Attack on the Statesman

"You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan. You may think this is suffering. No... It is salvation."

- Ebony Maw

The Attack on the Statesman was an attempt by Thanos and the Black Order to extract the Space Stone from the Tesseract.

Background
"I wouldn't worry, brother. I feel like everything's gonna work out fine."

- Thor to Loki In 2017, following the Destruction of Asgard and the fulfillment of the doomsday prophecy Ragnarök, the Asgardians who survived became nomads forced to live aboard the Statesman, a pleasure vehicle previously used by the being known as the Grandmaster. Acting on the orders of their newly crowned king, Thor Odinson, the Asgardians charted a course for Earth so they could channel their efforts into rebuilding their homeland.

Several months later, as the Statesman continued making its way through uncharted space, Thor's adopted brother Loki expressed his doubts about returning to Earth during a private conversation in the former's quarters. Despite the trickster god's skepticism about mankind welcoming him with open arms after the role he played in the Chitauri Invasion, Thor remained confident in his decision and claimed they had nothing to worry about. At that exact moment, the two witnessed the Statesman being intercepted by the Sanctuary II,, a warship under the command of the intergalactic warlord Thanos.

Unbeknownst to all, Thanos had tracked the Statesman down with the sole purpose of obtaining the Tesseract, which Loki took from Odin's Vault prior to Asgard's destruction, and extracting the Space Stone, which, in turn, would bring him one step closer to achieving his goal of exterminating half of all life in the universe.

Attack
"Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian." "Well, for one thing, I'm not Asgardian. And for another... we have a Hulk."

- Thanos and Loki Upon boarding the Statesman, Thanos and his four most favored adoptive children – Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive – executed half of the ship's population while Valkyrie led the other half to safety. Thanos then threatened to use the Power Stone, which he extracted from the Orb following his assault on Xandar, to kill Thor unless Loki surrendered the Tesseract.

Loki initially concealed the fact that the Tesseract was in his possession, expressing a lack of empathy towards Thor, but acceded to the Mad Titan's demands after he activated the Power Stone and began using it to crush Thor's head. As Thor claimed the Tesseract had been destroyed, Loki removed the cube-shaped containment vessel from the folds of his clothes and gave it to Thanos, who promptly crushed it with his bare hand before extracting the Space Stone and adding it to his Infinity Gauntlet.

As Loki began to reassure Thor that they would survive the ordeal, he assured Thanos that they had the Hulk on their side, who immediately attacked the Great Titan. Although Thanos was quickly able to defeat Hulk, he was sent to Earth by Heimdall before Thanos could kill him, which turned out to be a fatal mistake as Thanos decided to kill him instead in retaliation.

In an improvised attempt to assassinate Thanos, Loki pretended to worship him as he hid a knife behind his back, which also turned out to be a fatal mistake as Thanos saw the attack coming and stopped the knife from slicing his throat. In anger, Thanos held Loki up in the air and choked him to death, also snapping his neck, before tossing his corpse down to Thor.

With his job now complete, Thanos used the Power Stone to blow up the ship and everyone on it before leaving.

Aftermath


"Thanos is coming."

- Bruce Banner

Hulk, who had been sent away by Heimdall, crash landed on Earth in the New York Sanctum and transformed back into Banner, where he met Doctor Strange and Wong, whom he warned about the impending threat of Thanos.

A distress signal sent out by the Asgardians during the attack was picked up by the Guardians of the Galaxy, who later checked up on the aftermath to find Thor, who turned out to survive the attack. He also warned the Guardians about Thanos.