Loki's History in Marvel's Cinematic Universe

Image via Disney+

Loki first appeared in 2011’s Thor, which starred Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder. In this film we followed the journey of Thor and Loki, brothers who were raised together, who fought together, only to find out that one will be named King of Asgard. As Thor is about to be crowned, an unfortunate string of events not only ruins his big day but threatens the Nine Realms as well. Who could possibly be responsible for this? Look no further than his brother Loki, the jealous God of Mischief. 

In this chaos for the throne, Loki finds out that he is not the biological son of Odin, the King of Asgard, he is the son of one of Asgard’s fiercest enemies, the Frost Giant King Laufey. While his attempts to gain the throne fail, in the final battle with Thor he falls off the Rainbow Bridge into an abyss, presumed to be lost forever. 

The God of Mischief returns in 2012’s The Avengers filled with vengeance since his recent failure and has shifted his focus from ruling Asgard to ruling Earth. Loki arrives on Earth, attacks a SHIELD facility and steals the Tesseract, a weapon that threatens the well-being of everyone on the planet if it falls into the wrong hands. This significant threat causes Nick Fury to call in some back-up, assembling Steve Rogers (Captain America), Bruce Banner (Hulk), Tony Stark (Iron Man), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Thor for the first time.

Even with the Tesseract and the Chitauri (extraterrestrial army), Loki is no match for the Avengers and once again fails. The last we see of Loki, Thor taking him back to Asgard for the sentencing of his crimes.

Loki’s story continues in 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, where he is sentenced and imprisoned in Asgard for the crimes he committed on Earth. Fortunately for Loki, Thor breaks him out of prison because he needs his help to escape Asgard from the Dark Elves, who attacked Asgard looking for the Aether. In his efforts to help Thor remove the Aether from Jane Foster’s body and defeat the Dark Elves, Loki is impaled during battle and “dies” in Thor’s arms. It is discovered later that Loki faked his death, returned to Asgard, removed Odin from the throne, and then took his place as King in the form of Odin himself. 

In Thor: Ragnarok, Loki has taken over Asgard disguised as Odin until Thor arrives seeking Odin’s guidance. Once Loki gives up the trick, he and Thor go to find their father, and when they do he ends up passing away which releases their evil sister Hela from the gates of hell. As Hela ascends to power in Asgard, Loki, Thor and a couple of other misfits join forces to take Hela down. Loki is tasked with lighting the eternal flame summoning “Ragnarok” onto Asgard. As he’s making his way into the dungeons of Asgard, he passes by the Tesseract and inspects it only to have mysteriously taken it off-screen.

By the end of Thor: Ragnarok, Loki and Thor are traveling in space only to be confronted by the Mad Titan Thanos! This is where Avengers: Infinity War begins and the Loki we love ends.

Thanos had begun his quest to assemble the Infinity Stones and after destroying Xander obtaining the Power Stone, Thanos was coming directly for the Tesseract that Loki took from the dungeons of Asgard.  After threatening Thor’s life, Loki attempted one final trick to outsmart the Mad Titan. Thanos, being no stranger to Loki’s tricks because of their work in the past, catches Loki’s knife, and at this point what comes next “is inevitable,” as Thanos would say. Thanos grabs Loki by the throat and breaks it with ease in front of his brother Thor who cries out in pain.

By the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos assembles all the infinity stones in his iconic gauntlet and snaps causing half of all life across the entire universe to disappear. In Avengers: Endgame the remaining Avengers have gone their separate ways and five years have gone by since Thanos erased half of all life in the universe. Ant-Man discovers a way to return from the quantum realm and discovers time travel. This rallies the Avengers back together with a plan to use the Quantum Realm to retrieve the Infinity Stones from certain points in history. 

A group of heroes (including Tony Stark, Captain America, Professor Hulk and Ant-Man) go back to where it all started: The Battle of New York in2012. By this point, the Avengers have already stopped Loki’s forces and Loki is taken into custody. During a scuffle, the Tesseract (aka the Space Stone) lands between Loki’s feet, allowing him to grab it and teleport into the unknown never to be seen again… until now!

The new Loki series on Disney+ follows an alternate variant of Loki as he is captured by an organization with the purpose of keeping the multiverse together called the Time Variance Authority. Loki will be paired with Agent Mobius (played by Owen Wilson) as they embark on a crazy crime-thriller adventure that’ll defy all of your expectations.

This series is going to have more of an impact on the MCU than any other Disney+ series thus far, according to Marvel’s President Kevin Fiege. Marvel will be diving deep into the lore of the multiverse in Loki, as the show consists of Loki helping the TVA on a multiversal adventure. This will have bigger implications for the highly anticipated Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness films, which will both take on the multiversal elements we’re seeing introduced into Loki.

While Loki may have just been a side character in the MCU up to this point, Loki will be the spark that lights the fire for Marvel’s future.