Does Black Widow Make an Appearance in the New ‘Loki’ Trailer?

About two minutes into the first trailer for Disney+’s upcoming Loki series, eagle-eyed fans may have spotted something that seemed a little out of place. Sitting on a rock, watching a planet collapse, was a red-haired, black-clad woman, her back to the camera. It’s not clear, of course, but the implication is there: that some how, some way, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) survived Avengers: Endgame. But is that really her? Does Black Widow make an appearance in the new Loki trailer?

Look, I’ll be honest up front: we have no actual idea at this point, particularly given the series isn’t even coming to Disney+ until May, 2021. We do know that the series will star Tom Hiddleston as Loki, jumping off his alternate timeline escape via the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame. We also know it will co-star Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Richard E. Grant, Sophia Di Martino and Sasha Lane, and is showrun by Michael Waldon, and directed by Kate Herron.

And thanks to the footage, we also know something that has been speculated about for a while: a large part of the series will be the TVA (Time Variance Authority), which employs Owen Wilson’s fussy businessman and others. Given the variety of Lokis (we see one from Marvel’s “Vote Loki” miniseries by Chris Hastings and Langdon Foss from 2016) in the series, and the fact that there’s an alternate timeline Loki seemingly jumping to different places through the multiverse, chances are that we might see some old Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) friends pop in for guest appearances.

That’s where Black Widow comes in. Fans will see her next on screen in Black Widow, which is sticking to its theatrical release date of May 7, 2021. However, that movie reportedly takes place post-Captain America: Civil War. It’s also been reported that Florence Pugh, who plays Natasha’s “sister” Yelena Belova in the movie, will appear in both the Hawkeye Disney+ series and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. To draw some of the threads together, it seems likely that Black Widow will wrap up Natasha’s story, and find her passing the torch to Yelena posthumously.

…None of which prevents Natasha from showing up on Loki. Though that red-haired woman could be anyone, and she could be anywhere, the trailer certainly seems to be teasing that’s Black Widow, and she’s on the planet Voromir — the place where she sacrificed her life in Endgame so that Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) could get possession of the all-important Soul Stone.

Which raises another question, of course; or questions. If that is, in fact, Black Widow, is Loki meeting her in some sort of Soul Stone afterlife? A deleted scene from Endgame found Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) doing the same thing with his now grown-up daughter, so it’s certainly possible. Or is this some back-door way of resurrecting Natasha? Or is it not even her at all, and in fact some sort of trick? That would, naturally, fit nicely with Loki’s character.

Whatever is going on in that blink-and-you-miss it shot, we’ll know more when Loki premieres on Disney+ in May.