Warning: spoilers for Marvel’s Black Widow #4 below!
For some heroes of the Marvel universe, preparedness is everything. Characters like Punisher, Hawkeye, and Black Widow may be weapons experts, world class athletes, and proficient with multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat, but without tactical awareness, threat assessment, and meticulous preparation, they do not stand a chance against superpowered beings and/or literal Gods. In Black Widow’s case, scrupulous planning and attention to detail is what keeps her one step ahead. Inevitably, though, even the most careful planners will make a costly miscalculation.
Marvel relaunched Black Widow’s solo series in September. Right out of the gate, it made its intentions clear: Natasha is shot, wakes up several months later, and has no recollection of being an international assassin or Avenger. In fact, she thinks her name is Natalie Grey. She lives just outside San Francisco, and works as an architect. She is happily engaged to an ordinary civilian named James, with whom she has a beautiful, red-haired son. Last month’s issue culminated in a lethal implant in Nat’s neck triggered, and everything faded to black for her. In the opening page of the latest issue, Nat comes to. Instead of placing her into a vegetative state, the implant triggers her memories. She remembers everything with “perfect clarity.”
Now properly Black Widow once again, Natasha’s instincts and skillset take over. She evaluates the situation rationally, even with her new family’s lives on the line. Analyzing potential threats and scenarios, she tells James to wait upstairs until she calls his name. As instructed by a shadowy roundtable of villains, Hydra agents attempt to sneak into the house to assassinate the family. In a very brilliantly conceived and executed set of pages, one by one the agents are disposed of by Black Widow. But she ends up jumping downstairs, to take out the bulk of the intruders on the main level. Upstairs a single agent sneaks in through the balcony door, and is about to attack James and Stevie, but is knocked out by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh’s character from the upcoming film) right in the nick of time. That single mistake nearly cost James and Stevie’s lives.
Yelena, who James and Stevie know as Nat’s friend “Helen,” helps the family escape to an old safe house of the Widow’s. Natasha is forced to have the difficult conversation with James of forever separating with her new family. She makes it clear that although their memories were implanted and their lives set up for them, the subsequent three months or so were indeed real. The family bond they have, the love they’ve developed, is very real. Together they decide that once they escape the safehouse James and Stevie must leave and never see Natasha again, or they’ll never be safe. Hours later, Hawkeye and Winter Soldier arrive to help get the family out of their predicament. Black Widow leaves Stevie and James to rest in the family room, where through the window they are spotted from a rooftop across the street. In the crosshairs of a night vision scope, an explosive is launched into the room, seemingly killing both Stevie and James.
Uncharacteristically, this is the second tactical misjudgment Black Widow made in this issue. She was lucky her error at the house didn’t cost her family their lives. Yelena – depicted in this book as somewhere between a best friend and a sister figure – bailed her out. Unfortunately, at the safe house all her allies are inside, plotting out a defense strategy. There is no backup lying in wait. No failsafe this time. And the price was cataclysmic for Nat. It’s entirely possible spending more than a year divorced from reality, combined with the manipulation of her brain, has dampened Black Widow’s most valuable skill. If the Black Widow and heroes like her don’t button up every loose end, that methodical planning is all for naught. Even the smallest oversight can cost her dearly.
