Attack on the Helicarrier

Attack on the Helicarrier
Previous	Skirmish in Germany
Next	Battle of New York Battle of Hong Kong
War	Chitauri Invasion
Date	May 4, 2012
Location	Helicarrier
Result (Outcome)	Loki escapes and the Helicarrier is severely damaged. Phil Coulson killed by Loki. Clint Barton is released from Loki's control.
Combatants
S.H.I.E.L.D. Captain America Iron Man Thor
Loki Hawkeye
Hulk
Commanders
Nick Fury
Loki Hawkeye
-
Casualties
Phil Coulson (later resurrected) Multiple S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
Multiple mercenaries
-

"Your heroes are scattered; your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?"

―Loki to Phil Coulson^[src]

The Attack on the Helicarrier was a successful attempt by Loki to escape from the Helicarrier and continue carrying out his plan to subjugate Earth.

Background

"I don't like it."
"What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"
"I don't remember it being ever that easy."

―Captain America and Iron Man^[src]

Hawkeye, with the permission of Nick Fury, tested the security of the Helicarrier in a faux hostile insertion. He was able to infiltrate the ship and get through many of its checkpoints. He advised Fury of the ship's flaws that he was able to exploit.

In the Destruction of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., Loki had returned to Earth to conquer it. After destroying the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility and stealing the Tesseract, Loki traveled to Stuttgart, Germany to steal Iridium. Captain America and Black Widow traveled to Stuttgart in a Quinjet to confront him. Loki gets the upper hand on Rogers until Iron Man arrives and Loki surrenders. They take Loki into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody aboard the Helicarrier, where he was placed in a confinement capsule designed to hold the Hulk. Loki taunted Nick Fury about his attempts to control the Tesseract and his gathering of misfits to defend Earth.

Loki's mere presence was enough to provide a disruptive element that would fragment the only group of heroes that had any hope of stopping him.

Attack

"We got a perimeter breach! Hostiles are in S.H.I.E.L.D. gear."

―Jasper Sitwell^[src]

When Black Widow arrived to speak with Loki, apparently to offer a deal in exchange for Hawkeye's freedom, he subjected her to a play of wits where he ferreted out her deeper misgivings, but was completely caught off-guard when the spy tricked the trickster into revealing that there was already a monster among them and that it was not him. From this, she concluded that the monster was Bruce Banner and that he had planned to use the Hulk to destroy the ship and the heroes as well.

Hawkeye vs Black Widow

However, Loki's plan to use the Hulk, only one aspect of his real intentions, did follow through as another Quinjet carrying Barton and the rogue agents came to his aide, following a signal from the Scepter. Barton uses an explosive arrow to destroy one of the rotors and lands on the Helicarrier. The explosion knocks Romanoff and Banner to a lower level and the wounded Banner transformed into the Hulk. Banner chases Romanoff until Thor intervenes and begins fighting Banner.

Hulk attacking a pilot

Barton and the brainwashed agents head to the bridge where Nick Fury and Maria Hill engage them. The agents are killed but Barton uses a special arrow to hack the computers and sabotage a second rotor. Fury orders an F-35 Lightning II to fire on Banner, who jumps on the jet and tears it apart. The pilot ejects and Banner falls to the ground.

While everyone else was fighting the perpetrators, Iron Man and Captain America fixed the rotor that the attackers destroyed. After getting the rotor moving, Stark got trapped inside until Rogers defeated two of the brainwashed S.H.I.E.L.D. commandos and pulled the lever to slow the rotor. Romanoff intercepts Barton on his way back to the Quinjet. The two fight for a while until Romanoff hits Barton in the head hard enough to break his brainwashing.

Nick Fury witnesses Phil Coulson's death

Loki then used illusions of himself to trick Thor into entering the cell. Agent Phil Coulson arrives but Loki uses another illusion to fool him and stabs Coulson in the back with the Scepter and ejected Thor's cell from the Helicarrier. Before Loki can leave Coulson shoots him with the Destroyer Armor Prototype Gun. Loki escapes on the Quinjet and Fury and the medics get to Coulson, but it is too late.

Aftermath

Phil Coulson in surgery a few days after the attack

"After New York, you weren't dead for eight seconds or forty seconds or whatever they put in your file. You were dead for... days."
"That's impossible."
"It should be, but Director Fury moved heaven and Earth. He had a team of scientists working around the clock using procedures that no good doctor would ever allow."

―Streiten and Phil Coulson^[src]

Enraged by Phil Coulson's death, the Avengers decided to end the war Loki had started by defeating him in the Battle of New York. It turned out that Coulson was dead for days, but Nick Fury had S.H.I.E.L.D.'s scientists working their hardest to save him with Project T.A.H.I.T.I.

After both the attack and the Battle of New York, Tony Stark designed new repulsor technology for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new Helicarriers for their Project Insight, in order to avoid what happened during the attack.