Today, learn about how Loki was introduced with a bizarre weakness that never came into play again after his first appearance.
In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.
There are a number of things at play when it comes to the introduction of Loki in 1962’s Journey Into Mystery #85. First off, this was just the third appearance of Thor, and while I don’t doubt that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were PRETTY confident in their new superhero character, you would be hard-pressed to expect ANY of these new characters to necessarily last forever. For instance, the Hulk was introduced around this same time and his original series only lasted six issues! So what I’m getting at is that when Kirby and Lee introduced Loki, they were probably not necessarily thinking that this would be a character that we would still be caring about almost SIXTY YEARS later. They likely weren’t sure if Loki would be around six MONTHS later, rather than six DECADES later, so it was unlikely that they were putting a whole bunch of thought into the consistency of this first story.
Secondly, and a bit related, this was the Silver Age of comics. Characters just had weaknesses for the sake of having weaknesses. For instance, Kirby and Lee came up with the idea of having Don Blake revert to his human form if he is separated from his hammer for more than sixty seconds. Well…why, right? How does that make any sense as a weakness? I did a poll recently where I let people vote on why Odin would put a sixty second time limit on the hammer (it has never been explained in the comics. I even once asked Roy Thomas about it and he had no real idea, either) and the best answer was “Odin is just a dick.” So similarly, when Kirby and Lee (and Larry Lieber) came up with a weakness for Loki in his first appearance, I’m sure it was around those same lines.
Thirdly, there is a decent chance that Larry Lieber just threw the weakness into the story on his own, as Lieber did the dialogue on the story AFTER Kirby and Lee had plotted it and Kirby had drawn the story. As you’ll see, there is a decent chance Kirby never intended this to be an actual Loki weakness. With all that preamble done, on to the story!
LOKI MAKES HIS DEBUT
Loki made his debut in Journey Into Mystery #85 by Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Stan Lee and Dick Ayers. Jack Kirby was a big fan of the Norse myths and so it makes sense that Loki’s first appearance would include a bit more nods to the Norse myths that we would get in this series once Kirby was no longer working on the book (and do note that when Kirby returned to become the regular plotter/penciler on the series, that is when the book FULLY embraced the Norse mythology backdrop of the characters).
It opened with Loki being trapped in a tree, but causing a leaf to fall and poke Hemidall in the eye, allowing Loki the cover to escape. He arrived on Earth and discovered that Thor is being a do-gooder among the humans, so Loki quickly puts some humans in danger by turning them into NEGATIVES!
I love how absurd this display of his power is. Dude just turned people into NEGATIVES! This was clearly during that period where the limit of everyone’s power was just whatever crazy thing Jack Kirby was thinking of at that moment. As a counter to Loki’s actions, we discover that Thor’s hammer can emit anti-matter, which, of course, can turn a negative person into a normal person. I am no scientist, but I am pretty sure that that is 100% scientifically accurate. You can quote me on that. “Brian Cronin told me that it is 100% accurate that if a magic hammer were to emit anti-matter particles at a group of people who were magically transformed into negative versions of themselves, they would revert to their normal selves.”
Loki then makes his public showing and Jane Foster, of course, instantly thinks that he is hot. Loki then quickly hypnotizes Thor. Loki is dismayed that Thor’s hammer keeps returning to him, so Loki comes up with the obvious plan of creating a duplicate of Thor and having Thor give the hammer to “Thor” and that somehow keeps the hammer from returning to Thor. Once again, I can certify that this is 100% accurate. After Don Blake haphazardly decides to try to lift the hammer, he becomes Thor and chases after Loki who has, for some reason, decided to take control of a flock of pigeons under the theory that this will somehow keep Thor from him? “No, not pigeons! Anything but pigeons!”
LOKI’S WEAKNESS EMERGES
We then learn Loki has a major weakness, exploited when Thor knocks him into the water. Loki’s spells can’t work while he’s wet.
Now, see how the scene is done. I could EASILY see the situation being that Kirby simply drew Thor knocking Loki down with the barrel and then sending him back to Asgard…
And thus, it is VERY possible that Kirby never considered the water as being a specific weakness for Loki, but rather, that it was just him getting thrown for a loop and then sent back to Asgard and then Lieber, looking at the story, decided to add in the bit about Loki’s powers not working when wet (which, of course, was not actually part of the Norse myths).
WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS WEAKNESS?
Whether he was in on it initially or not, Kirby never addressed the water weakness again. The funny thing is that it’s really hard to see a comic that definitively shows Loki’s powers working WHILE wet, as, well, what are the odds that he happened to be doing something while wet, right?
The most notable example I’ve found, though, is in 2004’s Loki #4 (by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Sebastian Fiumara, Al Barrionuevo, Michel Lacombe, Alvaro Lopez and José Villarrubia), where Loki transforms into a fish, which obviously doesn’t work if his powers don’t work in water…
Plus, of course, Loki has had MANY adventures in the snow (as he is related to the Frost Giants), as seen here in 2008’s Thor #12 (by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales) and obviously, snow is wet…
Amusingly, in Thor #432 (by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Al Milgrom), Thor and Loki have a fight in a rainstorm created by Thor’s hammer and Loki happens to NOT use his powers in that sequence (but he does use them right after the storm cleared up, when presumably he’d still be wet, right?). That would have been a perfect example had he just used his powers during the rainstorm.
If you can find an example of Loki using his powers during a rainstorm or while in the water (if it was a Kirby issue, that’d be even better. I’m pretty sure it never comes up again during a Kirby issue, though. I read through a dozen or so Kirby Loki issues and nada), feel free to send them to me, maybe I’ll edit them in here.
If you have a suggestion for a future edition of I Pass This Way Again, be sure to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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