Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Psychotic killer Knut Caine is on the loose in Norway. Considering himself the direct spiritual descendant of Loki, he patterns his grisly crimes after stories from Norse myth. Hank Pym is in Oslo to address a police convention, accompanied by his ex-wife Janet Van Dynep. When Caine has a confrontation with police, Giant-Man and Wasp volunteer to track down the villain. Locating him near a fjord, the Wasp attacks and Caine plunges into the water. The villain is washed into a cavern where the spirit of Loki appears to him and shows him an enchanted dagger. When Caine plunges the dagger into his heart, he gains the power of Loki to go with his spirit. Caine then uses his newly acquired magic powers to battle Jan and Hank, turning Hank's Rover aircraft into a monster then burying them alive under an avalanche.
The Hulk, having been directed by Delphi, arrives to use his body to shield Jan and Hank from the falling boulders. Loki/Caine brings the deadly Fimbulwinter on Norway, and creates a palace of glass outside Oslo; he also populates it with his "children:" Fenris the Wolf, Jormungandr (the Midgard Serpent), and Hel, transformed from people and animals. Hulk deduces that Loki/Caine is planning to bring Ragnarok-the Norse end of the world-early. Fighting myth with myth, Hulk dresses as Heimdall, Loki's prophesied nemesis, and, backed by Jan and Hank, confronts the madman in his lair.
The battle goes poorly but the heroes' deviations from the script confuse and enrage Loki/Caine, who is also puzzled that his traditional allies, the giants and other monsters, do not answer his summons. Hulk ends the fight by clamping Jormungandr's fangs into Loki's shoulder. As Caine dies and reverts to his normal form, the real Loki appears and offers the enchanted dagger and all the power it contains to the Hulk. Hulk's answer: he hurls the dagger to the farthest reaches of the Atlantic Ocean where it sinks from sight.