Natasha Romanova: Black Widow Appreciation 2022

[Digifiend]

It's who's the most iconic, not who actually has the most appearances. Anyone from the original or Kooky Quartet roster except Hulk would fit that description (Hulk's an iconic character, but not as an Avenger, since he left in issue 2). Most Avengers fans know the Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, Wasp, Captain America and Captain America, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver rosters. That's why Quicksilver qualified. And once you consider all of them, plus Vision, only one more slot is left.

Of course in the 90s Pietro became associated with the X-Men instead, being a member of X-Factor, which is why the X-Men movies ended up using him, but not Wanda who stuck to the Avengers until Disassembled.

A lot of fans cried foul when Black Widow and not Wasp was a founder in the movies. Before then, she wasn't an iconic Avenger, in fact she's associated with the team's worst era, the mid-90s just prior to Heroes Reborn (you know, the period with teenage Iron Man and mutated Wasp).

[chicago_bastard]

It's who's the most iconic, not who actually has the most appearances. Anyone from the original or Kooky Quartet roster except Hulk would fit that description (Hulk's an iconic character, but not as an Avenger, since he left in issue 2). Most Avengers fans know the Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, Wasp, Captain America and Captain America, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver rosters. That's why Quicksilver qualified. And once you consider all of them, plus Vision, only one more slot is left.

Of course in the 90s Pietro became associated with the X-Men instead, being a member of X-Factor, which is why the X-Men movies ended up using him, but not Wanda who stuck to the Avengers until Disassembled.

A lot of fans cried foul when Black Widow and not Wasp was a founder in the movies. Before then, she wasn't an iconic Avenger, in fact she's associated with the team's worst era, the mid-90s just prior to Heroes Reborn (you know, the period with teenage Iron Man and mutated Wasp).

That's why I wrote that there are other things to consider than just the number of appearances but if being part of a supposedly iconic roster is all there is then that's frankly not much. Would anyone count Archangel or Iceman among the most iconic X-Men just because they were part of the original roster? I find that to be a pretty flawed metric.

When I think of superheroes that fit the word iconic Quicksilver is one of the last names on the list.

And that's not only my opinion, here is a list from Marvel's editorial office in the 1970s where they clarified the importance of their characters at the time from three stars (very important) to one star (not as important):

Marvel 70s list.jpg

Sexist as they were back then no female hero got more than two stars but what's even more telling is that Quicksilver is one of very few characters (along with Ringo Kid, the Watcher, and a Ghost Rider they already had replaced at that point) deemed so unimportant by Marvel that they gave him only one star. And that was in the 1970s when the supposedly iconic Kooky Quartet was still in everyone's fresh memory and yet even then Quicksilver was deemed absolutely unimportant by Marvel themselves. So that backs my opinion that Quicksilver isn't and never was iconic no matter what team he was a part of.

[Matternativ]

With the talk about Nat being an Avengers mainstay or not, where would you all rank her if you made a list of the most iconic Avengers? Does she make the top ten? Strictly 616 that is, so ignoring all other media.

Honestly at this point probably moreso than a founding member like Hank Pym in part because he wasn't always the most motivated to even be there.

With her going a little more lone wolf (example: Hickman run) than say, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Vision, Witchy or Hawkeye I'd rank her a bit below them (of course if it was about my favourites she'd be top 3 or 2, easy) probably on the same level as Janet.

Of course as someone who jumped in with the Bendis run I have to push back Wolverine, Cage or Spiderman in my mind considering they only really stuck around for a certain period of time.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, after Hickman left, Bendis's changes were basically undone. Wolverine and Luke haven't been Avengers since, and nobody who was on Waid's teams carried over to Aaron's, which got Spidey booted off the roster.

[Frontier]

Honestly at this point probably moreso than a founding member like Hank Pym in part because he wasn't always the most motivated to even be there.

With her going a little more lone wolf (example: Hickman run) than say, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Vision, Witchy or Hawkeye I'd rank her a bit below them (of course if it was about my favourites she'd be top 3 or 2, easy) probably on the same level as Janet.

Of course as someone who jumped in with the Bendis run I have to push back Wolverine, Cage or Spiderman in my mind considering they only really stuck around for a certain period of time.

I feel like Hank's been on more "main" rosters than Natasha has been but that might just be me extrapolating from memory.

[Matternativ]

I feel like Hank's been on more "main" rosters than Natasha has been but that might just be me extrapolating from memory.

He probably has but from what little I read of those he mostly seemed to be around because if Janet that is if my brain isn't borrowing that solely from the earth's mightiest heroes TV show.

[kcekada]

With the talk about Nat being an Avengers mainstay or not, where would you all rank her if you made a list of the most iconic Avengers? Does she make the top ten? Strictly 616 that is, so ignoring all other media.

Top 10? No. It would be difficult for me to rank any Avenger as the most iconic if they didn't play a major role in the first 200 issues of Avengers. That said, Natasha certainly was a part of those issues off and on. I don't read Avenges these days -- and am not sure if she is part of the current team or not. But just going by her guest appearances early on -- and leading the team in the 90s, she would probably make top 20.

[kcekada]

Yeah, the top 10 would probably be Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Wasp, Hank Pym, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Vision, Hawkeye, and Carol Danvers. And that 10th slot is the only one that isn't a no-brainer.

I'd rank Black Panther above Ms. Marvel. Again though, I'm basing this on the first 200 issues where the series was mostly consistently good. I think Quicksilver's inclusion is fair, but debatable.

[kcekada]

A lot of fans cried foul when Black Widow and not Wasp was a founder in the movies. Before then, she wasn't an iconic Avenger, in fact she's associated with the team's worst era, the mid-90s just prior to Heroes Reborn (you know, the period with teenage Iron Man and mutated Wasp).

While the end of the Bob Harras run did self-destruct, I think most of his run was good. Maybe not everyone agrees, but I don't think it's the worst era. That would be either the second Shooter run where Hank Pym went bonkers and Tigra turned into a scaredy cat -- or the Simonson run which featured one of the worst Avengers line-ups of all times.

[OOTCS]

I feel like Hank's been on more "main" rosters than Natasha has been but that might just be me extrapolating from memory.

I think that up until his death in Rage of Ultron, Hank was on some Avengers team or other nearly constantly, even if he wasn't technically a team member during West Coast Avengers, and the last few teams were adjectived Avengers (Mighty Avengers, Avengers Academy, Secret Avengers, etc.).

I would also count Quicksilver in my top 10, even if we're not counting number of appearances, because he was part of the iconic Kooky Quartet lineup.

I would also rank Black Panther above Carol Danvers, and Carol above Natasha, so I think that would make Nat #12 on my list? After that would be characters like Black Knight, Tigra, Mockingbird, She-Hulk, Falcon, Wonder Man, Beast, Spectrum, and so on.

[chicago_bastard]

A curiosity from the past: Found out that Scarlett Johansson wasn't the first to play Black Widow in a live-action adaptation. That honor actually belongs to Elizabeth Gracen from the 1990 movie The Death of the Incredible Hulk.

Blackwidow1_1_.jpg

Yeah, that's her in the role so they didn't bother too much with a comic accurate look, but since her story in the movie follows Nat's Silver Age origin the black hair is somehow fitting.

This movie was the third of a trilogy of Hulk films and they always had a guest star, the first one had Thor, in the second it was Daredevil and in this one Black Widow, well kind of.

She's actually never called Black Widow, not even Natasha (she goes under Jasmin here, which could be explained by her being undercover) but from her background and skills it's obvious that she is an adaptation of her. In that regard it should be noted that the protagonist of these movies was named David Banner instead of Bruce, so they didn't really bother with comic accurate names anyway.

So how is Jasmin an adaptation of Natasha? She is a spy working for a Soviet organization who happens to be a master of disguise and a capable martial artist. She is forced to do an infiltration job in the US because her sister's life is threatened by the Soviets just like it was the case with Nat's parents in the comics (which was later retconned of course, but in 1990 the Red Room wasn't introduced yet).

Her and David Banner fall in love (makes me wonder if Whedon took some inspiration from this movie for Age of Ultron^^) which leads to her defection, so Banner is Clint's replacement here.

Another fact: Gracen was Miss America prior to her acting career so at least they always try to do Natasha's beauty justice in these adaptations

[Matternativ]

That is indeed a suspiciously high ratio of live action black widows being into Banner, lol.

[chicago_bastard]

Any gamers here? The Marvel's Avengers game has added a new skin for Black Widow that gives heavy 90s vibes. Well at least they had the priorities right by including golden belt and bracelets.^^

avengers_bw.jpg

[Frontier]

Any gamers here? The Marvel's Avengers game has added a new skin for Black Widow that gives heavy 90s vibes. Well at least they had the priorities right by including golden belt and bracelets.^^

avengers_bw.jpg

Wow! They didn't downplay Natasha's sex appeal (and functionality) .

[Matternativ]

Any gamers here? The Marvel's Avengers game has added a new skin for Black Widow that gives heavy 90s vibes. Well at least they had the priorities right by including golden belt and bracelets.^^

avengers_bw.jpg

Yeah but honestly it kinda reeks of desperation.
Between the sudden eye candy skins and the lack of a campaign accompanying the latest hero I feel like they are just about to drop support for this "life service" game.