Black Widow Review: A Dark Avenger’s Past Brings a Bright Future to Marvel.
On the eve of April 22nd, Marvel fans lined up to watch what would become the highest grossing film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Endgame. That day marked the beginning of Marvel’s phase four, but it was also the end of many of our favorite superheroes. Whether happy or tragic endings, the Avengers, as we know them, were scattered and disbanded. Among the lost was the first female avenger, Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow.
We first encountered Black Widow in Iron Man 2 as a S.H.I.E.L.D. undercover agent, and she soon became an essential piece of the franchise. Despite having no superhuman powers, Black Widow is a trained spy with a variety of skills that allow her to keep up with the rest of the team. Black Widow is an extremely elusive and complex character, and it took more than 10 years for us to learn more about her. The Black Widow movie was released a couple of weeks ago and it reveals much about Natasha’s mysterious past.
Regarding the MCU timeline, the majority of the film is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, while the beginning is set in 1995 and the post-credit scene occurs after Avengers: Endgame.
After not seeing a new Marvel movie for a while, I did not know what to expect from Black Widow. This movie is not your typical superhero movie; instead, the MCU delivered an action-packed spy thriller. The film follows Natasha as she tries to dismantle the organization that created her and many others like her. Natasha’s mission leads her to meet with people from her past and reconcile connections that were once lost.
This is a well-executed movie with a high entertainment value, and I 100% recommend that you watch it. The film is a great story about one of the Avengers and the perfect farewell to a beloved character.
With all of that said. . .
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Like any good Marvel movie, the story created more questions and the post-credit scene created even more. The post-credit scene shows Natasha’s adoptive sister, Yelena, going to visit Natasha’s grave and being intercepted by her employer Valentina. Valentina is a fairly new character in the MCU, with her only other appearance in an episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. She delivers a mission (and the audience knows she lies) where she asks Yelena to kill her sister’s killer, Hawkeye. This end-scene opens the possibility for another movie, this time featuring a new Black Widow and possibly a new member of the Avengers.
While new questions were created, old ones were answered, such as the Budapest mission. Even though Marvel still holds tight to their chest the full details about this mission, we finally learned more information about it. Budapest was Natasha’s induction mission to S.H.I.E.L.D. and her first attempt at killing Dreykov. Perhaps if we get a Hawkeye information, we will finally get the whole story on Budapest.
As part of the franchise, Black Widow makes a fantastic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as a stand-alone movie it is an amazing spy film. This bittersweet goodbye to Natasha Romanoff pays a great tribute to the complex character she is and shows that through it all, her greatest power is resilience.
