf onto the all-seeing Heimdall, which caused him to shed a tear in pain (technically due to Loki's plight). Freed, Loki immediately goes to New York, where he starts turning people into negatives and hypnotizing Thor.

The God of Thunder manages to shake off the hypnotism and beat Loki by knocking him into the water, which Thor remarks is his only real weakness. If the reference to water as Loki's biggest weakness hadn't clued you in, Loki's first appearance doesn't hold a lot of similarities with his later characterization. Although his hatred of Thor and love of tricks appears, the source of that enmity being their shared childhood as adopted brothers isn't mentioned at all; likewise, Loki's weakness to water isn't really referenced again later. Despite all this, Loki's iconic costume and giant horns makes him a stand-out villain, and while later stories would flesh out his personality, his Kirby-designed costume needs no improvements.

For as much as Loki's known as a villain, he's arguably contributed more to heroism in the Marvel universe than anyone else by creating the Avengers. Granted, he created them entirely by accident in one of his many, many plans to defeat his brother Thor, but actions matter more than intentions, right? In 1963's Avengers #1, Loki sends a mental projection of himself to trick people into thinking that the Hulk has become a rampaging menace. Even Rick Jones, Hulk's teenage sidekick, is tricked, and puts out a call to all available heroes to help bring the Hulk to justice. After Loki intercepts Rick's message to the Fantastic Four, only Thor, Iron Man, Ant Man, and the Wasp arrive to help. If a certain star-spangled Avenger seems missing from that list, you might recall that Captain America was still frozen in an iceberg at the time.

The Avengers chase Hulk down at a circus and eventually realize that the Green Goliath isn't as mindless as they had heard, so they team up to capture Loki. While The Avengers movie ended up adding a giant alien invasion and generous helping of inspiration from The Ultimates (a contemporary reimagining of The Avengers comic series), the film stayed faithful by making Loki the first official villain of the super team. Loki even became an Avenger eventually, although that was a younger body possessed by a clone self that nearly annihilated all of reality, but we'll get to that later.

Of course, there's no real end to popular comic book characters, so Thor and Asgard returned to life in 2007 in Thor #1. In this series, Loki appeared in a female body as part of a complicated (when isn't it?) plot to use Thor to restore Asgard following Ragnarok. While Loki can change gender both in classic mythology and Marvel comics, it turned out that her new female body was the result of her stealing Sif's body as an extra insult against Thor.

Later, Loki joined the supervillainous Cabal. The Cabal was a secretive group that would dictate the larger path of the world as a more villainous version of Tony Stark's previous secret superteam, the Illuminati. While the Illuminati didn't exactly make the best decisions during their brief tenure as a team, they were composed of more heroic figures than the Cabal. Whereas the Illuminati counted Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Professor X, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, and Namor among their members, the Cabal included Dr. Doom, The Hood, Loki, and Norman Osborn (better known as the Green Goblin). Oddly enough, Namor stuck around as part of the newly villainous secret society. As you might expect with a team comprised of three supervillains, one anti-hero, and a reformed supervillainess, the team was pretty much constantly trying to betray each other and seize control.

Following his death, Loki was reborn as a child who was in the sudden and unexpected position of being a hero in Asgard. Sure, everyone remembered the old Loki as a tricky, lying monster, but Kid Loki was genuinely heroic, with a pure love for his older brother Thor and a desire to redeem his past self's mistakes. Kid Loki was surprisingly effective as a superhero, utilizing his natural gifts for trickery and deceit for Asgard's benefit instead of trying to murder Thor. Ironically, this pure-hearted kid version of Loki was actually able to kill Thor, but only with Thor's implied permission in order to fulfill a prophecy that would guarantee the survival of the human race at the cost of his life (don't worry, Thor came back to life shortly after).

Unfortunately, the previous Loki's soul (that had been socked away from the reincarnation cycle during Siege) had taken the form of Kid Loki's pet Magpie, Ikol. As a seemingly harmless advisor, the old Loki was able to manipulate Kid Loki into a trap where he either had to choose to let an unstoppable evil force destroy the world or let himself get replaced by his older, evil self. Kid Loki chose the latter.

It turned out that the old Loki's plan had always been to let Kid Loki redeem himself as a pure-hearted iteration of the God of Mischief, since his previous reputation as a God of Evil had made him too predictable in the eyes of his enemies. The better Kid Loki made himself look to others, the easier it would be to manipulate them once old Loki stole his younger body for his own.

If the preceding paragraphs haven't made it clear, Loki might fight Thor and the Avengers from time to time, but his greatest enemy will always be himself. Most of his greatest plans are foiled by a lack of confidence or the lingering remnants of his conscience that keeps him from really committing to whatever evil plot he cooks up. 2014's Loki: Agent of Asgard turned subtext into text by starring Loki as Asgard's resident super-spy battling against his guilty past. For every successful mission he completed for Asgard, a previous legend of the evil Loki would be erased, allowing Asgard to finally accept Loki as a heroic figure rather than an agent of chaos.

Of course, this was complicated somewhat by this version of Loki still being a copy of the original Loki possessing the aged-up body of Kid Loki and still burdened by the knowledge that he had murdered his former child-self in order to have a new start. To make matters even more confusing, there was another Loki involved in the story, an amoral Loki from the far-off future who wanted to assure that his younger self kept the timestream on track.

This complicated knot of continuity was ultimately resolved with Loki (the Agent of Asgard one) resolving to rewrite his own title from God of Lies to God of Stories, reasoning that stories are just lies told for the benefit of others rather than oneself. This self-retcon allowed him to capture the stories of the Asgardian Gods and survive the literal end of continuity that occurred when the Secret Wars crossover ended everything. It was all very metaphorical.