That Mysterious Loki Variant Gets Her Own Character Poster

When "Loki" first dropped on Disney+, the biggest question was what this new version of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) would be like. 

After all, the Loki who we had come to know in the years after the first "Avengers" movie came out — the Loki who grew, changed, formed deeper bonds with his brother, and redeemed his past to become a self-sacrificing hero — is no more, following a fateful Thanos encounter in "Avengers: Infinity War." The Loki in the new series, in contrast, is fresh off a world domination plot, and never learned his lessons. However, the show's first episode caught this new Loki up to date (at least in theory) very quickly, since he was forced to learn those lessons vicariously by looking at all the records the Time Variance Authority has on the journey of the Loki from the sacred timeline.

Putting a pin in how evil our protagonist Loki may still be, though, the show immediately introduced another, even more mysterious Loki variant for fans to obsess over: it turns out that what appears to be a female version of Loki has been dispatching the TVA's Minutemen, and, even before we see her face for the first time in the second "Loki" episode, "The Variant," the question is — "Why?"

That remains to be answered. In the meantime, Marvel has released a new poster featuring our mystery villain, and true to form, it raises even more questions.

Is the so-called Lady Loki truly Loki, or someone else entirely? We have already had one potential (and potentially accidental) spoiler in the form of the Castilian Spanish credits, where the supposed new, variant Loki played by actress Sophia Di Martino isn't listed as "Loki," but as "Sylvie." And related to that strange inconsistency is the fact that back in March 2020, Flickering Myth reported that Cailey Fleming from "The Walking Dead" was playing "Young Sylvie" on the Disney+ series.

To make a long story short, there is a Marvel character named Sylvie Lushton who gains magical powers from Loki, without her knowledge. The consequences of Loki granting Sylvie those powers is that she becomes an incarnation of the Marvel villain the Enchantress — and it also sets her on a road to revenge against Loki.

The new "Loki" poster itself featuring Di Martino as Loki (or, potentially, the Enchantress) isn't overwhelmingly remarkable — she's got a horned crown, we can see her cloak has a green lining, and there's a look on her face that seems designed to give away nothing. But the tweet attached to the image quotes her most important line on the series, thus far — "This isn't about you."

If Di Martino isn't actually playing a Loki variant, then in a very literal sense, her actions are unrelated to any Loki. Similarly, even if this is a version of Sylvie who was manipulated by Loki, she likely wasn't manipulated by this Loki. Mobius (Owen Wilson) tells Loki that time works differently at the TVA, so who knows what a different Loki might have gotten up to while this variant was under Mobius' care?

New episodes of "Loki" stream Wednesdays on Disney+.