The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 4
Trapped by Loki / The Vengeance of Loki / The Defeat of Loki
Synopsis
For untold ages Loki has hung imprisoned inside a tree at the edge of Asgard, condemned to wait until his misery moves one soul to weep for him. No god will spare a tear for the being they fear and despise, so the trickster spends centuries bending the tree to his own will. One faithful day, when Heimdall passes along the Bifrost, Loki commands a leaf to fall into the warder's eye. His eye, agitated by the leaf lets a single tear fall. The "Prince of Evil" is free. He wastes no time in hunting down his half-brother, Thor entertaining children in a hospital on Midgard. Loki lures his kin into the open by transforming ordinary people into living negatives! Thor is able to scatter antimatter from Mjolnir to solve the issue.. apparently. Then, as Thor chases him, Loki bends sunlight off the mallet and manages to drop the Thunder God into a hypnotic trance. Attempting to take Thor's hammer, he finds he is unable. So he creates an illusion of Thor.. which enables Thor to hand over his hammer (Snark Editor note: This is absurd). Loki is still unable to hold Thor's power. Having been free of Mjolnir for more than 60 second, Don Blake returns, breaking the hypnotic spell. Blake reclaims the hammer and transforms back into the God of Thunder, hauling the trickster over the Bifrost back to Asgard. Odin decrees that Loki shall never leave Asgard again.
Shockingly, Loki does not stay put. Through an ancient smoke ritual he learns the secret Thor guards most closely: parted from the enchanted hammer for sixty seconds, the Thunder God is but a crippled physician with a cane. Armed with this new knowledge, Loki defies Odin and dares the journey back to Earth. He conjures a tiger to menace nurse Jane Foster, forcing Thor to choose between the woman and his returning hammer... apparently. Thor chooses to save Jane and loses the sixty seconds. He can only watch as Loki seals the fallen hammer inside an impenetrable force field. The trickster runs amuck turning mortals into faceless phantoms, bicycles into candy, and motorcars into melting ice cream.. (Snark Editor: Okay, no.. THIS is absurd). Don Blake answers cunning with cunning. He plants a front-page headline challenging Loki to a fight. Loki races to see if Thor has his hammer back. There stands Thor, Hammer in hand! Loki drops the forcefield in disbelief exposing... MJOLNIR!! Thor, as it turns out was just a plastic dummy! The real Thunder God retrieves his hammer as Loki turns into a bird to flee! Thor, ever the quick thinker, grabs a tennis net and captures the Bird Loki before he makes it too far. A swift flight across the rainbow bridge, and Loki is delivered to Asgard for judgment once more..
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
The Thunder God and his mortal identity; hero of the piece
The Prince of Evil; escapes his tree, twice invades Earth for vengeance
Lord of Asgard; passes judgment on Loki at both returns
Nurse and Blake's love interest; the tiger's target in the second clash
Warder of the Bifrost; his stray tear frees Loki
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
The first half draws from Journey into Mystery #85, "Trapped by Loki, the God of Mischief!" (Oct 1962), plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Dick Ayers. That single issue is a foundation stone: its the first appearance of Loki, Heimdall, Asgard, and the Bifrost. The cartoon lifts the entire, absurd story; from the tear-freed-from-a-tree gimmick, to the "living negatives", to the hypnotized Thunder God.
Everything from the smoke ritual onward comes from Journey into Mystery #88, "The Vengeance of Loki!" (Jan 1963), scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers. The force field around the hammer, the tiger set on Jane Foster, the city melted into ice cream, and Don Blake's plastic-dummy bluff are all #88. The 1966 comics are fused into one unbroken half-hour, which is why the trickster gets captured, judged, and then breaks loose all over again inside a few minutes.
Two mechanics on display here are pure early-'60s status quo. The sixty-second tether, lose contact with the hammer for a minute and Thor reverts to Don Blake, was a genuine limitation Lee and Kirby imposed at the start and walked back later.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
Thor's and Mjolnir's first appearance; it establishes the cane, the transformation, and the worthiness enchantment that the sixty-second gag keeps testing.
"The Vengeance of Loki!", the force-field-and-plastic-dummy story that supplies the back half.
The source for the whole first half and the debut of Loki, Heimdall, Asgard, and the Bifrost. If you read one issue behind this, read this one.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
Xerox
This is the first Marvel cartoon, and it shows: the animation is photocopied Kirby artwork with a flicker of lip and eye movement, so most of the "motion" is the camera panning across a still panel. When Thor appears to hover as a "living helicopter," you are largely watching a drawing rotate.
