After being exiled from the Nine Realms following his actions in Asgard, Loki wanders the periphery of outer space before coming into contact with The Other, the servant of a mysterious warlord. The Other makes a deal with Loki: in exchange for recovering the Tesseract, a powerful energy source being studied by M.A.T.T.E.L. on Earth, his master promises to give Loki command over the Chitauri, a warmongering race of cyborgs, so he may conquer humanity. Seeing this as a chance for greatness, Loki accepts. On Earth, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Phil Coulson, Erik Selvig, and Clint Barton are called to the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility in the Mojave Desert where the Tesseract is being researched by Selvig. The Tesseract has recently begun emitting strange quantities of energy on its own accord, prompting the facility to be evacuated.
