The Biggest Mystery of Loki<\/em> Is Currently Lady Loki

The following story contains spoilers for Loki Episode 2, “The Variant.”

Loki, the latest Disney+ limited series from the Marvel Studios machine, is off to a fast start. How fast, you ask? We’re only two episodes in (of the series’ six total), and already the hype/theorizing/discourse machine is running a million miles an hour. Episode 2 of the show, titled “The Variant,” seemed to reveal in its closing moments the titular variant that Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) and, to a lesser extent, Loki himself (Tom Hiddleston) had been looking for: a woman, dressed in Loki’s signature Asgardian green, and wearing a similar horned helmet to the one he so often puts atop his head.

But while we’re left at the end of the episode to believe that it’s cut and dry that this “Lady Loki” (Sophia Di Martino) is, indeed Lady Loki, it isn’t exactly as clear. Fans online were quick to notice that the character seems to share many traits with Sylvie Lushton, a version of the Marvel character Enchantress often associated with the Young Avengers. And while it’s hardly a confirmation, the credits for dubbed international versions of the Loki episodes credit the character as Sylvie.

But perhaps those indicators are wrong, and it is Lady Loki. Marvel made it canon in the first episode upon his arrival at the Time Variance Authority that Loki, always a shape-shifter, is gender fluid. Lady Loki in the Marvel Comics is Loki—just in female form. This Lady Loki could be a variant of Loki from another timeline, sure, but it’s not the same gender-fluid Loki that has been established in comic canon.

That sort of leaves us with two options. Either this is Sylvie/Enchantress, which seems possible, or it is Lady Loki, from another timeline’s version of the God of Mischief who has instead taken on his female form. We can explain a bit more of that below.

What is Lady Loki like in the Marvel Comics?

While Loki is always a shape-shifter, following the devastating 2008 event “Ragnarok” (which, yes, was an influence for the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok), Loki emerged in Thor, Volume 3, #5, as a woman. Not shape-shifting and momentarily messing around, like we’ve seen him do in the movies (multiple times!) as Steve Rogers, but actually as a woman for the long haul. The characters were shocked by the change, but it didn’t take long before they got used to it, referring to Loki as a woman and accepting this new form.

Which…even just from that, you can see how it is already beginning to differ from what we’re seeing in Loki the MCU series.

Loki stuck around in this form for a few events, including in New Avengers (when a new, Wolverine-led team took over from the Tony Stark-led Avegners). In Original Sin: Thor and Loki — The Tenth Realm, it was revealed that Lady Loki wasn’t a long con or any sort of trick—this just was a part of who Loki is.

The character name ‘Lady Loki’ can be a bit confusing, because it almost sounds like someone that would be a love interest for the original version of the character. But in the comics, it may even be something deeper than that—giving an internal vision to an often morally ambiguous character, where a bit of introspection and character development can go a long way. We can only hope that the MCU version follows a similar path.


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