WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Black Widow: Widow's Sting #1 by Ralph Macchio, Simone and Buonfantino, Rachelle Rosenberg, and VC's Travis Lanham.
Readers typically know what to expect from a Black Widow comic. Her classic spy stories are more akin to tales of Jason Bourne or James Bond than anything else in the Marvel Universe. Even with the sci-fi elements that often interweave in her stories, most are relatively grounded compared to other heroes. But in a flashback to her past in Black Widow: Widow's Sting, readers gets a glimpse of her involvement with a powerful magical artifact. It took the Widow to save the Wand of Watoomb, and the universe is safe because of it.
Introduced in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2, the Wand of Watoomb was an object of great power described by the issue's villain Xandu as "the most powerful weapon in all necromantic lore." Spider-Man needed to team up with Dr. Strange in order to stop an evil magician from enhancing his powers a thousandfold with the wand, and ever since the memorable adventure it has been a fixture in the lore of the Marvel universe where its power seems to know no limits.
With seemingly no end to the adventures lurking in Natasha's past as a spy, the flashback issue gives an opportunity to see what happens when the Wand falls into the wrong hands. The crime lord Silvermane unites several criminal organizations into the Maggia under his rule using the recently procured Wand of Watoomb to keep them in line. After Black Widow infiltrates a party at Silvermane's mansion, she takes to stealing it back -- but the task does not prove easy.
The wand is explained to have been on loan from Doctor Strange to a museum as the Sorcerer Supreme likely attends to other adventures, but its powers put the super-spy somewhat out of her depth. In Silvermane's hands, the Wand proves capable of bringing anything he imagines into reality, reducing a room of firearms to ash and leaving him fully protected from the bullets. When he parts with the totem he leaves it in the capable hands of the super-strong Man Mountain Marko, who Widow is forced to confront to seize it.
The only problem is that the Wand is powerless in Widow's hands and requires training in order to be used. Silvermane appears out of the shadows with a cybernetic exoskeleton that makes him an even greater physical threat than Marko was, and it is only due to the timely intervention of an unexpected ally that Black Widow proves victorious at all.
It is fun to see an item more at home in the stories of a powerful sorcerer fall into the plot of a spy thriller. The Wand of Watoomb proves to be a fun McGuffin because continuity matters very little. There are actually several Wands in existence and while they are all powerful, the ways that power manifests varies wildly.
While the Wand has been a mainstay in the 616 Universe, it has never been as central as the Infinity Gems, Cosmic Cube, or other cosmic weapons weapons. It proves perfect weapon to slip into the story of a hidden adventure like Widow's Sting, and it could crop up in the past of almost any hero at any time.