Loki arrives at the headquarters of Stark Unlimited, wishing
to speak to Tony Stark; Tony indicates he is not welcome and then drops the
trickster through a trapdoor into a basement lab where Loki is shackled to a
wall with a massive gun pointed at him. Tony asks him to state his business in
three words. Loki replies, “Thor sent me” and that does the trick. He relates how
Thor took him to the Library of All-Knowing and showed him from the Books of
Loki that he will have a happy ending, that they have broken free of the cycle
of Ragnarok. But Loki said all he wanted was to rule in his realm and act as
hero to Midgard, building up to a request to join the Avengers. Thor laughed
but Loki tells Tony that Thor said to ask him….
Nightmare, having been swallowed and excreted back into his
own world by Frosti (last issue), he emerges into the bad dreams of executive
Megan Loeb; he uses her to move into he real world of her apartment and, in a
bad mood, he promises to make her life a living nightmare. And as he departs,
Megan finds her wife Robyn is gone….
After much banter wherein Loki explains why he would make an
ideal Avenger, Tony denies his application. Loki mentions how he destroyed Tony’s
sky casino but Tony doesn’t have one so that misfired. Finally Tony tells him
that he can prove he’s worthy to be an Avenger by coming there carrying Thor’s
hammer, and then ushers him out. Loki walks down the street pondering this and
wondering why he is being watched by an owl in the daytime….
At yesterday’s meeting with Thor in the Library, the Thunder
God laughed and departed, telling Loki to be content with his happy ending.
Loki was then pulled into another part of the Library, past a panorama of all
the events of his life and met by a pair of bizarre-looking children who
welcomed him to the “House of Ideas….”