Today, we look at how Black Widow became one of the most prominent casualties of the Secret Empire crossover, where Captain America seemingly took over the United States for Hydra.

This is "Can't Cross Over," a feature where I look at instances when comic book writers had to adjust their stories to deal with crossovers.

This time around, I thought I'd play around a bit with the theme of this feature, which is typically about how crossovers mess with the plots of other comic book series (you know, like the last installment, where the X-Men were believed to be dead in the late 1980s, but Storm was then involved in the companywide crossover, Atlantis Attacks, which obviously conflicts with the idea that everyone is supposed to believe that she's dead and the solution was...well...just go read that one. It's pretty hilarious), but then I thought that an interesting twist on the idea of crossovers messing with the plots of comic book characters is the fact that comic book crossovers often involve the DEATHS of major comic book characters, so in the future, I'll continue to work in some examples of the ol' "If the crossover is expected to 'matter,' then someone better die in it!" approach to comic book crossovers, and our first example is, of course, Black Widow's demise in Secret Empire.

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There's a few things you need to know about Secret Empire. The first thing, naturally, is what the crossover was about. You see, during Rick Remender's run on Captain America, a villain had, in effect, neutralized Captain America's Super Soldier Serum to the point where Steve Rogers lost the effects of the Serum, thus instantly becoming a dude in his 90s (albeit a dude in his 90s that was in really good shape. Also, since this was a sort of magical superpower of the villain, it didn't have to necessarily make sense how "neutralizing" the Serum worked, ya know?). During a future crossover, Steve helped save a fragment of the Cosmic Cube that had gained sentience (as Cosmic Cubes are wont to do) named Kobik. Kobik, having the mentality of basically a toddler, had been manipulated by the Red Skull so that all Kobik really knew was the Skull's evil view on the world. Thus, when she decided to "reward" Steve Rogers for rescuing her by giving him his youth and his powers back, she also decided to alter him to make him fit in with the Red Skull's view on the world.

HOW she did it changed over time. The initial approach was that she literally altered reality so that Steve Rogers was just ALWAYS a Hydra agent, but eventually (whether through a change in their initial idea or whether it was just not revealed until later) it turned out that Kobik basically created a new version of Steve Rogers that believed in the Hydra and replaced the "real" Steve Rogers with this fake one. Anyhow, the Secret Empire storyline was about this Steve Rogers finally implementing his long-awaited plan to take over the United States and put Hydra in charge.

MEANWHILE, while this version of Captain America was still in the planning stages, there as a whole OTHER crossover that involved an Inhuman named Ulysses who could see into the future and the debate was basically your classic "can you punish people for crimes they're GOING to commit but have not yet committed?"

And one of those visions was of Spider-Man, Miles Morales, having murdered Captain America...

That vision essentially crumbled the whole thing down, as no one really believed that Miles would kill Captain America. Of course, only we readers knew at the time that Cap was secretly a bad guy.

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So anyhow, Secret Empire begins and Cap very quickly takes over the United States. There is still a Resistance, though, led by Hawkeye and Black Widow. The young superhero team, the Champions, made up a good chunk of the superhero membership of the Resistance. Well, after they were caught visibly defying Hydra in Las Vegas, Captain America ordered the city to be destroyed. He then had his former sidekick, Rick Jones, murdered and Black Widow determined that they had to assassinate Captain America. However, before he died, Rick Jones pieced together the whole Cosmic Cube story and realized that they could, in effect, "fix" Cap by putting together fragments of the Cosmic Cube. Hawkeye and some others were, like, "Awesome, let's do that," while Black Widow disagreed, thinking that it was just fanciful nonsense and that the only way out was for her to assassinate Cap (as shown here in Secret Empire #2, by Nick Spencer and Andrea Sorrentino)...

So Black Widow splits with the rest of the Resistance and the Champions join her and she becomes their trainer, with her own sort of form of the Red Room...

It all leads to Secret Empire #7 (by Spencer and 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...

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