WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova #1 by Devin Grayson, Michele Bandini, Elisabetta D'Amico, Erick Arciniega, and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
In 2021, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will introduce fans to several new characters in the Black Widow movie, and one of them appears to be their heir apparent to the Black Widow mantle since Natasha died in Avengers: Endgame. And now, Marvel put this second Black Widow in her own comic, Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova.
The story opens with Yelena Belova, as she monologues her ideas about the rich and powerful of the world. She mentions that a small cabal of influencers is cheating others, using more money and power than anyone could dream about. However, she then mentions that most people don't know that "You are this game field." When she hires herself out to a wealthy man to go into a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Black Ops site in the Antarctic and rescue a man named Dr. Durst, her distrust in the rich proved itself during this mission.
It was all a setup. Justin Cask, the man who sent her, is worth more than $30 billion, and Yelena said he never worked a day in his life. When she arrived at an old S.H.I.E.L.D. Black Ops site, she learned that Dr. Durst was not a captive there, and they brought her in to test out the soldiers they experimented on. They figured the perfect choice would be a Black Widow, especially the one that "no one would miss." He then ordered her death, but both Dr. Durst and Justin Cask underestimated Yelena Belova.
As a trained Black Widow, she held her own and tore through dozens of soldiers and guards until she ended up in a cell area, where the Red Guardian was held captive. She rescued him, and the two fought their way through all the overwhelming forces. Yelena escaped while Red Guardian blew the facility up, somehow surviving the wreckage at the end. However, the issue then tied into the comments by Yelena at the start about the rich playing games and how everyone is part of the field, including Black Widow herself.
Yelena then appeared undercover at the Met Fundraiser Gala that Justin Cask attended. She was not there to hurt him physically, but she was there to watch his destruction in another way. While talking to a security guard at the event, the two watched countless people walk up and thank Cask for his generous donations and endowments. Yelena admits that it took her 40 minutes and two phone calls, and she donated every penny of Cask's $30 billion. She ruined him financially but made him a hero to the people there. He couldn't do anything about it. She became the Robin Hood of the Gala and took down the man who tried to kill her in the most creative way possible.
Yelena Belova first appeared in 1998's Inhumans #5 by Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee, Avalon Studios, Richard Starkings, and Wes Abbott before taking a leading role in a concurrent Black Widow series by her creators. Devin Grayson and J.G. Jones. One of her first missions in the Black Widow Ops Program was delivering a device to aid in an invasion of Attilan. She ended up a thorn in everyone's side, from the Avengers to Natasha, who ended up killing Yelena off-panel many years later.
While she's returned from the grave thanks to the miracles of cloning, there is no telling if this is another clone or if somehow the real Yelena is alive again. With Florence Pugh portraying Yelena Belova in the Black Widow movie, expect her to play a bigger role in the comics, as they tie into the MCU.