Villains in at least two later Marvel Cinematic Universe films borrowed heavily from Loki's playbook in 2012's Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, and Hawkeye had assembled to defend humanity from Thor's Asgardian sibling and his allies, the Chitauri. Having stolen the Tesseract to enslave Earth and take vengeance against his brother, Loki tried to fracture and weaken the Avengers alliance by turning Earth's mightiest heroes against each other.
With the release of The Avengers, the MCU achieved something once thought unattainable for a Hollywood movie: it convincingly weaved the stories of several blockbuster-headlining superheroes into one hugely entertaining film. That first-of-its-kind mega-crossover realized a plan that kicked off with Iron Man and developed with The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. The execution of Loki's plan, and the Avengers' response to it, made an epic and riveting story that helped drive the first Avengers movie to massive worldwide success.
Other villains have tried to divide and conquer the Avengers repeating Loki's Hulk plan in at least two subsequent Marvel movies. In the next Avengers movie, 2015's Captain America: Civil War, Helmut Zemo took the same approach to keep the already-quarreling Avengers from reconciling.
How Scarlet Witch & Zemo Repeated Loki's Avengers Plan
Scarlet Witch tried to divide the Avengers in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it's little wonder that she also saw the Hulk as a tempting target. Banner/Hulk's volatility is so central to his character that most adversaries would likely recognize him as a good point of attack to defeat the team. Also, from the screenwriters' perspective, the Hulk on the loose makes for a pretty bankable big-screen spectacle, and Avengers: Age of Ultron's Hulk vs. Hulkbuster battle was one of the most entertaining sequences of the movie. But Wanda using the tactic was still a copycat move.
Though the Hulk was elsewhere during the events of Captain America: Civil War, the villain managed to exploit other characters' weak spots well enough to aggravate the Avengers' ongoing internal divisions. Zemo manipulated Bucky Barnes, using HYDRA's trigger words to activate his dormant alter ego, the Winter Soldier. He then showed Tony Stark footage of the mind-controlled Winter Soldier murdering Stark's parents decades earlier. Zemo calculated that Steve Rogers would try to help his old friend Bucky and that igniting Stark's anger at the Winter Soldier would sow enough havoc to break the Avengers from within. This time, the plan worked better, leaving the heroes estranged at the end of the film.
It's easy to forgive the MCU writers for going back to the same well a couple of times. After all, turning The Avengers against each other is probably a more plausible battle plan for most villains than fighting the united squad head-on. And the next two Avengers installments, immensely powerful Thanos.
