One of the biggest fan discussions coming out of last night’s second trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron revolves around a brief shot showing a mysterious woman who shows up for the first time. In fact, the trailer has two mysterious new women. Who is the woman in the cave? And who is the woman seen behind Thor? Lets talk about some of the possibilities after the jump.

The first appearance comes right after Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) explains that “Trouble always comes ’round”. We are presented with the above shot of a woman in a cave disrobing. Who is she?

And then there is a shot later in the trailer of Thor seemingly being zapped with a blue electric spark. It is cut to give some sense of continuity from the preceding shot, in which Ultron shoots a red electric charge. Clearly these are not directly connected shots. In fact, the woman seems to be casting a spell, based on her movements. Is she not attacking Thor with energy, but in fact drawing lightning out of him?

A close-up of one particular frame shows a hand gesture (above left) that is familiar from other Marvel Comics spell-casters such as Dr. Strange (above right.)

Who Are These Characters?

Fans want to know who is the woman in the background of this shot? And is it the same woman from the cave? (No, clearly not, despite some similar manner of dress.) Who are these women? Here are some possibilities.

The Woman Attacking Thor

Moondragon

The woman in the cave shot seems to have a shaved head, while them Thor shot shows a woman wearing green tribal clothing, leading some to believe it could be Moondragon, a vastly powerful telepath, master martial artist, and telekinetic who has been occasionally connected to Thor in the comics. She also ties into the Thanos storyline in comics, and to Drax’s history, too.

Hela

A powerful god, Hela is the child of a previous incarnation of Loki, and the Asgardian rules of the land of the dead. All things considered, the woman seen here seems powerful, but still too minor to be the Asgardian version of Death. Still, as we’ll see on the next page, Death is a character that will be coming into play soon thanks to Thanos. Hela is a frequent antagonist for Thor, and we won’t rule her out yet.

Enchantress

At times a love interest for Thor, other times an enemy, the greenish costume and magic use vaguely point towards this regular character from Thor comics. But Amora the Enchantress is typically blonde, and is more likely to be introduced as a more major character, in a mode different from this. She seems like a low-odds option given what we see here.

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