Who Is The Enchantress In The MCU?
When it comes to the God of Mischief, nothing is ever quite as it seems. So, when the second episode of "Loki" ended with the mysterious Loki-Variant stepping out of the shadows to reveal her (yes, her) face, fans had questions.
While it wouldn't be surprising for Loki to take up a female form on the Disney+ show (both the comics and the original Norse myths acknowledge that of course a magical shapeshifter would present as a woman every once in a while), fans noted that Sophia Di Martino — who appears as the "Variant," set with Loki's famous horned headpiece — happens to look a lot like another chaos-loving Asgardian: Amora the Enchantress. And though we soon learned that this particular "Lady Loki" goes by Sylvie (a name with its own roots in the comics), she shares some important connections with this classic character fans have been waiting to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Here's what you need to know about Enchantress, and what her role could be in the MCU.
The Enchantress first appeared in Silver Age comics
The Enchantress — an Asgardian by the name of Amora — is a powerful magic-wielder, beautiful seductress, and sister of fellow femme fatale Lorelei (who appears in the first season of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.").
In 1964's "Journey into Mystery" #103, Thor's father Odin is unhappy that his son has fallen for a mortal, Jane Foster. Loki convinces Odin to send the Enchantress to seduce Thor away from his Earth-bound girlfriend. Amora jumps at the opportunity, having long wished to seduce Thor
However, on Earth she finds Thor is immune to her looks and her magic, so she sends Skurge the Executioner (you might remember his appearance in "Thor Ragnarok," played by "The Boys" star Karl Urban) to assassinate Foster. Thor stops them, and for their failure, Odin banishes the pair to Earth.
Enchantress has come face to face with many of our favorite Marvel heroes and villains
On Earth, Enchantress and Skurge would go on to join Baron Zemo's Masters of Evil, where they battle the Avengers time and time again. Enchantress is particularly known for her clashes with fellow magic-users like Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch. For instance, in 1985's "The Vision and the Scarlet Witch" #9, she mesmerized Wanda Maximoff's synthezoid husband into assisting her in a Mardi Gras jewel heist. She would also briefly team up with the Mandarin — not Ben Kinsley's red herring, but Marvel's villainous mastermind set to appear in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of Seven Rings" — in 1967's first-ever "Avengers Annual."
But like most of Marvel's best baddies, Amora's morality isn't exactly black and white. As the Enchantress, Amora teams up with her fellow Asgardians to fight Surtur as he attempts to end their world in 1985's "Thor" #350. She also aids Magneto in one of his anti-hero phases in battling the Red Skull, as seen in "Avengers & X-Men: AXIS" #2 in 2014.
Amora is not the only Marvel character to go by the name "Enchantress"
In "Dark Reign: Young Avengers," a younger Enchantress appears among a group of teen superheroes who've co-opted the name "Young Avengers," from the original team consisting of Kate Bishop's Hawkeye, Speed, Wiccan, Hulkling, Stature, Patriot, and a new version of the Vision. The new team — with its morally ambiguous to downright villainous tendencies — clashes with the OG Young Avengers.
Enchantress, however, desires to become a real superhero. She admits to Wiccan and Hulkling that she's not the Asgardian Amora, but a human teenager from Oklahoma named Sylvie Lushton, who woke up one day with the powers of her Asgardian namesake. The original team decide to allow Lushton to join them.
However, when the team learns Lushton was given her powers by Loki as an attempt to infiltrate the Young Avengers' hideout, Wiccan banishes Enchantress. While Wiccan latter explains it was a precautionary measure to fix the breach in their security system, Lushton finds it hard to trust them going forward.
So, how will Enchantress appear in the MCU?
The MCU tends to focus on the newer iterations of its beloved comic book characters — Scott Lang is now everyone's favorite Ant-Man and Carol Danvers is, for all intents and purposes, the Captain Marvel of the MCU, just as Kamala Khan will be the Ms. Marvel. So it's not a stretch to think that the on-screen Enchantress won't be Amora at all — she'll go by the name Sylvie Lushton. Though we still don't know much about her past or her motives, the "Loki" series has already established the powers of enchantment wielded by its version of Sylvie.
With "WandaVision" introducing the Scarlet Witch's twin sons, Eli Bradley appearing on "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," and the upcoming "Hawkeye" series bringing Kate Bishop to the screen, there's already been speculation as to whether the Young Avengers will soon make their onscreen debut (an aged-down version Loki himself appears in the series' later issues). Di Martino's entrance might bring us one step closer to the MCU's latest team-up.
In the meantime, fans will wait to learn more about Sylvie before we can know for sure whether she's a new Asgardian face, a reimagined old one, or maybe Ralph Bohner's sister.