It’s three days until I will get the chance to see Black Widow, the first Marvel movie I will have seen in theaters since Endgame over two years ago, and I am ecstatic.

In preparation for the movie I did a Marvel movie marathon where I watched every film that featured Black Widow. It took two days to complete and it was pretty fun but what was most fascinating is watching the writers evolve Natasha Romanoff from this flirty eye-candy broad in a tight black suit to a bad*** leader and a true hero.

In Iron Man 2 she, of course, was sexualized the most as Tony ogled at her and she flirted with him in turn. In The Avengers while she thankfully wasn’t forced to have a romance with anyone, namely Hawkeye, she was still forced to be sexualized at the beginning of the movie. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier she’s practically flirting with Steve Rogers the whole movie, even kissing him when they have to evade HYDRA which is warranted but wasn’t totally necessary. And in Avengers: Age of Ultron Whedon came out of left field and bombarded Black Widow with this romance with Bruce Banner that nobody saw coming but kind of made sense? The movie gives us the best idea of her haunting past in the Red Room, including letting us know that she was sterilized. It’s a terrible piece of information that gives her character so much more depth but Whedon ruins the moment by comparing her sterilization to being a monster. Ugh.

And so, that’s her story in those four films. Then she returns in Captain America: Civil War and suddenly she’s a totally different person.

Continue reading My Personal Marvel Marathon Cast a New Light on Black Widow →