Loki

Loki is the Æsir god of mischief and stepson to Odin. He fosters a great deal of jealousy for his stepbrother Thor, and frequently tries to defeat him and exert his will on Earth. Loki is a master of trickery and deception and possesses various supernatural powers, including creating perfectly lifelike illusions and disguising himself as whatever he pleases. Curiously, these powers become useless if he is doused in water.

Biography

Ancient times

The son of the giant king Laufey, Loki was adopted as a boy by King Odin of Asgard after the latter's forces defeated and slew Laufey in battle. Laufey was ashamed of his son for not having been born a giant. The young Loki grew up mischievous and jealous of his valorous brother Thor, regularly attempting to sabotage his brother's glory to gain the favor of Odin. He grew tired of other Asgardians' constant doting over the boy prince, and of Thor's frequent tendency to be right. Loki learned magic from the Norn witches, and put it to use interfering in a prestigious tournament in order to make Thor's pick lose.

When the two were sent to retreive Idunn's Golden Apples from a Storm Giant castle, they found that the gigantic fruit were on the back of the eagle king Agnar, held prisoner. Loki attempted to make off with Agnar and the Apples himself, but Thor fought through his brother's deception and returned the bounty to Odin. One day some time after, the people of Asgard learned of a coming attack from various evil forces. The young adult Loki brought his brother to a hole in Asgard's walls that the forces would be attacking, encouraging him to defend it for glory. In fact, Loki had made the hole and informed Asgard's enemies of it himself specifically to bring about Thor's defeat. The young god fought valiantly against Asgard's foes, but was soon overwhelmed. Odin and the rest of Asgard's warriors arrived to support him, finally fighting back the forces of evil. Once again, Thor overcame Loki's conniving and earned his glory.

When Storm Giants led by the vicious Ghan assaulted Asgard, Thor led the army to defend it. During the battle, Loki jealously employed his magic in an attempt to bring about Thor's failure. When Thor's warriors seem poised to deal Ghan his final blow, Loki transformed him into an eagle, manifesting his apparent escape. Thor's army left confused while Loki stayed behind to return Ghan to his giant form and speak with him. The two forged an alliance, giving Loki a powerful ally in his long-term treachery against Asgard. Later, while on a diplomatic mission to a distant land, Loki got into the ear of a king with whom Odin hoped to forge an alliance. Loki told the king to set Thor impossible challenges under the pretense of diplomatic motivations in order to make him his slave. The king was excited by this idea, but Thor soon accomplished the seemingly unachievable tasks he set for him. Moreover, Thor figured out that the king's challenges were in bad faith and called the mission off. The king cast Loki aside, upset by his perceived failure.

Modern times

Full articles: Biography of Loki, 1962-1963; 1964; and 1965

By 1962, under unknown circumstances, Thor's being was transferred to an American medical doctor named Donald Blake, who retrieved the magical hammer Mjölnir from a cave in Norway. Over the coming months, Loki attempted in a number of different ways to defeat his brother once and for all, to little avail. Loki repeatedly escaped imprisonment in Asgard and used his peerless powers of manipulation to remain in Odin's favor, even as his noble brother withstood him numerous times. In one such misadventure, Loki ran afoul of the Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp, as well as Thor. These heroes defeated Loki and formed the superteam known as the Avengers.

Thor fell in love with a human woman named Jane Foster, Don Blake's nurse. Odin grew furious at this affair, and Loki took advantage of his ire to send Asgardians Enchantress and Executioner to try to forcefully separate Jane and Thor. Loki later enlisted the aid of humans known as the Cobra and Mister Hyde as well, and even tried to trick the powerful sorcerer Doctor Strange into helping him, but Thor dutifully deflected all of Loki's efforts.

Loki grew desperate, using a magical potion to turn a human into the Absorbing Man, a potent foe who assumed the materiality of anything he touched. Thor used his wits to send Absorbing Man into space as a cloud of helium vapor. After Loki directly kidnapped Jane Foster, Odin interfered and set the two brothers on the ostensibly honorable Trial of the Gods to determine once and for all who was in the right. Even this proved fruitless, as Loki used the magical Norn Stones to cheat and win. Loki hid the stones on Earth, where Thor retrieved them, but Loki lured him into the long-buried Temple of Darkness, where the nigh-invincible and recently awoken Destroyer attacked. Loki soon regretted this plan, thinking that the Destroyer would kill Thor after all and thus bring Odin's wrath upon him, and so gave Thor his magical aid from afar. Thor outsmarted, but didn't outright defeat, the Destroyer, and sealed it inside the temple. Odin sentenced Loki to indefinite labor, but Loki outsmarted the royal wizard Ularic and set out to claim Odin's throne and destroy his brother once and for all.

See also

• Loki on Wikipedia
• Loki (Earth-199999)