Today, we look at how Black Widow made her return after getting her neck snapped by Captain America (Crazy, I know!) through the wonders of cloning.
In Death is not the End, we spotlight the outlandish explanations for comic book characters (mostly super-villains) surviving seeming certain death.
HOW DID BLACK WIDOW DIE?
Just last week I wrote about how Marvel did a crossover in 2017 called Secret Empire where Captain America (who had been altered by a nascent Cosmic Cube into not just being a member of Hydra, but having BEEN a secret Hydra agent throughout his entire career as a superhero) took over the United States in the name of Hydra. There were very few superheroes still operating free and they discovered that the Cosmic Cube had altered Cap, so they decided to use the Cube to bring the real Captain America back. Black Widow, though, split from the team as she felt that their mission was folly and the only way to stop Cap was to kill him. I'll just quote myself for the capper...
"It all leads to Secret Empire #7 (by Nick Spencer and Andrea Sorrentino), where Widow and the young heroes head to Washington D.C. to assassinate Captain America (the vision of Miles killing Cap took place in D.C.). However, we then learn that Black Widow planned all along to then trap Miles so that he could not fulfill his alleged destiny, as she could not let him become a killer, so she would kill Cap by herself. Her attempt to assassinate Cap, though, was foiled by the Punisher, who had been manipulated into serving Captain America due to a mixture of hero worship and naivete (it is up to you as to whether you buy the Punisher siding with Cap). Miles, meanwhile, broke free from the trap that the Black Widow kept him in and he went to confront Cap. Widow tried to get ahead of Miles to avoid his fate and, well, Cap then snapped her neck with his shield...
An enraged Miles, of course, then decided he WOULD kill Captain America. Nadia Van Dyne, the new Wasp, who had also been brought up in the Red Room like Black Widow, tried to plead with Miles that he should avoid killing Cap because Widow never wanted that for him and he agreed, thus avoiding his alleged "destiny"...
Don't worry, though, the REAL Steve Rogers returned later on and kicked the evil Cap's butt and Kobik then reversed much of the bad stuff, including her altered history for Captain America. And Black Widow? Well, her return is for another column..."
This is that column.
HOW DID BLACK WIDOW COME BACK FROM THE DEAD?
In the wake of Secret Empire, writer Matthew Rosenberg had a bit of a cottage industry of handling the aftermath of the event, as he did a Punisher series where Frank Castle came to terms with him working for Captain America by deciding to murder every Hydra member he could find.
Meanwhile, as part of Marvel's "Legacy" publishing initiative following Secret Empire (where titles all got new "legacy numbering," so every previous Punisher series, for instance, would be combined to come up with Punisher #218), Rosenberg and artists Travel Foreman and Rachelle Rosenberg brought back Tales of Suspense in early 2018 (the anthology series that starred Captain America and Iron Man until issue #99, at which point the series was re-titled Captain America with #100, while Iron Man received his own ongoing series starting with #1) with #100, as Hawkeye and Winter Soldier are both independently investigating the murders of Hydra agents at the hand of someone who kills just like Black Widow did...
Rosenberg, by the way, did a hilarious bit where he would answer letters from "the previous issue" of the series, as if he was just now answering letters from 1968 in 2018. Funny stuff.
After meeting with a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the next issue, the agent is seemingly killed by the person Clint and Bucky (well, at least Clint) think is a resurrected Natasha. When they think they see her, they hunt her down and discover that it is Yelena Belova, the SECOND Black Widow, in a red wig!
Things take ANOTHER twist in the next issue, though, when Yelena is murdered in front of them! Finally, though, they are confronted by the real Black Widow!
As it turns out, the Red Room kept a series of clones of their high-value operatives and when one of them dies, they use a psychic to place their memories into a cloned body, only without any memories of being anything but loyal to the Red Room.
Luckily, Black Widow's old ally, Ursa Major, bribed the psychic to bring Black Widow ALL the way back, with ALL of her memories intact.
HOW DID BLACK WIDOW BECOME A HERO AGAIN?
While it seemed like Black Widow was back working for the Red Room, it turns out that the whole thing was a plot of hers to take the Red Room down once and for all and kill off all of her clones so she could never be brought back to life again. She previously used two clones of Yelena to both A. fake the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent's death and B. fake Yelena's death. She initially tried to keep Hawkeye and Winter Soldier from getting involved, but they were too stubborn to be stopped, so they were there with her when she wiped out all of her clones...
That is SUCH a comic book thing. "Yes, I came back to life this way, but look, it can never happen AGAIN."
At the end of the series, Black Widow gives them each a letter seemingly saying goodbye, but in reality, she actually asked Winter Soldier to help her in the next mysterious step in her mission (while insisting that he keep it a secret from Clint).
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Death is not the End, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!