Trapped By Loki, the God of Mischief!
“Beyond our segment of time and space, there exists Asgard, the citadel of the Norse gods, which is connected to earth by a rainbow bridge called Bifrost!” Oh my! It looks like the character of Thor is going to be joined by other Norse gods. This is exciting, but now I wonder… are they also regular earth people that use silly props to toggle themselves in and out of god form? And, if not, then are they going to explain why only Thor is hindered by this? I sure hope so! (Editor’s note: No. It’s going to take a long time to find out why.)
We see a tree that has imprisoned Loki, the god of mischief. He says he’s been there for ages, and he wants out. The gods condemned him to stay in there until his “plight causes someone to shed a tear!” Heimdall is passing by. If you’re unfamiliar with Heimdall, he’s charged with protecting the Bifrost, and he does this with his extremely acute senses. As he passes by, Loki uses his power of tree to drop a leaf into Heimdall’s eye. His super senses didn’t notice it coming his way. It pokes him in the eye, and a single tear emerges, and since Loki’s plight was to take control of the tree and poke Heimdall in the eye, he is released from his prison. Pretty fortuitous circumstances. Always remember that if you’re going to imprison someone, you give them a way to escape. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Now that he’s free, his first order of business is to seek revenge against the man who imprisoned him: Thor! Understandable, really. Loki then thinks about how Thor hasn’t been around for ages and no one knows where he is. People used to gather around his tree and discuss current events. He then thinks about how Thor’s mallet is made from uru, the magic mineral, and how he “established a mental link with it.” What that means is that Loki can now locate the hammer and see where Thor is. Loki sees Thor is on earth and instantly recognizes the planet and is ready to go fuck him up. What a series of fortuitous events!
Loki appears on earth with no people around whatsoever and remarks that he should alter his attire to suit the modern-day clothes. He’s already completely aware of modern-day attire… maybe by watching Thor like a creepy voyeur. He wanders into the middle of the city and decides to create a disturbance the likes of which will call his foe to him! Suddenly, Don Blake hears a ruckus outside, only to find that people have been transformed into negatives! That means that they are turned black and white and posed into super dope dance positions.
We see Jane Foster spin around to talk to Don, but he’s already gone! If you’re unaware, he’s the fastest moving cripple in the world. Suddenly Thor shows up. Jane doesn’t really notice that these two things happen in succession. Thor then sees the dancing negatives and says, “If I rotate my hammer fast enough, it will emit anti-matter particles!” Yes. He says that. Don, in just a couple of issues, has mastered his hammer skills to the point where he now understands physics to the point of knowing that anti-matter particles will fix the situation. After saving the dancers, Loki shows himself and challenges Thor to a battle! Of course, he wants to do battle in the air, and Thor, instead of just smacking Loki in the fucking face, decides “I must accept his challenge! I have no other choice!” Okay… that’s not true at all.
Thor spins his hammer so fast that he can now use it like a helicopter blade and begins flying. So yeah… it has that power now. But that’s not even the most amazing part. As he’s flying into the air, Loki has positioned Thor so that while using his hammer in a whirlwind, the reflection of the sun allows Loki to hypnotize him. How fortuitous! Thor is quickly under Loki’s spell, and after ages of spending time imprisoned inside of a tree, Loki decides to enact his final revenge! Does that mean he kills him? Of course not! That’s ridiculous. Instead, he tells Thor to give him his hammer. But even under hypnosis, Thor’s like, “Nah.” Now does Loki kill him? HA! You only wish, fool. Instead, he tricks him into thinking there’s a sea beast! Thor throws his hammer at the imaginary beast, so he’s separated from his hammer! But then, the hammer just comes back. Loki realizes he forgot about that part. So now he creates an image of Thor for Thor and tells Thor to give Thor Thor’s hammer. Thor does! Wow, that Loki is clever!
Loki then tells Thor to go free some animals that are in cages that are nearby for some reason. There’re lions and monkeys in cages like… in the park or something? I have no idea. But while that is happening, some people race to steal Thor’s hammer, which seems like a great idea. But, of course, they can’t lift it. Weak ass bitches. After 60 seconds, if you recall, Thor returns back to wimpy Don Blake if he’s not holding the hammer, which he isn’t currently! And when he transforms, he’s no longer hypnotized! He goes back and touches the hammer again with all kinds of people around, but uses plot armor to force a blinding flash to occur and POOF! he’s back as Thor. Luckily he’s done with being hypnotized altogether, and Loki figures he’s screwed, so he jumps on some pigeons and flies away. Maybe he completely forgot Thor can also fly? I don’t know.
Anyway . . . Thor flies after him and follows him into a crowd of people and then proclaims, “Too many people around! There’s no room to swing my hammer!” Maybe… I don’t know, man… fly into the fucking air?! He only needs to go like 10 feet high. But he chases Loki on foot, but Loki’s just too damned sly. He throws a giant blanket on Thor, which is just too much for the god of thunder. Loki escapes before Thor just blows real hard to get the blanket off. He follows him into the subway and sees him throwing people off the platform with a train coming, so Thor has to save those people. He could just grab them and throw them back onto the platform but chooses instead to lift the rails completely, so the train goes over him. I wonder if it still stopped for the passengers.
Thor then reaches the surface yet again to see Loki has brought to life “the winged horse of a gasoline sign” and is flying away. Thor still can’t swing his hammer, because there are too many people around, and I guess that whole thing where he raises it high above his head to fly like a helicopter isn’t going to work either, so he has to watch as Loki uses his horse to kick over a sign “like a spoiled child in a fit of anger!” Seriously, what a prick. Thor chases him on foot and then finally reaches a point where he’s not surrounded by people, so he throws…. well, he actually throws some section of pipe. Yeah. Not his hammer. A section of pipe. It’s a big section though. It lands on Loki’s head, and he crashes into some water, and Thor says, “According to legend, Loki’s magic powers are useless in water!” What?! That’s just not true at all. Loki turned himself into fish all the time and swam around in the water. Maybe their Norse legends are different than ours.
Anyway . . . Thor dives into the water and saves the scoundrel. He then says he’s taking him to the Empire State building and he’s keeping him wet, so he can’t use his powers! Once they reach the top of the Empire State building, he ties Loki to his hammer and swings him around and launches his hammer with Loki attached. His hammer then takes Loki to Asgard, drops him off, and then returns. So… uh… okay… I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s a new power. The other Asgardians are shocked at what they see.
The hammer returns to Thor “just in time!” He says that had it taken another few seconds, and he would have transformed. So his hammer flew to another fucking dimension, politely dropped off Loki, and came back all in about 56 seconds. I don’t know if “travel at the speed of thought” is a new power or not, but we’ll be sure to keep track of the fact that it can move that fast. That’s followed by “Then Don Blake would have been standing here, trying to catch it… a feat he could never perform!” Apparently Thor hasn’t been reading his own comic book, because then he would know that he turns right back into Thor when he touches the hammer, so I don’t know what the fuck he’s on about.
We finally get to see Jane Foster swooning over Thor and Loki doing battle and comparing it to her own dull life, and Don says, “Well, eh — it’s all in your point of view!” Don really comes off like an asshole. I hope Jane finds someone else soon. Then again, she really needs to stick around, because I can never grow tired of seeing a character who’s only purpose is for us to hate her for being shallow, although there’s really nothing wrong with someone who finds attractive people attractive.
Lastly, I leave you with the god of mischief doing some really weird fuckery with pigeons:
