Biography of Loki, 1962-1963

The following is a biography of Loki from 1962 to 1963, in which Loki repeatedly failed to defeat his brother Thor and inadvertently helped form the Avengers.

Biography

Conflicts with Don Blake

When the human Don Blake embodied Thor in 1962, Loki was imprisoned inside of a tree in Asgard, with only one means of escape: for someone to shed a tear for his plight. Loki found a loophole in this clause, as he forced a leaf from the tree to fall into the passing Heimdall's eye, causing him to tear up. This allowed Loki to escape, and he vowed vengeance upon the one who had originally captured him, Thor. Loki came to Earth via Bifrost and confronted Thor, hypnotizing him and tricking him into dropping Mjölnir. He ordered Thor to go cause some havoc on his behalf, but while they were separated, Thor transformed back to Don Blake and the hypnosis was broken. Blake used this opportunity to retrieve the hammer and send Loki back to Asgard, where Odin declared that he was to remain in Asgard forever.

During his imprisonment, Loki magically observed Thor transforming into Don Blake during his time in the Soviet Union, learning his secret for the first time. Now aware of Thor's weakness—losing control of his hammer—Loki gained a new motivation to return to Earth. Transforming into a snake, Loki snuck past Heimdall onto Bifrost and to Earth, then disguised himself as an old man and found his way to Don Blake's office. There he hypnotized Blake's nurse, Jane Foster, and confronted Blake, revealing himself as Loki. Loki challenged him to combat in Central Park, threatening to "cause havoc" otherwise. Thor agreed, and the two met in the park, where Loki also hypnotically commanded Jane Foster to follow. Loki used Foster as a distraction, forcing Thor to drop his hammer. Loki manifested a forcefield around the hammer, keeping Thor away from it until he transformed into Don Blake. Declaring victory, Loki began to indeed cause havoc across the city, turning the streets into a bizarre surrealist scene. The following day, Blake (as Thor) took out an ad in the newspaper declaring that he would defeat Loki by the end of the week. Paranoidly believing that Thor had found a way to reclaim his hammer, Loki returned to the forcefield to find what he saw as Thor standing near the forcefield, holding the hammer. In a panic, Loki removed the forcefield; but "Thor" was actually a plastic dummy built by Don Blake, who quickly retrieved the hammer and gave chase to Loki. The thunder god was able to catch his brother, returning him once again to Asgard. Trapped in the citadel of the gods, Loki projected superpowers into a mortal, Sandu, who committed a series of crimes and ended up fighting Thor on Loki's behalf. Sandu was defeated however when he overworked his mental abilities attempting to levitate Thor's hammer.

Loki's plots to escape and defeat his brother continued, nearly to the point of success. He next had the idea to alter the magnetism in the uru metal chains that bound him to a tree in order to attract Thor's hammer Mjölnir and smash the chains. His plan succeeded, freeing him, and also had the effect of taking Thor's hammer from him. Thor came to Asgard and sought out the hammer, fending off various magical conjurations from his brother, and eventually found Mjölnir and returned Loki to the justice of the Asgardian gods.

His most intricate plan to date came when he telepathically caused Thor's hammer to hit him in the back of the head, precisely striking his "chromosomatic gland," changing his personality to be one of evil. Loki telepathically contacted Thor to come free him, and he obeyed. The two were confronted by Odin and the other gods, and Loki threatened that he and Thor would run roughshod on Earth until Odin ceded rule of Asgard to them. The two caused untold destruction on the human planet until they were approached by a supposed committee from the United Nations. They went to the United Nations building ostensibly to contact Odin on the matter, but it turned out that the committee were in fact gods in disguise: Thor was led to a trapdoor through which he fell, allowing Odin to telepathically drop Mjölnir once more on his chromosomatic gland, restoring him to his true self. Thor thus regained his hammer and incapacitated Loki. He and the other gods vowed to restore Earth to its previous grandeur, and Odin erased humankind's memories of what had taken place. Loki was again imprisoned in Asgard.

The Avengers' first enemy

Loki continued to scheme up ways to get revenge on his brother. He decided to use someone on Midgard as a threat to tempt Thor away from his mild-mannered alterego, Dr. Don Blake, and lure him to Asgard to fight and defeat him once and for all. Scanning the globe for candidates, he happened upon the Hulk, a monstrous and essentially benevolent but unpredictable beast, roaming the southwestern United States. He tricked Hulk into crashing into a bridged train track, severely damaging it. As the train approached, Hulk did his best to hold the track in place, allowing the train to pass overhead unscathed. Nonetheless, the passengers saw Hulk as the culprit of the damage, and word got out of his supposed crime. The Teen Brigade, also located in the southwest and led by Hulk’s friend Rick Jones, took particular notice, and attempted to contact the Fantastic Four for assistance. Loki diverted the radio signal to a frequency that Dr. Blake was listening to, successfully getting his attention and causing him to fly to Teen Brigade headquarters. However, this signal was also heard by Ant-Man, the Wasp, and Iron Man, who all answered the call as well.

Loki observed the heroes assemble at Teen Brigade HQ. Frustrated at this unexpected development, he created a fabrication of the Hulk and used it to distract Thor alone, luring him out of the building. Thor attempted to fight the image, but quickly realized that it was just that, and easily deduced that Loki was behind it. Thor made his way to Asgard, just as Loki planned. When Thor arrived at the Isle of Silence, Loki attempted to ambush him with the native Trolls, but Thor fought through them. Loki’s tricks proved no match for his brother’s might, as Thor grabbed hold of him and brought him back to Earth to answer for his most recent ploy. Thor brought him to where Iron Man was fighting the Hulk, and explained what Loki had done, turning the Hulk’s ire against him. A desperate Loki turned himself radioactive, threatening the rest of the heroes to leave him and Thor alone. But it was Ant-Man and the Wasp who saved the day, as a group of ants on Ant-Man’s signal triggered a trapdoor under Loki’s feet, dropping him into a lead-lined nuclear-disposal tank below. Loki could not maintain his radioactivity indefinitely, and Thor would wait it out before returning him to Asgard. In the meantime, the five heroes would form a new superteam known as the Avengers.

Loki continued to enact various attempts to defeat Thor, including producing a volcano eruption on Earth to bring out the Lava Man Molto. Molto acted as a warrior for his subterranean race, seeking conquest for the Lava Men. His path took him to New York and a battle with Thor, who defeated him and threw him back into a volcano, sealing him inside.

See also

• Biography of Loki, 1964