In first photo he clearly just landed on Earth, and he looks like he was falling through a space dumpster and had been swallowed by a space dumpster monster and got out from it’s rear end - but still, he looks like HIMSELF. He controls Selvig- but it is not zombifying- it is whispering ideas into humans ears, subtle and unnoticable. Like Loki would do.
In second picture it’s Loki again, a year (or so) after he fell through abyss and he doesn’t look like Loki from Thor- he looks like a drug addict in desperate need of a doze. He is all sweaty, shaky, his eyes are hollow, he is pale, and stumbles when he walks. What exactly happened to him?
It was clearly NOT the fall because we’ve seen him after crash landing - and he was OK, relatively healthy (he wasn’t badly injured since he walked without stumbling! ) and in his own mind. But now- he to me is zombified. And also- he already had Selvig under his control before- but in the beginning of Avengers he has to re-do it again as if he never met the scientist.
What the hell happened to him?
Thanos, that’s what. I believe after Loki got a glimpse of the tesseract, Thanos somehow learned about it and abducted Loki. Tortured, threatened, put on “drug” of some sort- may be the scepter or some other sort of energy, poisoned Loki’s mind.
I also think that if Loki wasn’t under the influence, he would have stopped when Thor asked him to. The way he hesitated in Avengers, the tear that fell from his eye when he stabbed Thor- all suggests that he still loves his brother and wants to come back. But he can’t. at least before he gets rid of his connection to Thanos. And this connection was NOT limited to their alliance. It was something more close, more physical.
The way Loki was speaking about freedom- several times- wasn’t it suspicious? wasn’t it like his subconsciousness cry for help?
And in the end- with that “drink” phrase- he suddenly- after all the crazy shit he’d done- turned back into his NORMAL self! as if he was slapped back into consciousness (and well, he was).
Also - think logically- why would Loki, who is a smartass, exchange a source of limitless power (and he knew exactly what tesseract was since it was once held in Odin’s treasury!!!) - the one he could eventually use for his purposes (and I know he would- in time, after thorough research and trials and errors) for a boy scout group of aliens who can be destroyed by not even superheroes, but just regular troops if need be? (I mean, let’s face it- if invasion happened somewhere, say, in San Diego, we would have needed only Tony Stark and Black Widow to close the goddamn hole in the sky. All other “problems” would have been dealt with by Marines and Airforce.) And it wasn’t even an army- one mother ship- ONE? Earth is big and humans have teeth, it wouldn’t have been nearly enough to subjugate us or- it would have led to total destruction of the planet.
Anyway- why would Loki exchange unlimited power that would have granted him ALL the realms if he wanted to for just one realm? It doesn’t make sense.
(To those who think this theory is my attempt to vindicate Loki’s actions and make him an “innocent”- it is not.) The sceptor’s control was not “breaking man’s personality and creating something new”- no- it was bringing up the strongest characteristics of the man and making them extreme.
Loki found the Tesseract and thought of using it to conquer Asgard (and Asgard first of all, that would be his first target of revenge and the point of his attention, not Midgard) and return again, as Aesir’s king.(attaching Midgard is not even reasonable from warfare point of view- it is not a strategic place since most of the power is concentrated in Asgard. It is like attacking a farm and leaving a military base for later. Say, Midgard falls- so what? other realms come together and retaliate. Illogical.)
He was contacted by Thanos, who promised him to show tesseracts real power and “lured” Loki in his realm only to later reveal his real plans of claiming Tesseract for himself. And Loki got caught like a butterfly in the spider’s web. And here I repeat- Loki had plans for revenge and thought Thanos would assist him with those plans, only he didn’t expect Thanos had plans of his own and he was nothing but a pawn in them.
Thanos’s influence brought out features Loki already had and made them grotesque- all his anger, pain, jealousy, thirst for attention, taste for mass destruction ( let’s face it, Loki has a predesposition for it- he already tried to destroy the whole planet once). Once done, Loki became a tool for Thanos- a sort of a rabid dog on the leash. The one who bites and thrashes and attacks people and wants to be medicated and saved at the same time but can’t since the collar is still on and the leash is in it’s master’s hand. It only is saved when the leash is thorn off.
