Loki’s Greatest Pranks of All Time

The wait is finally over for Thor fans as Thor 2: The Dark World hits theatres on Friday, but it’s no secret that the God of Thunder tends to get his scenes stolen whenever his brother is nearby. Loki has emerged as a surprisingly popular character in the Marvel Universe thanks not only to his trickery, but also Tom Hiddleston’s cheek bones and an incredibly devoted fanbase.

But popular or not, Loki’s a villain and his time in the spotlight may be drawing to an end as he has been confirmed not to be appearing in Avengers 2. To celebrate the movie, and what may be Loki’s last appearance in the Marvel movie universe, I’ve gathered up the best pranks that Loki ever played.

5. Loki Turns Thor Into a Frog

This cover does not lie.

This prank is Loki’s silliest and reads like something he came up with while on a sugar high, in a good way! From the pages of Thor #364-366, by the legendary Walt Simonson, we find Loki needing to get rid of Thor so he can be the next in line to inherit the throne, as usual. It seems Loki has been catching up on his fairy tales because to do this he casts a spell on a woman, who then kisses Thor and frogifies him.

Could have been worse. At least he didn’t croak! Ayooo!

Thor then takes sometime to fight justice on a tiny scale as he teams up to help some other frogs in Central Park battle rats (seriously). Later he regains Mjolinir and all his powers, but is still stuck in his tiny state. That’s not enough to stop Thor though, who fights Loki while in frog form!

Some images don’t need captions.

4. Loki Turns Himself Into a Woman

Back in 2008, Loki gave a gift to all female cosplayers when he pulled this stunt, coming back to life as a woman. I especially like this prank as it really messes with your mind when you’re expecting to fight a pale, scrawny guy and are instead faced with an incredibly beautiful, elegant woman. I imagine it would make pretty much anyone screech to a halt like a cartoon character and do a double take.

Namor is so confused about his sexuality right now.

It turned out Loki hadn’t just decided to be a lady though, instead he had actually taken over Lady Sif’s body and was just dressing her up Loki style. But the fact remains the trickster was a woman for awhile, and that was all the lovely ladies of cosplay needed as a template for some truly bitching costumes for years to come.

For example.

3. Loki Makes Everyone Think Thor’s Crazy (Including Thor)

This is the best long prank that Loki’s ever played, as it’s brilliant in its subtlety and execution. Taking place in the Ultimates universe, the world is having a hard time believing that Thor is the actual God of Thunder and even his own team members don’t quite think it’s true despite how many times Thor says “Verily”. Feeding off this seed of doubt Loki starts shifting reality just enough to make Thor appear insane. Loki then masquerades as the human head scientist of a European super soldier initiative and tells the world that Thor is his mentally unstable brother who stole a high tech belt and hammer that give him what appear to be superpowers, but insists he’s mentally ill and needs help. The Ultimates fall for this (cause let’s be honest it sounds more plausible then Norse Gods) and attack Thor, eventually subduing him and having him locked up in an insane asylum.

And as an ultimate act of humiliation Loki renamed him Thorlief.

In some legitimately creepy scenes Loki starts mocking Thor while he’s locked up, but stays invisible the whole time, solidifying everyone’s belief that Thor is crazy. Odin eventually frees Thor who goes after Loki, leading to one of my favorite panels in Marvel history when Loki says everyone should have known he was lying all along, after all, Norway’s not even in the European Union!

The clues were all there people, learn your geography!

2. Loki Turns Thor Into a Woman

In the reality of Earth-9997, or Earth-X as the series was called, Loki convinced Odin to transform Thor into a woman, saying he needed to learn humility in the form of a female. That humility apparently included losing 90% of the coverage of his/her costume and wearing a body suit held together with knots.

The Hammer is not a useful sewing tool, forsooth!

The greatest thing about this prank though was that Thor made it backfire by really not caring all that much. He/she basically shrugged and said, “yeah, whatever, still got evil to fight” and went on her way, staying in her female form for like 17 issues and continuing to kick ass in the Avengers, because Thor knows that ladies kick ass just as hard as guys.

Although I’d like to know who approved Vision’s hand placement on this cover.

1. Loki Turns Himself Into a Horse and Gets Pregnant

This is it. This is THE Loki story guys. The one you absolutely have to know!

This story is actually from an old Norse myth, and as far as I know hasn’t been seen in the comics, which is a shame because it’s utterly amazing.

Anyway, the story goes that the gods agreed to give a builder the sun, the moon and Freyja herself if he could finish their wall around Asgard in three seasons with the help of “no man”. BUT, they didn’t say he couldn’t use his horse, which turns out to be Svaðilfari, who is like the Thor of horses and the wall is looking pretty good by the time the deadline gets close.

Don’t worry, I got this! I know you’re busy being an awesome horse. Keep it up.

The gods tell Loki that if he doesn’t stop the builder from finishing on time somehow they’ll kill him. Loki then either makes the ultimate sacrifice play, or takes this as his chance to revel in his long-hidden horse desires and turns himself into a sexy mare. He runs out of the forest in front of Svaðilfari and he’s just so sexy that the horse breaks his tackle, leaves his master and runs after Loki-horse into the night, making it impossible to keep working on the wall.

Loki and Svaðilfari seen here in history’s first example of inappropriate Loki fan-art.

As far as schemes go it’s kind of successful, but Loki didn’t make himself quite fast enough for safety’s sake so the horse catches him in the forest and *cough* uh … has his way with him. We don’t know that for sure do we? That Loki got … mounted? Yeah, we do. After the builder’s been dealt with, Loki gives birth to an eight-legged foal, Sleipnir, like it ain’t no thing. Why does it have 8 legs? Who the hell knows, maybe he also turned into a spider that night for some side action. But apparently everyone was cool with the whole thing because Slepinir was “the best horse among gods and men” and Odin rode that thing everywhere. But not the same way Loki did.