5 Loki Stories Disney+ Probably Won't Acknowledge

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5 Loki Stories Disney+ Probably Won't Acknowledge

Out of all the characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki is the only one who could get away with trying to kill us all twice, dying three times, and then still getting his own Disney+ show. But, before MCU Loki came along, the lovable scamp already had 50 years of villainous stories in the comics -- except he wasn't always so lovable. It's actually kind of impressive that Marvel Studios managed to make a sympathetic character out of someone who pulled dick moves like ...

Loki Helps China, Russia, North Korea, And France Invade The U.S.

Loki's most elaborate con happened in The Ultimates, the alternate-reality version of the Avengers that made the characters more realistic by turning everyone into an asshole and allowing them to get horny from time to time. The Ultimates started in early 2002 -- which becomes really obvious when you get to the issues that read like they were co-written by someone in the Bush administration.

Marvel Comics

Someone who can spell "Thor," we mean.

Thor's Ultimate version is introduced as a damn hippie who writes self-help books, helps protesters fight the police, and thinks the other superheroes are "thugs in uniform who will smash any threat to a corrupt status quo." He joined The Ultimates anyway to stop the Hulk and prevent an alien invasion, but, plot twist: in The Ultimates 2 #4 it's revealed that "Thor" is just a crazy person who stole a hammer-shaped super weapon from his scientist brother and convinced himself he's a Norse god.

Marvel Comics

Most disturbingly, it's revealed that those are hair plugs.

The other heroes are like "Damn, guess we should kick the crap out of this mentally unbalanced guy, then," so they do that. But, double plot twist: the scientist brother is actually Loki, and he just wanted to get Thor out of the way to help several countries invade the United States. Loki joins a team called The Liberators, made out of super people from Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Syria, and, of course, France, probably just as revenge for all those devastating "Freedom Fries" jokes from the early 2000s.

The Liberators claim they're concerned about America's superheroes pre-emptively striking their countries, so they're pre-pre-emptively striking the U.S. first. Other than Loki, their members include a Muslim teenager from a war-torn village who was beefed up into a sort of "Captain Iran" and a Thor knock-off who feels the need to carry a sickle along with the hammer the whole time to make sure everyone knows he's a filthy commie.

Marvel Comics

Not sure what dates this comic more: the Handycam or the Darth Maul lightsaber.

Within one hour, the Liberators and their army take over several cities and capture most superheroes and important political figures (plus the president). Oh, and they also kill children, including Hawkeye's family, just in case you feel tempted to sympathize with them. Luckily, the Ultimates manage to bounce back and brutally beat their inferior foreign imitators -- Cap executes the juiced-up Muslim teen after he'd already had his hands cut off by his shield, if you were wondering. U! S! A!

The story ends with Loki basically going "It was just a prank, bro" before Thor kicks him back to Asgard. And that's the saga of Ultimate Loki. But his regular Marvel Universe counterpart has done some pretty heinous things, too ...

Loki Repeatedly C@#%-Blocks Thor

Thor's earliest Marvel Comics adventures introduced Jane Foster, a nurse who dreams of one day getting to iron Thor's cape and, uh, polish his hammer. No, that's not a euphemism, but it'd actually be less offensive if it was.

Marvel Comics

Spoilers: turns out she CAN lift the hammer, and not just to clean it.

Thor loves Jane, and Jane lusts after both Thor and his secret identity of doctor Donald Blake, who's basically Dr. House but blond and slightly more personable. So, what's stopping these two from turning the comic into 20 monthly pages of glorious, literally god-like lovemaking? Mainly Loki and his most devious superpower: dick-blocking. 

Marvel Comics

Modern English translation: "Daaa-aaad! Thor's getting some and I'm not!"

Yes, Loki is constantly telling on Thor to their dad, Odin, who is kind of old fashioned and doesn't believe in mixing the human and Asgardian races. In one 1960s tale, Loki even convinces Odin to send the most desirable goddess in Asgard to seduce Thor, just to prevent him from scoring with Jane. Thor barely notices that there's an insanely attractive lady throwing herself at him, but she still succeeds in making Jane jealous via a smooth seduction technique known as "pretending to have defective ankles."

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Plot twist: that's Loki in a wig.

Another time, Loki takes advantage of Thor's love for Jane to goad him into throwing his hammer, which he then traps inside a force field. And, since "not holding his favorite phallic object for 60 seconds or more" is Thor's version of kryptonite, this means the god of thunder now trapped in his puny human form and no one can stop Loki from doing the most evil things imaginable. Luckily, the most evil things Loki could imagine in 1963 were "turning things into candy" and "disarming Soviet nukes."

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

The Cuban Missile Crisis ended very differently (and much more deliciously) in the Marvel Universe.

To the relief of diabetic communists everywhere, Thor manages to get his hammer back by simply standing behind a plastic dummy of himself and saying he's got his powers back. This causes Loki to lift the force field to check if the hammer is still there, at which point Thor snatches it away. Yes, even the god of trickery himself can be tricked by the powerful dark art known as "ventriloquism." OK, so the '60s were not Loki's brightest years -- we're getting the impression that candy wasn't the only substance he was abusing back then. 

As for Jane, it looks like Loki actually helped her dodge a bullet by sabotaging her relationship with Thor, considering the sort of husband he ended up being ...

Loki The Future Nazi Versus Thor The Domestic Abuser

In Guardians of the Galaxy #39 from 1993, we meet the Loki of the year 2993, and he's pretty much the same rapscallion we know and love ... except he's WAY more into eugenics. And misogyny.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

You'd think a guy who's been wearing skirts for millennia would be more open minded.

But mostly eugenics. It turns out Loki has spent entire centuries breeding a perfect race of mutants just so he can invade Asgard and take revenge on Thor. This means that somewhere out there, there are thousands and thousands of pages of Loki forcing powerful superhuman creatures to have sex with each other until they become even more powerful, but Marvel refuses to show us this story, for reasons unknown.

What they did show us is the moment Loki's master race storms Asgard and meets Future Thor, and it's just a huge, sorry mess. Thor, that is. The god of thunder has really let himself go by 2993, and he doesn't even have a sweet beard and a Lebowski sweater to balance it out like in Endgame.

Marvel Comics

He still looks like spends a lot of time yelling at kids on Fortnite, though.

Future Thor has also started carrying a fake Mjolnir hammer instead of the real one, in a sad attempt to hide the fact that he literally can't get it up anymore. But the story of how he got like that is even sadder than his looks. After marrying the goddess Sif, Thor immediately turns into a deadbeat dad and abandons her and their son, Woden, who copes by becoming an insufferable little turd.

Marvel Comics

Or maybe he's reacting to being forced to dress like a 1970s disco act. Hard to tell.

Odin has to step in and force Thor to stay in Asgard and raise the brat, but that just makes the thunder god resent his family even more, so he seeks solace in his best friends: food and alcohol. In copious amounts. At this point Woden decides that no dad is better than an embarrassing dad and runs away from home, leading to a marital dispute in which Thor "raises his hand" to try to hit Sif ... and we say "try" because, apparently, the fight doesn't end well for him.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Thor just isn't himself after his fifth Martini.

In the end, a grown up (and surprisingly well-adjusted) Woden teams up with Grandpa Odin to prevent Herr Loki from annexing Asgard, and they're even kind enough to let Thor tag along so he'll feel better about himself.

Marvel Comics

It's always depressing when your billion-year-old dad looks more buff than you.

But believe it or not, this isn't even Thor's most undignified transformation. That honor goes to the time ...

Loki Turns Thor Into A Frog, Causes A Rat Genocide

In the classic Mighty Thor #364 (1986), Loki needs to get Thor out of the way to become the new ruler of Asgard after one of Odin's periodic deaths, so he uses a powerful spell to make sure his brother croaks, too ... but in a more literal sense. You know, as a frog.

Marvel Comics

And not even the fun, banjo-playing kind.

And things just get more humiliating from there. Thor-Frog leaps into the Avengers' mansion and writes "HELP I'M THOR" on some spilled sugar, but Tony Stark's butler Jarvis either can't read or never cared much for Thor anyway, because he chases him away with a broom.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

The fact that Iron Man's butler is babysitting Mr. Fantastic's son in the Avengers mansion is the most normal part of this issue.

Throg (which is seriously the official name for when a Thor turns into a frog, or vice-versa) ends up in Central Park, where he finds out that the other frogs there are involved in a vicious war against the local rat community. Never one to pass up on some good ol' fashioned carnage, Throg kills some rats, drags their corpses down to New York's sewers, and uses them to lure the alligators living there to come up and slaughter the rest of the rodents, presumably causing irreparable damage to the state's ecosystem. He tells the other frogs he's helping them because "lives are precious, no matter how humble they may be" ... unless you're a rat, then you can frog off and die.

Naturally, the Frog Queen is extremely turned on by Throg and practically begs him to take her right then and there, but Throg remembers this is supposed to be a superhero comic and goes off to find his hammer.

Marvel Comics

"Besides, for some reason I am now only sexually attracted to pigs in blonde wigs."

After some difficulty (turns out frog arms aren't exactly designed to wield mallets, which is a major design flaw by Mother Nature if you ask us), Throg manages to lift the hammer and he's finally restored to his human fo-- wait, no, he becomes a frog in a Thor costume. But at least now he's powerful enough to beat the crap out of Loki until he undoes the spell, which he does. So, as embarrassing as this whole thing was for Thor, at least he didn't get his ass handed to him by a frog-like Loki.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

"SPLATHAM": the sound of indignity.

Even after returning to normal, Thor retains his knowledge of the froggy language and occasionally stops by Central Park to catch up and shoot the shit with his frog bros. Loki apparently learned his lesson and hasn't tried to transform Thor into any other animals since. Nope, now he performs his shapeshifting experiments on himself ... or herself.

Loki Hijacks Thor's Girlfriend's Body, Pretends To Be Scarlet Witch

Stories about Loki looking like a lady predate Marvel Comics by centuries. In one ancient Norse mythology tale, Thor's hammer is stolen by a giant who will only return it if the gods set him up with a local Asgardian hottie he wants to marry, Freyja. When Freyja says she isn't interested in some frosty giant dong, Loki convinces Thor to put on a wedding dress and pose as her in front of the giant, with Loki himself acting as a bridesmaid.

Wikimedia Commons

Yes, yes, we're all imagining Chris Hemsworth dressed in that. Let's move on.

The giant senses that something is amiss when his delicate bride to be single-handedly gulps down "an entire ox, eight salmon," and "many barrels of mead," but he's so infatuated that he lets that fly -- and then Thor beats him to death with the hammer before their wedding night. By the way, this story has been retold in multiple comics, so it's completely canon in the Marvel Universe.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Not the sort of hammer-grabbing action the giant was expecting.

Another time, Loki shape-shifts into a mare, gets it on with a stallion, and gives birth to an eight-legged horse just to win a bet, and yes, this story is also Marvel canon. So, when all the Asgardian gods die and come back in Marvel's Thor series from 2007, and Loki's new body happens to be female, the other gods don't think it's that weird. Hey, at least he's the right species and has the correct number of limbs.

Marvel Comics

Not that you can tell with that coat.

But this is Loki, so of course it can't be that simple. The gross, awkward reality is that Loki hijacked a body his brother is intimately familiar with: Sif's. Yes, the same Sif that Thor dated for ages and will marry in his hypothetical drunken deadbeat dad future. The real Sif is trapped in the body of a dying old lady while Loki goes around flaunting her goods in front of guys like Dr. Doom ... who, to be fair, is a gentleman and does his best not to stare. 

Marvel Comics

"Doom knows what it's like to be extremely sexy and be treated as an object."

Loki likes the "hijacking a female hero's identity" scam so much that he starts pulling double shifts to pose as the Scarlet Witch in the Avengers while still posing as Totally Not Sif in Asgard. The Avengers only realize what's going on when Hawkeye makes out with WandaLoki and determines that she's not the real deal, because "the lips don't lie." Once again, Shakira's paraphrased wisdom saves the day.

Marvel Comics

Not the Hawkeye/Scarlet Witch/Loki/Sif foursome fan fiction writers expected.

So, as you root for Loki in his new show, remember that in the comics he's a dick-blocking, eugenics-loving, frog-transforming, horse-birthing, lady body-hijacking jerk. If someone in the Marvel Universe deserves to be cancelled, it's this guy ... occasionally gal ... one-time mare. How about a nice Throg series instead, Disney? That's way more on brand for you.

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com.

Top Image: Marvel Comics

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