The MCU’s Black Widow Is Defined By One Comic Book Miniseries
The 2010 Black Widow: Deadly Origin miniseries rewrote Natasha Romanoff’s origin story ahead of her MCU debut – and it’s had a profound impact.
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Warning: This post contains Black Widow spoilers.
The MCU’s Black Widow is essentially defined by one comic book miniseries, and that is Black Widow: Deadly Origin. It’s taken a long time for Scarlett Johansson’s super-spy to get her own solo film in the MCU, and it’s resolved many of the mysteries surrounding Black Widow. The film is particularly notable for finally revealing what really happened in Budapest when Natasha Romanoff betrayed the Red Room and attempted to assassinate its leader as the final step in her defection to SHIELD.
The character of Black Widow was created back in 1964, so naturally, there have been a lot of comics published starring her over the decades (and Black Widow’s current run is the strongest she’s ever had). The movie draws inspiration from quite a wide range of comics, notably including the 2004 miniseries by Richard K. Morgan and Bill Sienkiewicz, but curiously enough the MCU’s Black Widow is most strongly influenced by the 2010 miniseries written by Paul Cornell, Tom Raney, and John Paul Leon. Cornell had been hired to straighten out Black Widow’s origin story ahead of her MCU debut in Iron Man 2.
Cornell’s miniseries rewrote the history of the Red Room; where previous stories had suggested Natasha Romanoff was the only “graduate” to become the Black Widow, it revealed all the women who became its agents were given that title. Aspects of the Red Room’s training were outlined in more detail than ever before, introducing the idea Widows were trained in ballet as cover for their international travel. Most chilling of all, the comic revealed Widows were sterilized at the end of their training, a way of forcing them to abandon all hope of ever having a normal life, of building a family like Natasha’s undercover one. Joss Whedon wove all these various elements of the fabled Red Room into Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film which acts as the foundation that Black Widow builds upon. However, the impact goes beyond that.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin features familiar technology, with Natasha Romanoff using the same face mask seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Black Widow. As it is an origin story, it includes characters who have now been incorporated into Black Widow’s MCU story as well, such as Rachel Weisz’s Melina, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, and David Harbour’s Red Guardian. The latter presents the greatest change perhaps, as Red Guardian’s comic book counterpart features him as Natasha’s lover rather than her “father.” And it sees Black Widow don a white costume for camouflage in the snow, an iconic concept adapted straight into Black Widow.
Even the central theme of Black Widow: Deadly Origin informs the recent movie, because it is essentially about agency; in Cornell’s story, Black Widow discovers an enemy who is using nanotechnology to take control of those nearest and dearest to her, whereas in the recent movie this is substituted for chemicals. The comic book plot ends with Natasha discovering her opponent on the Dreadnought, a Soviet equivalent to the SHIELD Helicarrier that had been built without her knowledge, and Black Widow concludes with her uncovering a base hovering high in the skies. The conceptual similarities are striking, confirming just how remarkably influential Paul Cornell’s Black Widow: Deadly Origin has been – it’s pretty much defined the Black Widow character and her arc for the MCU.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/black-widow-mcu-deadly-origin-miniseries-defined-inspiration/