Black Widow’s Weirdest Story Proves Marvel Is Obsessed With Her Fertility
The controversy surrounding Black Widow’s belly in Avengers: Age of Ultron continues, as the company made the exact same mistake.
In 2015, Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron received a good deal of criticism for the treatment of Black Widow – but the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t the only source of controversy. The Silver Age superhero has a long and rich history, appearing in over 50 years of comics, TV shows, and supplemental material. Marvel may have decided Natasha Romanoff’s fertility was a key issue in the Avenger sequel, but the company has already made that mistake.
Written and Directed by Joss Whedon, The 2012 Sequel The Avengers was a box office success but received mixed to positive reviews from critics and the public. Common complaints included an overabundance of jokes and comedic moments, uneven pacing thanks to the introduction of many main characters (Ultron, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, Vision, Klaue and the Hawkeye Family), and a long runtime. (despite the Marvel Creative Committee forcing Whedon to delete key scenes that would have better explained the plot). But the relationship between Natasha Romanoff and Bruce Banner – a couple who have never appeared in the comics – has been singled out as a major concern, mainly due to a controversial scene between the two characters in the second act of the movie.
As they hide in Hawkeye’s family home, Banner and Romanoff discuss the possibility of running away and starting a life together. Banner, possibly terrified of passing on his condition, insists he will never be able to have children, to which Romanoff responds “Me neither. In the red room, where I was trained, where I grew up, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It’s effective. One less thing to worry about. one thing that could be more important than a mission. It makes everything easier, even killing. Do you still think you’re the only monster on the team? “ Audiences believed Whedon was referring to his inability to father children as a monstrous trait, and the scene was infamous enough to prompt an explanation from Whedon: “Being sterile made her feel unnatural, made her feel cut off from the natural world. But it was her actions that defined her. Her murderous actions. That’s what ‘monster’ meant.”
Corn Age of Ultron It wasn’t the first time the company had referred to Black Widow’s fertility. In Marvel Knights: Millennial Visions in 2001, various authors imagine stories accompanied by works of art. For Black Widow, writer Amanda Conner imagines the future of 2017, in which a new Black Widow is cloned from a combination of Spider-Man’s DNA and the original Natasha Romanoff by Russian scientists who want to bring back the old USSR. Test subject finally gives birth to 123 children “… like a real spider”, before assassinating the scientists responsible.
The one-page summary is harmless enough, but it is telling that Whedon decided to return to the issue of Black Widow’s children in his film. The subject of pregnancy among female superheroes seems to appear in Black Widow media more than most superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Marvel seems obsessed with the black Widow fertility, and this happened long before The Age of Ultron.
