As Yelena Belova gets her own series in White Widow #1, she faces off with Captain America – and makes sure Steve Rogers knows that she’s a serious player in the Marvel Universe. A product of the Red Room experiments that created Black Widow, Yelena has often played second fiddle. But now, she’s making it clear that nothing but Number 1 will do.
In a preview of Sarah Gailey, Alessandro Miracolo, Matt Milla and Travis Lanham’s White Widow #1, fans get a flashback to a recent mission where Yelena faced off with Steve Rogers. Cap confirms that her target is secretly part of the Avengers’ information apparatus and does his best to recruit Yelena, just as he once brought Black Widow onto Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Yelena turns down Cap’s recruitment tactics and clarifies why she won’t give up her life as a killer, saying, “I’m the greatest assassin in the world.” It’s a major claim, but one that makes sense given the Red Room’s success in creating world-class agents.
White Widow Is Marvel’s Deadliest Assassin
She May Be a Hero, But She’s Also a Red Room Killer
For years, the White Widow has been the agent you call when the Black Widow refuses – Natasha even posed as her to infiltrate Norman Osborn’s team of reject villains, the Thunderbolts. However, Yelena’s recent adventures (and her increased fame in the MCU, where she’s played by Florence Pugh) have seen her rise to new heights. Now, Yelena Belova is striking out on her own, free of the Red Room and stepping out of Black Widow’s shadow. Will she follow Natasha’s example and become a full-blown superhero, or use her unparalleled assassin skills to kill off the world’s biggest threats?
While Yelena Belova was long more of a professional rival to Black Widow than an ally, Natasha’s death in Secret Empire (referenced here) reconfigured their relationship to be more sisterly. The two worked together in LA, while White Widow also recently teamed-up with Red Guardian to expose the secrets of their past in the Winter Guard. Yelena is definitely on a path of redemption, and it’s clear that Captain America’s admonition to “become a force for good in the world” is ringing in her ears. But how exactly does settling down in suburbia serve that mission?
What Is Yelena Belova’s New Mission?
Suburbia Is Home to Marvel’s Weirdest Threats
It’s likely that White Widow has her eye on a new target – after all, it wasn’t long ago that Black Widow found herself brainwashed and living a ‘perfect’ life in order to take her off the board. Likewise, Marvel’s heroes recently exposed Pleasant Hill – a mind-warping prison which trapped supervillains in a fake small-town life – and MCU fans know what happened to Westview in WandaVision. Whether Marvel’s deadliest assassin is sincerely starting a new life in suburbia or just scoping out her next target, it won’t be long until the White Widow finds a new mission worthy of her talents.
White Widow #1 is available from Marvel Comics November 1.
