Black Widow originally appeared in Tales of Suspense #52 as a Russian antagonist to Iron Man. Widow - Natasha - defects from Russia a few issues after that, not before which she's recruited Hawkeye into her anti-Tony crusade. But she relents, and soon thereafter joins the Avengers. Her design wasn't quite there, but her personality was.
This isn't the beginning of Natasha as we know her, though. That would be in Amazing Spider-Man #86, where John Romita decided to give her a facelift - and wardrobe change. Romita was a big fan of Miss Fury, a popular Golden Age heroine now in the public domain, and wanted to do a story. Stan Lee countered with a different suggestion - "why don't we redesign the Black Widow costume based on Miss Fury?"
Natasha took on Miss Fury's skintight suit, ditched the mask, and was given wrist bracers that... fired spider webs. (Still a work in progress.) From then on, the Widow we know now was born. She did time with the Inhumans, bumped around with Daredevil, and joined the Champions - all in the '70s! Widow would continue to be a woman of many faces, usually allied with the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D.
Recently, I had the pleasure of reading three different Widow stories:
- Black Widow: The Itsy-Bitsy Spider #1-3
- Black Widow: Breakdown #1-3
- Black Widow (2004) #1-6
and came out with some new personal perspectives on the character.
The 2004 series got me thinking about Natasha and her relationship to feminine hegemony. Widow's outfit and body type are designed to be slinky, seductive, and sexy. Many writers, I think, have a tendency to take those traits at face value. But Richard Morgan's take on the character invites readers to think about Widow's own perspective on her looks. While some may insist, "sexualized characters talking about sexualization are still sexualized," I'd posit sexual attraction is part of the human experience and it should be discussed + depicted + examined critically as opposed to being done away with! Wild, I know.
Where Morgan impresses me is in his setting. His Widow takes a road trip across America, after a pro-choice activist is murdered at a rally. The activist was actually a retired Russian operative, hoping to settle down and make America a better place through her causes. From its first issue on, Widow '04 takes a critical look at women's lot in 21s century America. Aside from the reproductive rights beat, the series also examines mass media and beauty standards' place in rape culture. Natasha often squares off against catcallers, and defends women from would-be rapists.
Widow is also at odds with designer brands and luxury in Morgan's spin. At one point in the story, she rues the gendered expectations that come with gifts. "I prefer rock climbing and reading books," she says, after oping that women are often lavished with impractical, "pretty" trinkets. It's a line that puts her at odds with other sneaky skintight femmes, like Black Cat or Hellcat or Catwoman. (So many cats!) Where those characters often value expensive and glamorous things, Natasha resents that gendered expectation.
Natasha, too, resents women that want to be like her. Given her first full story arc in The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, Yelena Belova is the second Black Widow. She was trained to outdo, overtake, and replace Natasha, who the KGB deemed as "too American" after her time with the good guys. Yelena initially is eager to prove herself at every turn, arguing, fighting, and defying Natasha in any scene they have together. Natasha isn't threatened, but she is concerned at how her hellish existence is something that anyone would consciously strive for.
"Pity" is probably the best word to describe Natasha's feelings for Yelena. Despite repeat warnings that being a pawn for powerful men use against each other isn't all it's cracked up to be, Yelena refuses to relent. She puts herself in the line of danger for a country that views her as disposable. In Itsy-Bitsy Spider, it gets her captured by enemy combatants with only Natasha willing to bail her out. But Yelena doesn't learn her lesson from this experience, and Natasha is forced to teach her in a more extreme fashion.
Breakdown takes more than a few cues from John Woo's Face/Off. Natasha and Yelena are given a surgical swap - each cosmetically altered to look like the other. This is done against Yelena's will, and when she comes to, she goes on the lam as Natasha tries to give chase. Natasha, on the other hand, has a bigger plan here: to drive Yelena away from her abusive and destructive Red Room masters. It's in this limited series that Widow has a clear and marked sympathy for her blonde counterpart, even if she doesn't want to show it.
This hits on a deeper theme that made Breakdown really resonate with me. Widow - having been tortured, conditioned, and brainwashed - knows what it takes to make a Black Widow. She knows that it's life filled only with betrayal and death, and that a cocksure go-getter like Yelena isn't cut out for it. That her independence is too bright of a spark to let any governmental apparatus dull. Her pursuit and capture of Yelena - along with the bonkers-crazy face-swap scheme - is her way of trying to preserve that, and to show Yelena the value of her individuality. She puts aside country and ideology to touch the young agent on a deeper, more universally feminine level.
Taken together, these stories illustrate Widow's complex relationship to her femininity. She's cognisant of her lot in life, whether she's in middle America or the middle of Russia. She's been enough places and seen enough things to understand where women fit into the global theater of war, and she's tired of it. Perhaps, she figures, her die is already cast and she has to carry on with her work in whatever way helps her sleep at night. But being exposed to the suffering of other women jolts her into awareness - into a reflection on her own trauma and the places it's taken her.
In this sense, then, Widow reflects the lived experience of femmes across the gender binary. Being pigeonholed and typed for your looks; getting reduced down to only your most essential functions; being a talking point for more powerful governing bodies. And unlike someone like Carol Danvers or Jennifer Walters, Widow has to stomach it all as a mere mortal. Just like the rest of us.
