Black Widow

Black Widow's character poster

SHIELD

Former schoolteacher

Ballerina

Assassin

Mercenary

Black Ops Operative

### Education

Intensive espionage training through Taras Romanov, the Red Room Academy, and others

## Origin

### Origin

HumanRussian Super-Soldier, expertly trained intelligence agent

### Creators

Stan LeeDon Heck

> *The following information comes from Black Widow*
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**Black Widow** (Russian: Чёрная вдова, transliterated *Chyornaya Vdova*) (**Natalia Alianovna "Natasha" Romanova**, Russian: Наталья Альяновна "Наташа" Романова , also known as **Natasha Romanoff**) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by editor and plotter Stan Lee, scripter Don Rico, and artist Don Heck, the character first appeared in *Tales of Suspense* No. 52 (April 1964). The character was first introduced as a Russian spy, an antagonist of the superhero Iron Man. She later defected to the United States, becoming an agent of the fictional spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and a member of the superhero team the Avengers.

Scarlett Johansson portrayed the character in the films *Iron Man 2* (2010), *Avengers Assemble* (2012), *Captain America: The Winter Soldier* (2014), *Avengers: Age of Ultron* (2015) and *Captain America: Civil War* (2016) as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. In The Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy she is portrayed by Georgia Haines.

## Biography

### Early Life

Natasha's life prior to joining the Avengers is shrouded in mystery both through SHIELD being unable to find anything and Natasha herself not wanting to talk too much about it. What is known, based on what she as revealed from declassified documents, is she was part of a highly secretive KGB project to create super assassins and that she was a part of it since she was 5 years old.

### KGB Career

As an assassin for the KGB, Natasha was the top agent, highly trained in hand to hand armed and unarmed combat, efficiency with all types of firearms, deadly accurate shot, fluent in over a dozen languages, agile, able to hack into the most secure systems and an expert in covert operations with a mission success of 100%. She was unrivalled in her skills with the KGB even recruiting individuals into the newly established "Black Widow Program" including one Yelena Belova. Her training, as she states, involved long periods of isolation, gruelling physical tests and psychological evaluations all of which meant she was determined, focused and free from any form attachment.

### SHIELD and The Avengers

Natasha's skills meant she was a target for organisations the world over, including the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division better known as SHIELD. Details of the situation are highly classified but what is known is that SHIELD sent Iron Man and Hawkeye to eliminate her. While they did defeat her, she vanished in the ensuing explosion that rocked the building they were in. She later reappeared at the Avengers HQ bloodied and with a broken arm revealing she had been targeted for elimination by the KGB after she failed to protect a HVI (High Value Individual). After much evaluation, she joined SHIELD and later the Avengers

### My Own Worst Enemy

The events of The Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy take place a year after Peter's battle with Venom.

## Powers and Abilities

**Hand to hand combat** - As the Black Widow, Natasha is a deadly combatant in close quarters situations armed or unarmed, trained in various forms of martial arts such as karate, judo, jujitsu, aikido, kung fu and many others

**Agility** - Natasha is a world class athlete, gymnast and acrobat capable of complex manoeuvres and counter manoeuvres

**Marksman** - She is an expert in long range sniping, on par with Hawkeye and The Punisher

**Weapon proficiency** - Natasha is able to use any type of weapon from blunt and bladed melee weapons to semi- and fully-automatic close range and long range firearms as well as vast knowledge on different types of explosives and military gadgetry

**Espionage** - Black Widow is highly trained in all forms of intelligence gathering, assassination, covert operations, infiltration, deception and observation

**Other** - Due to procedures carried out in her training, Widow is immune to almost all kinds of diseases, viruses and poisons, she has a high IQ bested only by the likes of Tony Stark and Hank Pym as well as the ability to quickly process information and assess threats in a matter of seconds so as to adapt to any situation and an expert tactician

### Equipment

Being proficient with any and all weapons, Widow uses a wide range. Her suit is bulletproof granting her defense from weapons firing up to a standard 7.62mm round but not against the likes of the 12.7mm round fired from a Barrett M82. The suit is also lined with a mesh that adapts to varying climates and acts as an extra defensive measure against grappling opponents. On her wrists, are multi-purpose bracelets equipped with a variety of offensive and defensive measures such as grappling hooks, tear gas pellets, smoke screen dispenser and allowing her to deliver blows that deal up to 30,000 volts of electricity. Her belt can clip on different types of lethal and tactical grenades, a combat knife or more commonly holsters for her Beretta M9 handguns. Sometimes she equips a backup knife on an ankle holster or a smaller Makarov handgun. Widow sometimes arms herself with electrified batons for close quarters as well as compact variants of the German MP5, the HK416 assault rifle and the Intervention sniper rifle among her arsenal.

## Behind the Scenes

Moore had only one person in mind for the role of Black Widow and that was Georgia Haines. The pair had worked together on the Halloween themed event Frightmare in October 2016 so Moore knew full well her acting ability, having complete confidence in her for her audition. Haines auditioned on January 15th and was subsequently cast in the role. Moore went on record explaining she was chosen because of her appearance and personality being very similar to the character not only in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but also the comic universe too.

The costume took heavy inspiration from the character's costume in *Avengers: Age of Ultron* sporting the same blue lines and gauntlets and was made by Moore himself for a previous user. "I dated a girl earlier in the year for whom I made the Widow costume for as it was quite cheap, quick and simple to make so she could join me in costume at a funday I was attending but she obviously wasn't a cosplayer and so wasn't going to keep the suit when we broke up so I kept it for when someone else would come along to use it". The suit made use of items Moore had in his possession including an old pair of football shin pads with bullets from a plastic bullet belt glued on and painted black for the gauntlets accompanied by a belt with gun holsters. "When I saw photos of Georgia in the suit I immediately knew I made the right choice and seeing her in person wearing it was even cooler as she basically looked exactly like the character".

She began filming on September 4th and completed filming the following day, filming all her dialogue and interactions for important scenes in the movie, making use of close ups and camera angles. "I was wary not to write too much for Widow as I knew Georgia wouldn't be with us for much longer so we filmed the most important scenes at locations we had access to" explains Moore. "Any scenes with Widow in we will switch that character for one of the others".

In December 2017, Moore announced the reboot of the movie with My Own Worst Enemy but that the character would return with a planned production start in 2019. Moore wanted the character to return being open to Haines reprising the role and she too expressed interest in returning. The character was written into the script for her to return.

## Trivia

* In early 2018, Moore and Haines discovered the look of Black Widow for the new Spider-Man cartoon bore a striking resemblance to Haines' portrayal. While it is unlikely Marvel based the character's appearance on Haines, it was still a humourous coincidence that was joked about