Who Is The Postman Lady Loki Is In Love With? Comic Book History Explained

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Loki episode 3, "Lamentis".

Loki episode 3 revealed Lady Loki has managed to maintain a serious relationship with a postman while gallivanting through time - so who is he? There's something delightfully quirky about Marvel's Loki TV series, which stars Tom Hiddleston as the trickster god and Sophia Di Martino as the Loki variant wreaking havoc in the timeline. Loki episode 3 saw the two characters given an unexpected chance to bond, with Lady Loki - who prefers to be called Sylvie - revealing her background, and even opening up a little about her love life.

Neither variant of Loki is particularly enamored with the idea of love, with Sylvie suggesting love is actually hate, while Loki himself came up with a hilarious drunken metaphor about love as a dagger. But in between the banter, Sylvie admitted she has somehow maintained a serious long-distance relationship with a postman while running across time from one apocalypse to another. "With charm like that, who could resist you," her erstwhile nemesis/antagonistic ally observed drily. But just who is this postman, who has so caught the attention of a Loki variant?

Looking to the comics, Marvel's most prominent postman was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby himself, all the way back in 1963. Willie Lumpkin is an elderly gentleman who became the mailman to the Fantastic Four at their base, the Baxter Building, and he became enough of a friend to the heroes that he was regularly invited over to celebrate Christmas with the family. As you'd expect, Willie's proximity to superheroes meant he regularly got drawn into their adventures, and in fact he became a time traveler when he was used as a pawn by a powerful being called Tempus. He never dated a Loki in the comics, though - instead winding up going out with Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May, which of course meant Willie ended up getting caught up in even more superhero crises. It would be so fitting for Lady Loki to be in a serious relationship with Willie Lumpkin - and, in fact, it would even be a subtle nod to Stan Lee's cameos, because he played the part in 2005's Fantastic Four and 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Stan Lee as Willie Lumpkin in Fantastic Four

Willie Lumpkin may be Marvel's most famous postman, but there has been one other notable one in the comics - a mutant who went by the codename Postman. He was a kindly gentleman who became leader of a tribe of Morlocks, mutants who had hidden themselves in the sewers of Chicago because they had grown tired of human persecution. He's only ever appeared in a handful of issues, whose continuity is highly debatable because the plot details didn't really match up with current events in the comics. It would be amusing for Lady Loki to wind up in a relationship with someone whose continuity is questionable. Alternatively, of course, this mysterious postman could just be a random human character, not anybody with any connections to the comics at all. In that scenario, there'd be a striking comparison between Lady Loki and Thor's relationship with Jane Foster.

The really interesting question, though, is just how Lady Loki has managed to maintain this relationship. It's possible this is intended as an obscure reference to the sci-fi romantic drama The Lake House, in which letters were delivered across time, drawing two people together in an unexpected romance; could that be how Lady Loki communicates with her postman, by traveling back in time to send him love letters? Hopefully future episodes of Loki will reveal more about this surprising romance.

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Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.