'Avengers: Age Of Ultron': Who Is The Woman In The Cave?

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.

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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Nebula

One widely-spread and almost certainly incorrect guess is Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy. Sure, the character is bald like the woman in the cave but her skin color appears visibly different. Plus Guardians director James Gunn has been outspoken about the fact that the Guardians and Avengers' storylines will, for the most part, stay their own course:

Regarding the bigger picture, we all agreed on one thing, and that was to keep huge chunks of the Guardians separate from the Marvel heroes of earth, because they have a whole galaxy to explore. We wanted to use them as a way to make the MCU bigger, not smaller. We wanted to make sure they have their own mythos, as opposed to only one that is intertwined with the earthbound characters. They ARE connected, of course, but that connection would not be the purpose of their stories and fictional lives. When I'm asked about the Guardians and their future, and whether they'll meet up with the Avengers I really don't have all that much to say, because some of it isn't decided yet, and I don't want to give away what is decided

Wakandan Dora Milaje

Other Marvel readers believe the woman in the cave could be connected to The Black Panther. And why not? Even Marvel head Kevin Feige has said the African land of Wakanda plays a part in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and we all know thats where Black Panther resides. Could this mystery woman be part of the Dora Milaje, a group of women warriors tasked to protect the Wakandan royal family? This seems like the most likely explanation.

X-Men's Storm

Some commenters have said that the woman in the cave looks like X-Men's Storm, a character who has a huge comic book history with The Black Panther (including a backstory and eventual marriage). But of course Fox owns the right to that character so she couldn't possibly appear in a Marvel Studios film. Marvel could always create a new character to serve as a stand-in for Storm, but this possibility seems rather very unlikely.

DeathDeath is a character who has already been alluded to in previous Marvel Studio films. In the post-credits button scene for The Avengers, Thanos simply smiles after being told that challenging the Earth's heroes would be to court Death. This theory, however ridiculous, comes from someone who noticed the shot, seen right, from the first Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer.

Thor appears to be in the same cave location that features one of our mystery women. What could that mean? One suggestion, is that even if these women are not the same character, they both share a connection to Thor.  Some fans speculate that the woman could be Death and that Thor dies in a confrontation with her, which could be one of the hallucinations caused by Scarlet Witch. Remember that Thor's storyline will eventually be headed towards Thor: Ragnarok, which is due in 2017. So we have some idea of where his character is headed.

ShuriComicBook.com brings up this possibility for the woman in the cave, pointing to the headgear's possible feline shape.

With T'Challa set to debut in Captain America: Civil War, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities for groundwork to be laid in Age of Ultron. An appearance by T'Challa's younger sister and future Black Panther Shuri would certainly provide said groundwork. Ulysses S. Claw was featured prominently in the previous trailer as well as this one. The super villain has a long history with the Wakandans in the comics given that he assassinated T'Challa and Shuri's father, T'Chaka. The princess tracking down her father's murderer would be an excellent setup for Civil War as well as 2017's Black Panther.

Of the Black Panther tie-in possibilities, I think this one is least likely.

What Do You Think?

There is a possibility that the character(s) is a new creation invented for this particular story, but it seems more likely that Marvel is incorporating one of the over 7,000 comic book characters in their library — I mean, why not? There's a huge possibility that the woman (women) are character(s) from the Marvel comic book universe that we haven't mentioned in this article.

Out of all the possibilities, for the woman in the cave at least, a connection to Black Panther seems most likely. We know that film is set up in this one, we know that film is coming and maybe the pool is some kind of building block to vibranium. Of course, anything is possible but the lady in the cave is most likely someone from Wakanda, Africa. At least, that's what we think.

Which characters did we not mention? Which possibilities did we miss? What do you think the true identity of this/these character(s) is? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!