As I’ve discussed in several recent posts, lots of heroes disappeared or rebooted, as comics moved into the 1970s. The Black Widow’s reboot was one of the successful ones, as witness it surprises me to realize she rebooted at all. The Bronze Age take feels so obviously right for her, it wasn’t until this Silver Age re-read that it sunk in how different it was from what went before. Though as reboots go, it’s a lot less flashy than, say, Green Lantern.
(This is a post from a couple of years back, reprinted with a couple of changes to fit into my Silver Age reread).
When we first see Natasha in Tales of Suspense #52, her weapons are her looks and the cunning to use them.
The rough stuff is handled by her musclebound partner Boris (yes, Boris and Natasha, Stan Lee’s little joke). Even after the Soviets equipped her with boots for walking up walls, a webline and a “widow’s bite” bracelet ray-weapon, she still relied on men to handle most of the mano-a-mano work — Hawkeye, then later Power Man and the Swordsman.
In 1970, that changed. Amazing Spider-Man #86 starts with Natasha in costume —
—but she soon upgrades to the sleek black look she’s worn, with minor variations, ever since. While she resembles both Emma Peel and late-1960s Diana Prince, John Romita credits Miss Fury, an earlier superhero, as his inspiration. Either way, the look works.
She’s now a deadly karate master to boot. Fighting prowess has become such a part of her identity, it didn’t register until now that it wasn’t part of her original skill-set. The story itself is mediocre — Natasha battles Spider-Man because, reasons — but it’s still a landmark.
The reboot establishes that she’s now a wealthy international jet-setter to boot. Both the Spider-Man story and the Amazing Adventures series that followed establish it doesn’t suit her as much as the adrenalin rush of her other life.
No hint where the money came from — did she appropriate funds from the KGB? — but in any case she can’t jet-set long before swinging back into action. Amazing Adventures introduced her chauffeur, Ivan, but he became much more important once Roy Thomas started writing the book. Roy made Ivan ‘tasha’s devoted servant/sidekick, Alfred to her Bruce, plus he’s a powerful guy in a fight. He also spouts American gangster slang, having learned English from old Warner Brothers films. While he faded out of the picture eventually, in the 1970s he was always at her side.
Roy Thomas also tried to give Natasha a spider-motif —
— but I don’t belief that little detail caught on at all. Small loss — and even with the red markings, I’m surprised a New Yorker’s first thought wasn’t of Spider-Man.
Logo aside, this was a reboot that worked.
#SFWApro, Art top to bottom by Don Heck, Jack Kirby, John Romita, Romita again, John Buscema and Gene Colan.
That first panel shows how Heck was more suited to general drama, intrigue and even romance rather than straight-up superheroics, as contributors like yourself I’m sure have mentioned, plus commenters and websites elsewhere. I would also initially put Romita more in that former category, but he seemed able to adapt far swifter and easier after his Marvel return.
That Colan/Everett (I’m 90pc sure he’s the inker) art is of course ace.
Heck clearly had more fun setting up Happy/Pepper flirtations than the fight scenes.
As I know I mentioned somewhere, I’m much impressed that Romita’s work never feels padded the way some Marvel method artists do. He credited his romance work — having to build the visual on often thin plots — though of course Heck had plenty of experience there too.