Where Lady Sif Has Been Since Thor: The Dark World - CBR - Comic Book Resources

In the wake of Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, the list of surviving Asgardians not named Thor or Valkyrie has grown distressingly thin. Odin and Freya have passed, Hela claimed The Warriors Three during the events of Ragnarok, and half of the surviving Asgardians – including Heimdall and Loki – were murdered by Thanos at the beginning of Infinity War. (The variant Loki from his self-named series is still a going factor, however.) While a small contingent of Asgardians survived the horror, all of it took place before The Snap, meaning that almost none of their lost kinsmen returned at the end of Avengers: Endgame like the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

One of the few who remain is Lady Sif, who was MIA during the events of Ragnarok but is confirmed to return for Thor: Love and Thunder. The reasons for her absence had little to do with the storyline: actor Jaimie Alexander, who plays Sif, landed the lead in the TV series Blindspot in 2015, which lasted five seasons and doubtless created unresolvable scheduling conflicts. But now that she’s back – and with the MCU undergoing cataclysmic changes in the interim – it’s fair to ask where Lady Sif has been all this time.

Sif’s appearance in Love and Thunder is intriguing for several reasons. In the traditional Norse myths, she’s Thor’s wife, and while the MCU re-imagined her as a platonic friend of the Thunder God, that can still change. After all, Thor: The Dark World hinted that Sif might have romantic feelings for the Asgardian prince. Add Jane Foster to the mix – armed with Mjolnir and an accompanying power boost – and possible romantic entanglements of multiple varieties enter the fold. Furthermore, as one of the few named Asgardians still among the living, she can fill in a lot of background about unseen parts of the MCU in the events both before and since The Snap.

As to where she’s been, that takes a bit of inference and will likely be cleared up once Love and Thunder debuts. Officially, she was last seen delivering the Reality Stone to the Collector for safekeeping at the end of The Dark World. That meant she was still a warrior of Asgard when Loki seized the throne disguised as Odin. That was followed by a pair of appearances on Agents of SHIELD, where she claimed to be working on Odin’s orders. The show’s canon status is up in the air, but it suggests that Loki was able to keep up the ruse that he was the Allfather pretty convincingly, at least at first. Sometime between then and now, Sif simply disappeared. A simulacrum of her appeared briefly in Loki Season 1, Episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” but it was not the real Sif.

Word on her activities has more or less come from official sources rather than onscreen appearances. MCU guru Kevin Feige spoke on the matter to Cinemablend back in 2017, during the run-up to Ragnarok. He claimed that she was “probably banished” by Loki at some point, possibly for uncovering his secret but just as likely for refusing some asinine order or another. Love and Thunder will hopefully clear up the matter, but given Sif’s frequent wanderings in her canon appearances, it’s safe to say that she handled her exile adroitly.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo have the answer to an even bigger question. While speaking to The Huffington Post in 2018 about possible survivors of The Snap, they confirmed that she had fallen to it and would therefore not be in Avengers: Endgame. That makes sense since Alexander was doing Blindspot at the time, and Endgame had no shortage of heroes. Depending on Love and Thunder’s placement in the MCU timeline, it might also leave her in need of purpose and direction, closely matching Thor’s own expected arc in the film. Wherever she was, she would have returned from The Snap to a vastly different MCU.

Final answers will have to wait for Love and Thunder's release, of course, but given the confluence of factors, it’s bound to be interesting. Sif is a reminder of a world that Thor is trying to leave behind. If she was an exile, she’s likely further down that road than he is. Regardless, her own story is clearly not yet finished, and with multiple blanks still to fill in, the unseen chapters may have a great deal to say.

To find out how Lady Sif rejoins the fold, Thor: Love and Thunder strikes theaters on July 8.