WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Winter Guard #1, on sale from Marvel Comics now.
Natasha Romanoff's Black Widow has been a member of the Avengers for decades, functioning as their espionage expert. While Natasha established herself as a proven leader on the team through decades of service, Marvel's heroes don't trust Yelena Belova as much as they trust Natasha, Earlier this year, Black Widow established Yelena Belova, who was portrayed by Florence Pugh, as the MCU’s new Black Widow after Natasha Romanoff’s death in Avengers: Endgame.
But Winter Guard #1, by Ryan Cady, Jan Bazaldua, Djibril Morissette-Phan, Federico Blee, and Ariana Maher, shows that the comic book Avengers still don’t trust the MCU’s new Black Widow because of her shadowy past.
The Avengers and the Winter Guard’s cold war has been slowly heating up after the Winter Guard kidnapped She-Hulk and turned her into the Winter She-Hulk. As part of this war, the superhumans of the Winter Guard started going after their old teammates Red Guardian and Yelena Belova. The issue opens with Yelena in Captain Marvel’s custody, questioned about her involvement with the Russian superhero team. When Yelena claims to not be in league with them, Captain Marvel doesn’t believe her. While the interrogation continues, a Spetsnaz team infiltrated the base, only to be stopped by Black Widow, who arrived just in the nick of time to save Yelena from being executed.
Later in San Francisco, Black Widow continued the interrogation, but Yelena continued to deny her answers. It’s only after Black Widow tells Yelena that Red Guardian was missing that Yelena opens up about her mission in Russia. Black Widow reveals that Ursa Major was killed by Red Widow, which gets Yelena to tell Black Widow everything she knew about Red Widow and why she pitied the Winter Guard more than she hated them.
The rest of the issue consists of a flashback to three weeks earlier that follows Yelena and Red Guardian on their mission to retrieve a briefcase. While sneaking their way into a Russian facility, the duo was attacked by the Winter Guard. Yelena fought Ursa Major, while Red Guardian fought Vanguard and Crimson Dynamo. When he was surrounded, Red Guardian revealed a trick up his sleeve, a mole inside their team had hacked Crimson Dynamo’s armor for him. He set the armor to attack the Winter Guard, allowing Yelena and Red Guardian to make their daring escape.
Yelena was created by Devin Grayson and J.G. Jones, and debuted in Inhumans #5. Just like Natasha Romanoff, she was trained in the Red Room. They even had the same trainer. After he was murdered, she was activated as the new Black Widow to find his killer. Her first mission brought her into conflict with Natasha, a confrontation that Yelena hoped would cement her as the definitive Black Widow. Afterward, Yelena defected and began to work for Hydra, who transferred her mind into a new version of the Super-Adaptoid. She was eventually defeated by the Avengers and Hydra put her into stasis. Years later, she was let out by members of A.I.M. and took the identity of Black Widow after Natasha’s apparent death during "Secret Empire." Since she’s switched sides so much, the Avengers are reasonably very wary of working with her.
Meanwhile, Natasha faces no such problems embracing Yelena as the new Black Widow because their pasts are more or less the same. When they first faced each other, Natasha put Yelena through a torturous manipulation campaign to deprogram her of everything she had learned in the Red Room. Consequentially, Natasha and Yelena developed a close bond because of their shared trauma, which is why Yelena trusts Natasha with information about the Winter Guard in this issue when she was so hesitant to talk to Captain Marvel. While the Avengers have still not come to trust Yelena as the Black Widow does, she will likely prove essential to dealing with the Red Widow and the rapidly accelerating war that's brewing between the Avengers and the Winter Guard.