2020-04-01_Total_Film

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Five comics to read

before the film...

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Where did that ‘white Widow’

costume come from? Answer:

Paul Cornell’s conspiracy-

basted thriller, written for her

MCU debut in Iron Man 2,

with brusque dialogue

influenced by Daniel Craig’s

Bond. Cornell’s murder-

mystery finds ingenious ways

to explore Romanoff’s past,

major cameos included.

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Forced to go rogue, Natasha

hurtles back into her past in

Mark Waid’s 2016 arc. An

intriguing villain (Weeping

Lion) and some clever variants

on the Red Room feature,

but it’s the bruising action

sequences that slam this

one home.

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Ninja mayhem and volcanic

lava rank among the giddy

excesses of Jim McCann and

Duane Swierczynski’s 2010-11

tale. Romanoff joins Hawkeye

and Mockingbird to investigate

a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s murder

in a globe-trotting espionage

arc. An old friend waits in

the wings...

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Widow meets Widow in Devin

Grayson’s three-issue 1999 arc,

where Romanoff does battle

(and trades identities) with

Yelena Belova. The leering

artwork is iffy, but it’s the

generational tensions between

Widows that make this pivotal

chapter bite.

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Marjorie Liu’s 2010 classic puts

Romanoff on the run, forcing

her to think on her feet. An

attempt on her life kicks off a

feast of cameos and extreme

violence: one tasty scrap

involves eyeball-gouging.

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e have unfinished

business,” says Black

Widow in the trailer for

her long-overdue

headline movie. Throughout her

56-year comics career as a spy, villain,

antihero, hero, killer and more,

Natasha Romanoff has been subject

to multiple makeovers – brainwashed,

memory-wiped, self-reinvented, killed,

cloned, zombiefied and more in a

history of retcons. Combined with her

supremely adaptable skill-set, the

sense that there’s more to her than

even she knows helps explain her

longevity: she’s practically made of

unfinished business.

If you want to confuse matters

Widow-related, Marvel had a character

named Black Widow in 1940, real name

Claire Voyant (oof). She was a psychic,

but that’s another story. Introduced on

the cover as a “gorgeous new menace”,

Black Widow proper debuted in Tales Of

Suspense #52 in April 1964, under

creators Stan Lee, Don Rico and Don

Heck. Tasked with helping fellow agent

Boris Turgenov assassinate defected

Soviet scientist Professor Vanko,

Madame Natasha was a devious and

non-costumed Russian super-spy.

Besides infiltrating Stark industries (a

set-up well-developed in Iron Man 2),

she doesn’t do much at first except

skulk with insidious intent. But she is

a canny Cold War operator, able to turn

situations to her advantage.

After her encounters with Iron Man,

she continued her career as an antihero

who was dubiously defined by her

relations with men. For a while, the

“daring, dazzling, dangerous” Widow

was involved with a besotted Hawkeye,

then a circus performer suspected of

criminal activities. When Natasha’s

feelings for Hawkeye caused her to

doubt her loyalties, Russian operatives

brainwashed her. In 1965, the Russians

also gave her a costume that would

have made anyone defect: a fishnets

and bathing-suit combo, with an

eye-mask resembling granny glasses.

Thankfully, she got the weaponised

wrist-wear and climbing gear, too.

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Romanoff was a floating voter in this

period, consistent in her inconsistency.

After defecting, she was variously

shot by the KGB and kidnapped by

the Red Room. She battled the

Avengers alongside Swordsman and

Power Man, before rejoining Earth’s

Mightiest to help defeat the racist

Sons of the Serpent, the robotic

Ultroids and others.

Some semi-certainties emerged,

subject to tweaked perspectives over

her lifespan. Her name is Natalia

Alianovna Romanova, or Natasha

Romanoff in the US. Born in 1928 of

uncertain parentage, she was orphaned

when Nazi soldiers attacked Stalingrad

in 1942 but saved by a Russian soldier

named Ivan Petrovich, who became

her surrogate father. In one reading,

Petrovich dispatched her to the KGB

and their Black Widow training

program, otherwise known as the

Red Room. Alongside receiving false

memories of ballerina training, she

would be granted an unusually long

life, “peak human” strength, a strong

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TOTAL FILM | APRIL 2020

COVER STORY