Asgard

Characters

Loki (also known as: Ikol-Loki, Loki Laufeyson(/dottir), Loki Odinson(/dottir), Moon-King/Queen, God(dess) of Stories...) is Thor's adopted sibling; the current version of them is a copy of their original self inhabiting the body of Kid Loki, their reincarnated self. Many of their stories revolve around guilt, identity, and narratives imposed by others onto them. They are a man, and woman, and everything inbetween: most characters refer to them with either neutral terms or alternate between feminine and masculine ones. Interestingly enough, the first comic focused mainly on them, Loki: Agent of Asgard, can be seen as a trans narrative in itself: to survive, they had to replace the boy their family used to know and love. They usually act as an ally to Thor, but may sometimes hinder him as part of a larger plot. As one might expect from the God of Stories, a recurrent theme with them, one that carries over from Kid Loki, is a meta-narrative one: just as the company that publishes the comics would like Loki to remain the same so that more repetitive stories featuring the same villain can be written, the characters who inhabit the world also want Loki to keep playing their role of a villain. While Loki as an anti-hero does not seem a farfetched concept now, when this narrative began to surface, both Loki and their writers took a long time to establish a lasting change to the status quo.

Kid Loki is the reincarnated version of the original Loki. After Loki died to save Thor, Thor brought him back to life, conjuring him from his memories of them as kids, before things between them soured. Thus, Kid Loki was born as his child self, with no memories of ever having been villainous. A good portion of his life after his reincarnation was dedicated to proving to people that he's different from his past incarnation, a copy of whom was stored inside a magpie only Loki could see. A plot arranged by Loki before his death would ultimately lead to Kid Loki's demise. Kid Loki embraces death, reminding the old Loki that he has changed, that he will get to die as a good person, but the old Loki, should he continue down the path he's chosen, will not. The meta-narrative returns here: to prevent Kid Loki from being used in subsequent comics that would turn him evil, the writers made it so that Kid Loki's death is final, immune to typical comic book resurrections by tying his life to something that would destroy Asgard.

While Amora the Enchantress was originally conceived as a femme fatale-type character, she has been greatly expanded upon and has gone through various arcs. Tom DeFalco is the writer of reference for her, as he is the one who first delved into Amora's psyche, starting his run with an issue dedicated to her perspective on a recent event.
Her original motivation of seducing Thor — getting close to him through magical means but having him fall in love with her spontaneously — has largely been abandoned: a larger part of her character are now her instinct to isolate to keep both herself and her loved ones safe, and other various self sabotaging tendencies. Other comics have delved into her history with Thor and Loki, which has been alluded to since her very first appearance. Although she usually plays an antagonistic role in comics, she occasionally allies herself with Thor and other heroic characters.