Marvel Comics showed the best way to end Black Widow‘s story years ago – if only Marvel Studios had paid attention. The Marvel Cinematic Universe sadly failed Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. Writers struggled to pin down her character and role, resulting in a strangely uneven portrayal. That’s probably one reason viewers became so interested in Black Widow’s past, simply because it seemed so much more intriguing than her present. It didn’t help that Marvel waited until Phase 4 for a solo Black Widow movie that felt like it was five years too late.
Black Widow’s death in Avengers: Endgame has proven particularly controversial, coming after a pretty standard fight between Hawkeye and Black Widow over who should be sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone (this was literally the third time the MCU had shown a scrap between the two). The film didn’t even end with a funeral scene, with the final moments instead reflecting on the death of Tony Stark. Ever since, it’s felt as though Marvel Studios writers have been trying to find a way to make this right, giving her both a gravestone and a legacy. It’s not felt particularly convincing. Ironically, though, Marvel Comics showed a better direction years ago – if anybody had noticed.
Related: The MCU Has Still Failed Black Widow – Even After Her Solo Film
Black Widow Would Make A Perfect Director Of SHIELD
Back in 2014, Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto’s tremendous Black WIdow series featured a scene in which one of her friends reflected on Natasha Romanoff’s fate. “I always thought you’d end up taking a director’s position at SHIELD,” Natasha’s friend Isaiah observes in Black Widow #7. The comment is an amusing one, made because Isaiah couldn’t imagine Black Widow ever retiring, and thus imagined a better outcome than the obvious alternative – the one the MCU chose.
SHIELD has had many directors in the comics, from Nick Fury to the (even more) controversial Maria Hill. Black Widow would be the perfect director, though; she understands spycraft from bitter experience, and she’s actually a lot more used to working as part of a team than most would realize. This would also be the natural completion of Natasha’s character arc, in that it would complete the story of redemption that’s been woven through her life. It’s always seemed odd that the world still distrusts Black Widow, when she’s served as a high-profile Avenger for so long, and at one point even paid the ultimate price for saving the world (these are comics, of course, so death is even less final than it is in the MCU).
Marvel Studios chose a different direction, of course, shutting down SHIELD and more recently setting up the Contessa’s CIA as the premiere spy agency. Yelena Belova’s ‘new’ Black Widow is actually working for the CIA, repeating Natasha’s role with SHIELD, even getting a by-the-numbers fight with Hawkeye too. The MCU didn’t take a hint from the comics for the first Black Widow, and it’s sadly doubtful Yelena will take that path either.
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