Black Widow has long been a player in the Avengers, and in the build up to this summer’s Avengers film she’s become the female face of the Avengers. But with all her adventures with others and on her own, Natasha Romanoff’s own story is one that’s surprisingly hard to pin down.
Created in 1964’s Tales Of Suspense #52 by Stan Lee, Don Rico and Don Heck, Black Widow emerged in the Cold War as a Russian super-spy trained to be the Soviet equivalent to America’s super soldier program. After a corporate espionage operation against Tony Stark goes sour, Romanoff begins to bristle at her handlers’ orders and defects to the U.S. and becomes a high-level operative for S.H.I.E.L.D. and later part of the Avengers. Over the years she’s formed partnerships with Hawkeye, Daredevil, and the Red Guardian, but its her former trainer-turned-lover Bucky Barnes that seems to have captured the loyalty of the former Russian spy.
Although she’s nearing her fiftieth year in existence in Marvel comics, Black Widow’s personal story is largely untouched. She’s had a handful of solo series over the years, but no one’s been able to clearly tell a definitive story that sticks with readers. In a way that helps the character become more mysterious with readers as a intriguing supporting character in larger ensemble pieces, but it’s made learning more about her a tough task for any fledgling fan. But that’s where we come in to help.
Black Widow: Web of Intrigue: This Marvel Premiere Classic really targets Natasha’s key stories from yesteryear. Of particular interest is the 1990 OGN story Black Widow: The Coldest War by Gerry Conway and George Freeman, which follows Black Widow on the final days of the Cold War. Bringing in real like political elements such as the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the swarm of KGB agents going into business for themselves, Natasha is the target for an attempt to get her to become a double agent for her homeland. Another good entry in this is the early 80s story from Marvel Fanfare that this book took its title, featuring George Perez drawing a more straight up superhero story for this red-headed femme fatale.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin: Created to coincide with her movie debut in Iron Man 2, this book attempts to create a dummy’s guide to Natasha Romanoff. Writer Paul Cornell really juggles to cover all the elements of her story, and having artists Tom Raney and John Paul Leon trade off drawing scenes adds a unique, but sometimes confusing, facet to the book. At the end of the day it’s a good standalone introduction to Black Widow, but nothing to the level of Batman: Year One or the like.
Black Widow: Homecoming: Natasha Romanoff is a Tom Clancy heroine taking up with the superhero crowd, and this series by novelist Richard Morgan really hones in on that giving a story that’s less superheroic and more espionage with a heaping helping of Russian history. This downplays the more sexual nature of the character that others play up, instead focusing on the fangs and the vindictive and never-say-die nature of Natasha. And seeing Bill Sienkiewicz draw this in tandem with Goran Parlov really sets this story apart from her Avengers counterparts.
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Never heard of the Homecoming one. Sounds interesting. Also, Sienkiewicz is a plus.
why aren’t the Marvel Knights Devin Grayson/ Greg Rucka run and the MAX Pale Little Spider arc on here? Those are great!
Rucka did a great 3 issue mini, might not have been the Romanov BW
that was Pale little Spider, which featured Yelena Bolova, but he also co-wrote her introduction with Devin Grayson in another 3 issue mini that also featured Natasha and had great Scott Hampton art. Plus there’s also the Devin Grayson penned Marvel Knights mini that had JG Jones art.
Lets not forget Marjorie Liu’s run I think it went 9 issues before being cancelled, I really like that series.
Duane Swierzchsy wrote the last arc of that, which was really good. i picked it up when he came on and was sad to see it go.
Glad you mentioned that, i really liked the last 3 issues of that Black Widow run which was to be continued in the mini series Widowmaker with her and Hawkeye for starters (other characters to enter) then that mini continued in Hawkeye: Blindspot. I thought the whole connection was good and a good representation of these characters in they’re espionage elements. I think the last Hawkeye and Mockingbird run lead into this too. They all lead into one another and should be collected into one HC with a good title. Widowmaker is a solid title but think they already collected them 4 issues alone in a tpb, with this little movie coming out, this collection could be a hit, i think I’m on to something here guys. If I had the say so at Marvel it would be greenlit for sure.
Maybe Ed Brubaker will tackle this issue in Winter Soldier.
I’m gonna have to buy one of the books mentioned in these Where Do I Start articles.
“The Fire Next Time”, by writer Scott Lobdell and penciller Randy Green, in Journey into Mystery #517–519 (Feb.–April 1998) and XMen 268 (1990) with Jim Lee, that’s where i would start and build from those stories an ongoing series.
I started with old Avengers comics (circa 1966).
I really enjoyed Black Widow when she co-starred in DD & BW, back in the Bronze Age tag-team craze.
We had DD & BW, Cap and Falcon, Marvel Two-in-One, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Triple Action, etc.
Some of those titles sound a bit more risque to me now than they did in 1974.
From the people who brought you Giant Size Man-Thing.
I think the Black Widow era of Avengers might have been reprinted in MTA.
It would be interesting to see someone slice out all of her various Silver Age appearances in other titles in put them all in chronological order in one volume.