We caught The Avengers sunday afternoon. It was great. I’d go see it again right this second if that was a practical thing to do.
That’s my review: “I’d go see it again right now.” The Avengers is note-perfect in so many ways and so many others have already written about this, so I won’t waste your time gushing.

But: this isn’t a review. These are my thoughts on what’s actually going on in The Avengers. So, spoilers ahead:
SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE AVENGERS YET AND I GIVE STUFF AWAY.
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Okay.
Who’s the protagonist in The Avengers? Is it Captain America? Iron Man? The Black Widow? Maybe even the show-stealing Hulk?
Nope.
Loki is the protagonist in The Avengers. Let’s break it down:
What does Loki want? He wants to rule Asgard. He says as much to Thor after being snatched out of the SHIELD shuttle. Not king of Earth — king of Asgard. He’s quite clear on this point.
But, you might say, doesn’t he also say he wants to be king of Earth? He’ll give the aliens the Tesseract and they’ll let him have Earth. They’ll take the universe and they’ll LET him have Earth.
Pssh. As if that would ever be enough for Loki. As if Loki would ever be content with a kingdom he was given as scraps.
He wants Asgard. Period. Nothing less will ever do.
But, that’s a future desire. Today all he wants is to return to Asgard.
That’s it. Loki wants to go home.
And who, exactly, is keeping Loki from returning home? That’d be Thanos (if the rumors are true), the purple-faced guy you saw during the end-credits (if you stuck around that long, and of course you did).
Thanos is the antagonist in The Avengers. He’s the guy keeping Loki from getting what he wants.
After Loki fell through the Kirby-esque starscape at the end of Thor, he ended up wherever Thanos and his Chiutari aliens are hanging out during The Avengers. Maybe it’s not the first place he visited, but once he arrived — as we see at the start of The Avengers – he’s very clearly at Thanos’ mercy.
And, being Loki, being a god of lies, being devious and scheming and all about the long game, he came up with a plan.
It probably started out as a simple enough plan: “if I can’t beat these weirdos, I’ll get someone who can.”
Initially, his thought was probably Thor. But, as we saw at the end of Thor, Loki is keeping tabs on SHIELD through at least one pair of eyes. Who knows how many other “spies” he’s got checking things out for him.
But, even if he’s only thinking of Thor kicking the Chiutari’s collective butts, it’s not an unsound plan. If he’s aware of Cap, Iron Man and the rest before arriving (notice how quickly he beelined for Hawkeye), more’s the better.
Notice he doesn’t take over Nick Fury’s mind. Someone’s got to get the gang together, no?
We see that Loki is being watched, that the Chiutari (and, by extension, Thanos) can mentally yank him back for a confab whenever they like. So he’s got to act the part, putting on a show on a grand stage, egging on the individual Avengers.
Think of the scene in Stark’s penthouse where they go over how pissed off everyone is at Loki. That was his goal. He went to Earth to pick a fight — and honestly, if the Avengers weren’t up for fighting him (and each other) they weren’t the ones to beat Thanos and the Chiutari, were they?
Sure, Loki takes his licks, but by the end of the movie, this is the status quo:
- Loki goes back to Asgard.
- The Tesseract goes back to Asgard.
- Thanos and the Chiutari are far, far away from anywhere they might be able to control Loki any longer.
Seems like he got what he wanted, no?
Now, to Loki, the formation of the Avengers wasn’t a “goal” so much as it was a “side-effect”. But consider: he’s not interested in ruling Earth except as an extension of being ruler of Asgard and, from there, all the nine realms. So he must figure, if he ends up facing them down a second time, it should be from a position of strength.
To wit: Loki doesn’t care about the Avengers except as a means to an end.
He uses the Avengers as his foot soldiers to beat back the Chiutari and Thanos AND as a way to return home to Asgard.
It’s interesting to me that the primary complaint I’ve heard about The Avengers is that Loki’s plan seems kind of nonsensical. He arrives on Earth, steals the Tesseract (and several SHIELD agents), then makes a spectacle of himself so he can get captured. Once imprisoned on the SHIELD Helicarrier, he eggs on the various players there, ultimately causing Banner to Hulk-out and smash the place up.
Good theater, I’d say.
Loki’s brainwashed SHIELD agents free him and he goes directly to where Eric Selvig, another thrall, has been constructing his device to harness the Tesseract’s power and open a door to the Chiutari fleet.
Something else Selvig has been doing: installing an OFF switch. Let’s not pretend that wasn’t part of Loki’s plan all along.
Meanwhile, Loki is drawing the Avengers to him so they can beat back the invading alien horde.
No wait. Change that to, “so they can save him from Thanos and the Chiutari”. There, much better.
Maybe all Loki was counting on was Thor coming to his rescue. It would make sense — who else would drag him back home? But the point is this: Loki’s entire goal in The Avengers is not world-conquest. He’s not interested one whit in handing the Tesseract over to Thanos and the Chiutari.
Loki wants to go home.
So he can take over Asgard . . . eventually. He’s not sweating that detail just yet (though having the Tesseract back home probably isn’t a bad thing — and to Loki’s twisted mind it was probably a pretty likely destination for the thing, once the dust had settled). He’s an immortal, after all. He’s got plenty of time, but one thing Loki wouldn’t stand is being under Thanos’ thumb.
Who does that guy think he is, anyway? Bossing around an Asgardian?
Look at every other character in The Avengers. Joss Whedon knows his stuff. He “gets” Cap and Iron Man, Hawkeye and Black Widow, Thor and the Hulk. God, does he get the Hulk. Big Green’s got two scenes in the movie: the first where everyone’s against him and he’s all about the smashing. And then the second where Cap and Iron Man look for him to be a member of the team.
And the Hulk loves it. ”Hulk? Smash.” BIG SMILE.
Everyone attacks the Hulk and the Hulk is always fighting back. It doesn’t look like fighting back because he ends up flattening Harlem (for example) but it’s almost always in self defense.
But when you ask him to help out? Ho boy.
Joss Whedon gets the Hulk. It would be foolish to think he doesn’t get Loki as well. Plus, we know Marvel’s looking at each of these movies as smaller parts of a greater universe. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Loki’s plans in this movie extend beyond the bounds of this movie, over to Thor 2, or wherever he feels like putting his feet down.
As a final note, consider this: when Cap and Iron Man capture Loki, he goes along. When Thor steals him from them, and then sets to pounding on them, does he flee? Does he run? Does he vanish?
Nope.
He’ll settle for going back to the Helicarrier, but I think what he’s really hoping for is that his adoptive brother will twirl his hammer and bring him back home. The hell with Earth and all these ridiculous, posturing mortals. So long as he gets back to Asgard, Loki’s a happy guy.