WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Tales of Suspense #103 by Matthew Rosenberg and Travel Foreman, on sale now.


Natasha Romanoff died -- for real died -- during the events of Secret Empire, or at least that's what we've been told. When Kobik's restored the non-Hydra-ified world, she and everyone else who lost their lives in the chaos weren't resurrected. This detail made it all the more strange when both Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes found themselves chasing down someone who, for all intents and purposes, was pulling off assassinations that only Natasha could do.

Well, in Tales of Suspense #103 by Matthew Rosenberg and Travel Foreman, we finally got answers about just what's been going on, and how, for better or for worse, Natasha came back despite Kobik deliberately not resurrecting her.

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Red Ledgers

Natasha's history with the Red Room is pretty iconic, despite the fact that the Red Room itself has never really been a major player in the global sense across the Marvel Universe. This makes sense, really, seeing as the Red Room's motives were always more clandestined and espionage-based compared to your standard Hydra or AIM fair. The program's graduates and staff pop up from time to time, or are revealed to be the engine behind manipulations that spill out into the bigger picture, but it's rare for them to get a major, featured story.

But that's about to change -- sort of. In the fallout of Secret Empire, the Red Room has started making some serious moves to fill the power vacuum left by the shambles of both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. A chance to strike doesn't come all that frequently, it would seem, and now is an opportunity to do so. But in order to achieve its goals, the Red Room absolutely needs to be at full working capacity. This means it needs its best and brightest operatives back in the field and readily available -- a problem when you consider that not only has Natasha recently died, she's also, technically, no longer a loyal Black Widow soldier.

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That's slightly up for debate, to be sure. Natasha's stories frequently revolve around her either being forced to return to the Red Room or fight against ghosts from her past in ways that make her fellow Avengers think that she's double crossed them. Natasha's loyalties are always a point of contention, and there's usually no shortage of manipulation or brainwashing to be found -- something the Red Room is deeply invested in capitalizing on.

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Here's where things start to deviate from the Red Room's typical formula. Natasha's resurrection is actually due to the fact the Room is (and probably has been) very actively and aggressively cloning their agents. So, yes, Natasha was absolutely, no-take-backs killed during Secret Empire, but the Red Room was able to simply pull another Natasha out of storage and drop her into the field.

Or, well, sort of.

Resurrected, Still a Ghost

Natasha is not the only cloned agent; the red Room has been creating dopplegangers of all its Widow agents, and they aren't just new brains with familiar faces dropped into the world. They each have their respective memories "reinstalled" into their new bodies care of a psychic named Epsilon Red, who shares a psychic connection with each Widow and acts as a sort of living hard drive for their minds. When a Widow dies, he saves their memories and then, when a new clone is activated, reuploads exactly what the Red Room wants them to remember, thus creating a brand new Widow who requires no new training or integration.

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The caveat here is that Natasha didn't get an edited version of her own memories from Epsilon Red -- she got everything, including her own death. She still knows where her loyalties lie, despite her Red Room handlers believing they've just been given her back for good.

She owes this breach in protocol to a pretty unlikely source: Ursa Major, Russia's...uh, superheroic bear, who has taken some issue with the way the Red Room is operating these days.

Helpful as he is, however, he's still pretty cagey about the specifics. When Nat asks if this is her first go-around through the Red Room's revolving resurrection door, he declines to answer full stop, instead asking if that even "matters."

So, What Does This Mean?

Unfortunately, that's pretty hard to say right now. This is a pretty major development in the scope of Black Widow continuity and history -- not just for Natasha, but for her "sisters-in-arms" as well. It's impossible to tell whether or not this is a recent move on the Red Room's part, or if we've got a full on Soviet clone conspiracy going on right under our noses.

We learn in this issue that there is nothing stopping anyone from activating multiple versions of the same person, all of whom could have their memories altered individually on en masse. Natasha herself activates a platoon of Yelena clones, but keeps them memories out of the mix, effectively giving her a (morbidly, morally questionable) disposable workforce.

With no real answers given about whether or not this is the first time Nat has been revived this way, it's probably best to keep eyes peeled in the future about any more clone-related revelations or retcons. All bets are officially off.