Black Widow in the MC2

 

After too many delays we’ll finally see the release of the Black Widow movie. For those of you keeping track, you’ll know I’ve previously covered Natasha Romanoff’s five fellow MCU founding Avengers, but until now I’ve held off on covering Black Widow.

 

 

As I briefly touched upon in a past post, Natasha Romanoff as the Black Widow is seen in Spider-Girl #60 on both the issue’s cover and within the thoughts of May ‘Mayday’ Parker as the latter reflects on her place amongst the other superheroines who came before her. Natasha is not seen among the gathered Avengers who travelled to an alternate earth for the original team’s final mission. So at least we can likely rule out her dying on the mission. Either way, no specifics are given, and as such her status remains unknown.

 

The Black Widow doesn’t make a physical appearance in the MC2 outside her ‘Zombie’ counterpart’s decaying visage in Avengers Next #1. There, stolen blood and tissue samples of Avengers members past and present are used by the Asgardian Sylene to create ‘magical clones.’ These shambling creations are sent against the current generation of Avengers. Requiring constant magical energy and attention to maintain, the duplicate Black Widow crumbles to dust alongside the other doppelgängers when Sylene’s focus is broken. It’s unknown at what point Natasha provided a sample of her blood and tissue to the Avengers.

 

To add a little context, let’s take a look at the most likely point at which the MC2 Black Widow would have diverged from her Main Marvel Universe counterpart. As I’ve covered in prior posts, the MC2 Avengers history seemingly splits off from the Main Marvel Universe prior to the events seen in Avengers (vol. 3) #1. Unlike many of her teammates, Natasha did not seemingly sacrifice herself during the Onslaught event and wind up as Heroes Reborn in a pocket dimension created by a young Franklin Richards.

 

But as Natasha doesn’t play a significant role in these aforementioned events, it seems likely we can include her Main Marvel Universe counterpart’s history up until a little after the Avengers team returns in Avengers (vol. 3) #1-4. The reason I’m suggesting this is two-fold. First, there aren’t a huge number of major appearances during this period of time for Natasha, mainly some Daredevil issues and solo adventures in Shadows & Light and Journey Into Mystery. Second, when Natasha is next back in the spotlight under the Marvel Knights imprint’s Black Widow mini-series, there is a very clear shift in tone and we start to see retcons surrounding her origin and past. Thus, it makes a lot of sense to propose this as the point at which the MC2’s Black Widow diverges from the Main Marvel Universe.

 

On the subject of retcons to Natasha’s origins, an oft-cited reason for their necessity is Natasha’s appearance as a child during World War II with Wolverine and Captain America (Uncanny X-Men #268). Even when this story was published in 1990 it presented a continuity problem: why did Natasha appear so young in the present-day if she was around as a child back then? Well, the truth is that this was not the first time, with Daredevil #88 explicitly depicting Natasha as child in Russia during World War II far earlier.

 

While there were several stories that mentioned Natasha’s training as a spy for Soviet Russia dating back to her earliest appearances, the Marvel Knights Black Widow mini-series' are usually credited with putting a name to the concept (the Red Room’s Black Widow Ops Program) as well as greatly expanding and building upon the idea with further retcons, such as the implication Natasha was actually an enhanced human and as such had a better immune system, healed faster and didn’t age as fast. ‘But this all takes place after the MC2 divergence, why are you mentioning all this?’ I hear you say. Let me try and explain.

Long-time readers know I struggled with the World War II origins of Peggy Carter and the impact on Sharon Carter and the rest of the family. I’m happy to say, I’ve not had as many issues reconciling Black Widow’s appearance in WWII and her surprising longevity. Thanks to this throwaway exchange between Natasha and Nick Fury in Marvel Comics Presents #130 published in 1993, long before the aforementioned divergence or later retcons:

Nick Fury: ‘Y’know how many guys are runnin’ ‘round with spandex on their butts and secret formulas in their guts?’

Natasha: ‘Like Infinity Formulas?’

Nick Fury: ‘Or Super Soldier Serums?’

Natasha: ‘Touché’

 

So, while this isn’t explicit, the fact that Natasha directly mentions the ‘secret formula’ that keeps Fury youthful and the fact Fury seems to be responding in kind regarding Natasha certainly makes it seem like the Black Widow has some kind of Super Soldier Serum flowing through her veins. There you have it, a readily available explanation for her longevity and abilities tucked away in an obscure issue without having to reach further forward into a mess of further future retcons and their unfortunate implications.

 

Where ever Natasha Romanoff is in the MC2, I hope she’s happy. I’m personally of the belief she’s alive and well, living off the grid someplace, laying low and doing what she does best.

 

 

Until I uncover more hidden lore for my spymasters, I remain

frogoat

 

 

 

 

History of the MC2: Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return

Usually I use the History of the MC2 to chronicle the past events of specific individuals and teams. This time, I'll be making a far more vague entry just to outline a few things I've been considering for some time.

Onslaught was a massive crossover event published in 1996 that saw the Avengers, Fantastic Four and even Doctor Doom apparently perish saving the world from the psychic entity known as Onslaught. It's revealed that Franklin Richards used his amazing abilities to create a pocket dimension to save his parents and all the other heroes. The reborn heroes would awaken in this pocket dimension to live out new lives, unaware of their pasts. This event was called Heroes Reborn.


In this new world, the Fantastic Four and Avengers came about under different circumstances, there doesn't appear to be any mutants, there's apparently two Thor's (one created by Franklin and the real Odinson) and iconic events play out differently. These were all published as the second volume of each of the titles; Fantastic Four Vol. 2 #1-12, Avengers Vol. 2 #1-12, Iron Man Vol. 2 #1-12 and Captain America Vol. 2 #1-12. Long story short, the heroes were all eventually returned to the Main Marvel Universe and things went back to some semblance of normality with Heroes Return. The Fantastic Four and Avengers reformed in their respective third volumes and that's where I want to point out a few things relating to the MC2.

Despite the common belief that the MC2 uniformly branches off from the Main Marvel Universe around the time the Spider-Man titles published the Gathering of Five storyline in 1998, the truth is far more complex and far less clear. For example, I've mentioned the Pym Twins once or twice but you'll notice I left out any mention of their birth in the History of the MC2: The Avengers because- given there is supposedly only a 15 year gap between the Main Marvel Universe and the MC2- they shouldn't be adults. Yet, they appear to be full grown adults in A-Next and subsequent appearances.


So, what's my point? Unlike comics published in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, the 90's aren't as clear cut. The heroes of MC2's history is almost entirely identical to that of their Main Marvel Universe counterparts when it comes to comics published from the 60's to the 80's but the 90's are where we start to see changes. So the MC2's Janet and Hank Pym must have conceived Hope and Henry Pym Jr while their Main Marvel Universe counterparts were experiencing the events published during the early 90's. Hopefully that didn't just confuse everyone. Additionally, despite these changes, events must have continued to unfold for MC2 Janet and Hank (and indeed the whole Avengers team) in very much the same way as they did in the Main Marvel Universe. In fact, the same could also be said assumed for the Fantastic Four of the MC2 as well. Why?

This seemingly throwaway line from Franklin Richards during a flashback in Fantastic Five (Vol. 1) #4 goes a long way toward confirming that the events of Onslaught, Heroes Reborn and Heroes Return occurred in the MC2 in some way, shape or form. Ergo, we can deduce that most of the events leading up to that point in the MC2 unfolded parallel to the Fantastic Four of the Main Marvel Universe. We can stretch this to other similar references in A-Next #7, which shows flashbacks to the original Avengers final mission in the MC2. As the team's roster and costumes are very similar to those of the Main Marvel Universe Avengers post-Heroes Return, we can reasonably assume both share similar histories up to that point, with events unfolding vastly differently afterwards.


Much as I'd like to continue pulling at this thread of thought, I think it best to leave things there for now. Needless to say, if you take away anything from this, it's that the 90's (and the very early 2000's) are up in the air and not as set in stone as the rest of the MC2 characters shared history with the Main Marvel Universe. Therein lies the fun of speculating.

Until I find another reason to ramble on about what I'm sure no one else cares about, I remain

frogoat