Black Widow

First introduced in the Tales of Suspense #52 in April of 1964. As a recurring character in an Iron Man feature the Black Widow originally acted without her signature costume. A few issues after her introduction she pulls in Hawkeye and a few issues after that she is given her costume and high tech weaponry by the Russian government. She soon becomes a recurring ally of the Avengers in issue #29, in July of 1966. Black Widow was reintroduced wither signature look in the Amazing Spider-Man #86, July of 1970 in her skin-tight black suit and pistols.

The Russian spy was soon given her own limited series in the Amazing Adventures #1-8, starting in August of 1970 and ending in September of 1971. The series ended after only 8 issues and it would be After the shutdown of her own limited series, writer Gerry Conway decided that Black Widow would team up well with Daredevil and so created Daredevil and the Black Widow. The team up actually lasted from Daredevil issue #81-124 November 1971-August 1975, the joint team name lasted from issue #92-107. Gerry Conway’s successors decided that Daredevil worked better as a solo act later writing Black Widow out of the series. She went from Daredevil’s series to leading the Champions which ran for 17 issues from October 1975 to January 1978. Natalia finally found a level of consistency in the 80s and 90s when she became a regular member of the Avengers and a freelance SHIELD agent. She had a few featured spots in serialized stories, starting in Marvel Fanfare issues #10-13 in August of 1983 to March of 1984. This story was re-released in July of 1989 as Widow’s first solo compilation titled Black Widow: Web of Intrigue.

The origin story of Black Widow that we all know, the Red Room, the little girl that was raised as a spy was actually a retconned story, Her original origin remains that she was in fact an orphan left in the custody of Ivan Petrovich. He raised her as a surrogate father and she was trained as a soviet spy later in her life. In the more well known, and far more detailed origin Natasha was raised in the Black Widow Ops program from a young age. Not only was she trained in combat but she was also biotechnologically and psycho-technologically advanced allowing for a heightened sense of rational as well as extended life-span. After these advancements were made Natasha trained briefly with the Winter Soldier, even starting up a short-lived fling.

Black Widow has always been associated with the Avengers and SHIELD, she has had very few and short lived individual series. My concerns surrounding the movie are numerous;

1) I really wish it was an origin story, I think learning about the Red Room, her training with Winter Soldier and her recruitment into SHIELD would be far more interesting then the timeline between Civil War and Infinity War.

2) Black Widow was never, not once ever, in any issue that exists, apart of the Winter Guard. They had brief interactions when the Winter Guard would cross over with the Avengers, but she was not ever once a part of that team. In addition her sister was the only member of her family apart of that team, she was the only family Natasha had period.

3) I don’t believe that the introduction of the Winter Guard into the MCU is an important enough team to not tell Black Widow’s origin story and I think that using her first solo movie to essentially set up someone else’s story is a waste.

However I also had reservations about Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey, and it rebuffed all of my concerns and made me fall in love with its final product. So once this movie is finally released we will see how it holds up to the rest of the MCU.