Black Widow (real name "Natalia Alianovna"), also known as Natasha" Romanova, is a fictional character and superheroine in Marvel Comics, appearing as the main protagonist of the titular comics, a major character in The Avengers comics, and a supporting character in other individual heroes' comics.
She is a highly trained and former Russian spy, who was originally an antagonist of Iron Man and other heroes. Eventually becoming a superheroine, she defected to the United States and became the partner of Captain America, Daredevil, Winter Soldier and Hawkeye. In addition, Black Widow became an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and later the superhero group, the Avengers, where she also acted as a co-leader during the Onslaught saga. Since her tenure as a superhero and adventurer, she has been a member of numerous groups, such as the Lady Liberators, Marvel Knights, Mighty Avengers, Champions of Los Angeles, and the Posse.
She was created by the late Stan Lee, the late Don Rico, and the late Don Heck, and first appeared in Tales of Suspense # 52 in 1964.
The exact year and location for the birth of Natalia Romanova is unknown, as is who her parents were. It has been rumored that Natasha (whose name in Russian is: Наталья Романова, Наташа Романова, Наталья Романова-Шостакова) was somehow related to the last ruling czars of Russia, but this rumor was never proven.
There are varying accounts of Natasha's early life. One account states that in 1928, there was a fire in Stalingrad which burned down the building that the infant Natasha and her mother were living in.According to the account, just before dying in the fire, Natasha's mother threw her out the window to a Russian soldier below. The soldier's name was Ivan Petrovitch, and he watched over Natasha for her entire life, remaining by her side as her "foster father". Another account dates the fire to the autumn of 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad.
While Natasha was under Ivan's protection, Baron Strucker abducted Natasha and presented her to the organization of assassins called the Hand in Madripoor. Natasha had in fact been working under orders from a mysterious source and her "abduction" was to lead her into pretending to become a Master Assassin for the Hand when, in reality, she was to assassinate their Jonin. Logan learned of this and killed the Jonin instead while also freeing Captain America under the guise of rescuing Natasha. According to this account, Natasha then grew and matured, proving herself to be an amazing athlete and scholar, while gaining distinction in the U.S.S.R. as a ballerina.
Another account establishes Natasha as being raised from very early childhood by the U.S.S.R.'s "Black Widow Ops" Program in addition to Ivan Petrovitch's care. Petrovitch was said to have taken her to Department X with 28 other young female orphans, where she was trained in combat and espionage at the covert "Red Room" facility. There, she was bio-technologically and psycho-technologically enhanced; an account that provides a rationale for her unusually long and youthful lifespan. In this account she never really trained in ballet in the Bolshoi Theatre, having instead been implanted with artificial memories of doing so.
Regardless of which of these accounts (if any) is accurate, eventually it was arranged for Natasha to marry Alexei Shostakov, a distinguished Soviet test pilot. She was later blackmailed into agreeing to act as a spy when her husband's life was threatened.
The Soviet Union's government intelligence organization (the KGB) decided that Natasha and Alexei's skill sets would make them both superb special operatives and split them up while Alexei was away on a mission. Trained as the Red Guardian, Alexei became the Soviet Union’s answer to the United States' Captain America. Natasha was told that her husband had died in an experimental rocket crash. She was drafted into the KGB and became their best operative, becoming excellent at fighting and information gathering. During this time, she had some training under the Winter Soldier and they started a secret relationship. After an incident during an assassination operation, Barnes was deemed unstable and put in cryostasis whenever he was not needed for a mission, leaving Natasha devastated when she found out about it.
Natasha later saved Logan from Hydra assassins when he surfaced in America without any memories of his past. She encountered the man again sometime later when she was on a KGB mission to stop three unknown American spies (Logan,Carol Danvers, and Ben Grimm) from stealing Russia's Red Storm Project.
The Black Widow was assigned to assist Boris Turgenov in the assassination of Professor Anton Vanko for defecting from their country by infiltrating Stark Industries in America. Tony Stark, the original Iron Man, continually foiled her schemes against Stark Industries. Natasha later met the novice archer Hawkeye and set him against Iron Man, and later helped Hawkeye battle Iron Man. Unfortunately, Hawkeye's association with Russian spies would label him a criminal in the early years of his career. The Black Widow and Hawkeye next clashed against the novice super-hero Spider-Man. They resumed their focus on Tony Stark, clashing with Iron Man twice more - the first being an attempt to raid Tony Stark's munitions plant.
When that mission ended in failure, she was taken back to Russia by her masters and given a new costume that allowed her to scale walls as well as a device that allowed her to fire lines to swing from. She once more attempted to get Hawkeye to help her destroy Iron Man. The pair almost succeeded, but when the Black Widow was injured, Hawkeye retreated to get her to safety.During this period, Natasha was attempting to defect from the Soviet Union and began to feel love toward Hawkeye, weakening her loyalty to her country. When her employers learned the truth, they had her gunned down, sending her to a hospital, convincing Hawkeye to go straight and seek membership in the Avengers.
Captured by her masters again and brainwashed, the Black Widow was forced to hire the Swordsman and Power Man to destroy the Avengers. This plot eventually failed when the Avengers defeated both of the villains and Natasha shook off the effects of the brainwashing. Attempting to make amends with the group, she assisted them against the racist group known as the Sons of the Serpent.
Having been granted amnesty, Natasha made a bid for membership in the Avengers, aiding them in their battle against the Ultroids. She threatened to kill their leader Ixar if he did not leave Earth, winning the victory; however, Hawkeye covered up this fact so that she could get membership in the group even though she had violated their code of ethics regarding killing.However, when Nick Fury hired her to spy on her former master on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., she was forced to decline membership with the Avengers and publicly broke off her relationship with Hawkeye. As part of her mission, the press branded her as a traitor, breaking Hawkeye's heart.
Arriving in China, the Black Widow was not easily trusted and subjected to the Psychotron, a machine that could brainwash anyone. She proved to be too strong-willed and had to be gassed and kept locked up. Learning that Natasha was now a prisoner of her former Communist masters, the Avengers traveled to China to rescue her, clashing with the Red Guardian, Natasha's ex-husband who was thought to be dead.The Avengers, with the help of Natasha, defeated the Communists' plot to use the Psychotron against the Western world. During the course of the battle Natasha was injured and the Red Guardian seemingly perished in the battle.
After time recovering in the hospital, Natasha returned to Avengers Mansion and came to the decision to give up her career of costumed adventuring. This proved to be short-lived, as she returned to super-heroics shortly thereafter; however, her romance with Hawkeye became strained as he was usually too busy with Avengers business to pay any attention to her.
Fed up with staying out of action, the Black Widow accepted another assignment from S.H.I.E.L.D. to prevent Egghead from using an orbital platform to hold the world for ransom. She was captured, prompting Hawkeye (who still loved her in spite of everything) to use Hank Pym's growing formula to become the new Goliath and rescue her. She aided the Avengers in stopping Egghead, although it ended in the seeming death of both Egghead and Goliath's brother Barney. After a prolonged absence, the Black Widow eventually ended her relationship with Goliath.
Natasha was not able to avoid super-heroics for long and, after designing a new sleek black costume and adapting her bracelets with electric "Widow's Bites", she sought to prove herself a capable adventurer by besting Spider-Man in battle. Although Spider-Man was sick with the flu and not at his full power capacity at the time, he was still able to beat the Black Widow; however, she resolved to continue her career as a costumed adventurer.
She mostly clashed with underworld figures and costumed villains during this period, notably the Astrologer and the Watchlord.
The Black Widow soon became a pawn manipulated by the computer known as Baal from the distant future of Earth-71778. In that reality, mankind was wiped out and the past history of Daredevil and the Black Widow played a crucial role in this event. This ultimately led to a long relationship and eventually a partnership between the two heroes, but it finally came to an end.
While working with S.H.I.E.L.D., the Black Widow was briefly captured as part of a Hydra plot to infiltrate and brainwash the organization, causing her to regress to an old cover identity of schoolteacher Nancy Rushman. Fortunately, she was discovered and rescued by Spider-Man, subsequently working with him, Nick Fury, and Shang-Chi to defeat their plan; she even admitted that the Nancy identity was attracted to Spider-Man after the crisis was over, even if she preferred to retain her independence.
She co-founded the Champions of Los Angeles after they had successfully foiled a plot by Pluto to invade Olympus. The team soon disbanded due to bankruptcy, and Natasha attempted a partnership with Hercules without any success.
After these two failures, Natasha decided to stay on her own and freelance as an agent for a while.
It was during this time that an enemy from her time alongside Daredevil kidnapped Ivan to lure her to her death. Damon Dran planned to bring Natasha to his island so a small army of female combat specialists could destroy her. Once she was out of the way, he would send a fake Black Widow back to S.H.I.E.L.D. to assassinate Nick Fury. Unfortunately for Dran, Natasha defeated the army, saved Ivan, and notified Fury (who, in turn, bombed Dran's island).
On a freelance mission, the Black Widow attempted to prevent the Hand from stealing the long-dead body of their Master Warrior, Kirigi. Utilizing deadly poisons, Natasha was killed by the Hand. She was revived by Stone of the Chaste and joined forces with Stone and Daredevil to stop the Hand from reviving Elektra. Natasha knew that they had failed in this endeavor but kept the information from Daredevil for his own well-being.
On another mission, Natasha found her husband Alexei Shostakov to be still alive. Little did she know, however, that it was only a Life-Model Decoy created by Russian agents to blackmail her back into the service of Mother Russia. Once she finished the tasks they gave her, the Russians told her the truth and attempted to kill her. With Ivan's assistance, she defeated the Russians and destroyed the LMD.
Iron Man teamed up with the Black Widow to prevent an agent named “Oktober” from attempting to start World War III by launching missiles. The missiles were launched, but Iron Man kept them from detonating. Oktober ended up actually being Natasha under some old KGB reprogramming that had been dormant in her mind. Together, they captured the agent responsible.
In time, the Black Widow came back to the Avengers and became a co-leader, managing ops at home base while the Black Knight led in the field. When the majority of the Avengers were killed during the Onslaught saga, the Black Widow attempted to form a new line-up alongside Hercules and Quicksilver. However, the Widow's initial attempt to recruit her old teammates from the Champions of Los Angeles met with failure, as both the Iceman and the Angel were too busy with the X-Men to join the Avengers (with the Iceman also believing that the public blamed the X-Men for the death of the Avengers in the first place, which would bring the Black Widow's new line-up negative publicity if he or the Angel were involved). Her subsequent prospects fared no better, with the Beast, Ant-Man, the She-Hulk, Moondragon, and War Machine all either turning her down or having unreasonable demands (with Moondragon in particular wishing to become the new leader of the team). The situation only got worse when Quicksilver angrily resigned over a proposed U.N. resolution that would collectively blame the entire mutant race for Onslaught's actions. When two Congressmen filed a motion to nullify the government's agreements with the team, Natasha ultimately decided to disband the Avengers and turn the mansion over to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s supervision. She always felt as if the Avengers' dissolution was solely her fault.
The Black Widow then vowed to apprehend all of the Avengers' former foes and ran into Daredevil while hunting the Grey Gargoyle. Matt feared for her mental state as he noticed how obsessive she became about bringing the Gargoyle down. As he attempted to help her, his girlfriend, Karen Page, became increasingly more angry and jealous. Natasha acknowledged Matt's love for Karen and left them to be together.Later, Natasha would even offer to help Karen clear her name from a murder that Mr. Fear had framed her for.
Once the Avengers who were thought to have been killed returned, Natasha was more relieved, but decided to work with S.H.I.E.L.D. instead, assisting them in destroying Freedom's Light by pretending to be the Ebon Flame.
Daredevil came into her life once again when he needed her to take care of Baby Karen, who he believed to be the Antichrist. He eventually came back to attempt to kill the child, and Natasha stood in his way. While they were fighting, Bullseye killed the child and Natasha was badly beaten. Upon the child’s death, Matt realized what he was doing, and he and Natasha reconciled. While she could admit that she still cared for him, they both decided that they could never be together.
Another Russian agent claimed the mantle of the Black Widow, which brought her up against Natasha. Yelena Belova tried to keep Natasha from retrieving the Deathless Frenzy, but failed.
A short time afterward, Natasha captured Yelena and had their faces surgically swapped in an effort to find out what General Stalyenko was doing with the Rhapastani government in the Hudson River Valley.After meeting with whom he thought was Yelena, Stalyenko figured out that it was not really her and attempted to kill her. Even though her plan failed, Natasha was able to prevent Stalyenko from selling the Cold War nuclear weapons that he was hiding in the valley to Rhapastan.
The government of Bulgaria later captured Madame Hydra and requested an exchange with the United States for the Black Widow. As part of a sting to find out who it was that was going to allow Natasha to be exchanged, Daredevil and S.H.I.E.L.D. teamed up with Natasha and found out that her husband, Alexei, had orchestrated the entire exchange. Alongside the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Daredevil, Natasha took Alexei into custody.
The stress of seeing her once-dead/once-living/once-dead/once-robot/now-alive-again husband drove Natasha into retirement. She lived for a short time in Arizona before agents from the Red Room began tracking down ex-Black Widow agents and killing them. Natasha recruited Phil Dexter, an associate from S.H.I.E.L.D., and attempted to track down the killers. In her hunting, she found Sally Anne Carter as well as Lyudmila Antonovna Kudrin, who was the former head of biotech for the Red Room. It turned out that the Black Widows included 27 other girls who had been trained to be perfect killers. They were implanted with false memories, psycho-chemically conditioned, and chemically enhanced to be loyal and perform perfectly for the program. Even pheromonal locks and keys were implanted into the Black Widows as a control mechanism to keep them from rebelling. While taking Lyudmila to S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha learned that Nick Fury had used the pheromonal keys to make her defect from her home country and begin working for S.H.I.E.L.D. She also learned that Sally Anne was kidnapped, and Phil was killed in the process.
The trail of the Black Widow killings led to Vassily Ilyich Ulyanov from the Red Room and Ian McMasters, the CEO of Gynacon. Natasha caught up to them on his yacht and killed them, making her the number one most wanted criminal in the United States.
Natasha sought help from Yelena Belova in Cuba. Yelena was running a lingerie company and softcore pornography television channels at the time. In return for a place to stay, Yelena asked Natasha for help in exporting stolen medical supplies from Miami. To her surprise, Natasha found the medical supplies to be from Gynacon and that Sally Anne was actually taken by the Mafia. The Kestrel and Martin Ferris captured Natasha in Miami and attempted to alter her mind using drugs to find out what she knew. With the help of Yelena, Daredevil rescued Natasha, who then tracked and killed both the Kestrel and Ferris. In all the madness, Natasha learned that Sally Anne had been experimented on by Gynacon but had escaped.
The Black Widow was assigned to track down the Tinkerer in an effort to find the financier behind the super-villains of America. Disguised in a burqa, she tracked the Tinkerer to the castle of Lucia von Bardas, the current prime minister of Latveria. Unfortunately, the President refused Fury's request for a S.H.I.E.L.D.-focused overthrow of von Bardas. Forced to act alone, Fury gathered the Black Widow, Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Wolverine, and Daisy Johnson to overthrow von Bardas. Unfortunately, the heroes disapproved of bringing down Castle Doom down on von Bardas. Afterwards, Fury erased the memories of the non-level 10 participants in his Secret War.
When Matt Murdock's identity as Daredevil was leaked to the press, the government came to arrest him along with Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Foggy Nelson. Natasha was able to keep everyone but Matt from going to jail.
During the Superhero Civil War, Natasha became a supporter of the Superhuman Registration Act and a member of the task force led by Iron Man. Afterward, Natasha allowed herself to be registered and joined the reconstituted Avengers.
Natasha, still one of the world’s most sought-after espionage agents alive, was recruited by Iron Man and Ms. Marvel to be on the newest team of Avengers alongside the Sentry, Ares, the Wasp, and Wonder Man. When S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Tony Stark was presumed killed and Deputy Director Maria Hill was incapacitated, Natasha assumed temporary command of S.H.I.E.L.D. as the highest-ranking agent present.
Natasha was among the Avengers infected along with hundreds of other New York citizens by a symbiote virus, but were cured by Iron Man. Natasha became very suspicious of Jessica Drew, who was later discovered to be the Skrull impostor Veranke.
During this time, Natasha had also restarted her relationship with Barnes, who was still alive and had recovered all of his lost memories, now being the new Captain America.
Natasha assumed the identity of Yelena Belova to infiltrate Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts for Nick Fury. Osborn discovered her breaking into an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and offered her the position of field leader. On her first mission, she and Ant-Man took control of Air Force One with the Green Goblin, Doc Samson, and the new President aboard. Osborn began impersonating Fury in messages that were to set Natasha up in order to strengthen the Thunderbolts and lead him to Fury.
Osborn ordered her to lead the current Thunderbolts to kill former Thunderbolt the Songbird. Fury ordered "Yelena" to rescue and retrieve the Songbird for the information that she might have possessed about Osborn and his operations. Natasha found the Songbird and revealed to her that she was really Natasha Romanova in disguise. She tried delivering the Songbird to Fury, but the Thunderbolts had also followed them. The trio was captured as Osborn revealed that he had been impersonating Fury in messages all along. He ordered the team to execute Natasha and the Songbird, but they managed to escape when Ant-Man, the Headsman and Paladin turned on the rest of the Thunderbolts and let them go. After being rescued by MACH-V and the Fixer, they learned that the Fury that Osborn had shot was actually an LMD.
Natasha was framed in a plot targeting global spies. She was accused of assassinating U.S. Senator Whit Crane. The Senator's son, Nick, was captured by a rival spy named Fatale, who wanted to know his source for implicating Natasha. Natasha stole Nick away from her and took him to a secret CIA base to scare him into giving her his source instead. The plan backfired when both of them were attacked. Natasha and Nick escaped, but while in Poland they were attacked by Fantasma and the Crimson Dynamo. Natasha took down the Crimson Dynamo, but then Fatale showed up and knocked out Fantasma. Fatale revealed that she was hired to kill Whit Crane but found out that he had already taken his own life and she needed to use Nick to track down who had actually paid for the hit. Nick gave them the name of a source, "Sadko" (not his true source of information), but when they arrived it was a trap wired with explosives and they were forced to escape. The conspiracy against spies turned out to be wider and Natasha encountered the Mockingbird and Hawkeye on the same trail in Russia, where they found out that many trainee spies and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had been killed. Soon Perun, the Crimson Dynamo, Fantasma, and Sputnik showed up to apprehend Hawkeye, believing him to be the Ronin behind the spies' deaths. Discovering that this was merely a diversion, the three heroes and Dominic Fortune alerted the true target: an ambassador in St. Petersburg, Russia. They next traveled to Japan, Dominic and the Mockingbird discovering an amassing battle force on the Russian coast near the northern Japanese islands, while Natasha and Hawkeye tracked down "the Madame", an old ninja working with the new Ronin to bring about this Russian attack. The four heroes met up on the disputed island of "Iturup" where they met the Ronin, who was revealed to be Alexei Shostakov. His plan was to kill off world intelligence operatives, leaving countries blind while he made his attack, and brought the four heroes to him so he could kill them. Shostakov set off the volcano on the island, but Natasha and the others used the lava to defeat his forces. He was defeated when Natasha showed Fantasma his true plan and Fantasma then hypnotized him into seeing Natasha's death, allowing the real Natasha to take him down.
After the Siege of Asgard, the Black Widow joined Commander Rogers' new Secret Avengers. Sometime later, when Stark Tower was rebuilt, she joined the Avengers' main team and even had a room there. She played a vital role in helping Spider-Man foil the Sinister Six's latest scheme when she, Spider-Man and Silver Sable were the last heroes left standing after the Six defeated the rest of the Avengers (albeit because she was the Avenger closest to Silver Sable's cloaked plane).
During the Avengers' war with the X-Men, Natasha sided with her fellow Avengers. After the war, she was called upon to join the primary Avengers squad.Several months later, when S.H.I.E.L.D. took over the Avengers to find the Illuminati and bring them into custody, the Black Widow left the team and joined Sunspot's Avengers. When the Illuminati and the Avengers set their differences aside in light of the imminent destruction of the universe as a result of the multiversal phenomenon known as an incursion, the Black Widow was tasked with bringing selected people aboard the Future Foundation's Life Raft. When the final incursion was coming to a close, the Black Widow's ship was damaged and Natasha seemingly died in the ensuing explosion.
Following the eventual restoration of the Multiverse, Natasha left the Avengers and returned to a life of espionage. The Black Widow was forced to both betray and defect from S.H.I.E.L.D. when a new adversary nicknamed the Weeping Lion blackmailed her. In an ensuing mission, Natasha discovered the existence of a Dark Room Academy founded by the Red Room's former Headmistress. After turning the tables on the Weeping Lion and getting him to work for her,the Black Widow further investigated the Dark Room.She managed to stop an assassination attempt in the White House from Dark Room recruits, and subsequently prevented the Headmistress' daughter Anya from compromising S.H.I.E.L.D., freeing the remaining recruits from the Dark Room's grasp, driving them to a path of recovery, and clearing her name in the process.
When Hydra abruptly conquered the United States guided by the hand of Captain America, or rather a twisted fascist version of him that had secretly taken his place due to a Cosmic Cube, the Black Widow joined the last line of resistance, the Underground. Having grown tired of the Underground's reluctance to take the extreme approach to end Captain America even after his regime had leveled Las Vegas, Natasha parted on her own to kill Rogers. She was followed by the Champions, who joined her enterprise in an attempt to talk her out of murdering Captain America.
Over the course of the following weeks, Natasha trained the Champions in hopes to prepare them for the grim future while scheming her murder plot. The Black Widow also planned to kill Captain America herself to lift the burden from Spider-Man's shoulders, as a vision projected by an Inhuman profiler named Ulysses Cain had predicted that the young hero was going to murder Rogers. Unfortunately, the intervention of a Hydra agent delayed the execution of the Black Widow's plan, which gave Spider-Man enough time to confront Captain America alone. While Steve and Spider-Man were trading blows, the Black Widow stepped in for the boy's safety, taking a hit from Captain America's shield which broke her neck. Enraged, Spider-Man beat up Captain America severely. The Wasp stopped him and convinced him to follow Natasha's wish that he would avoid becoming an assassin like her.
Taking advantage of the original Black Widow's death, the Black Widow Ops Program created a clone of her. Unbeknownst to her handlers, she retained all of the memories of her former self thanks to Ursa Major the Man-Bear having bribed Epsilon Red, the Red Room operative who was in charge of granting Red Room clones selected memories from their original selves. Her superiors tasked Natasha with targeting the remnants of both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., which drew the attention of her former lovers, Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier.
Weeks later, the Black Widow delved into the secrets of the Red Room and found out about their cloning program and learned in the process that she was a clone herself. Natasha was urged by Ursa Major to destroy the Red Room, so she started working behind the scenes against her handlers. When Natasha was ordered to kill former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sally Blevins, she used an amnesiac clone of Yelena Belova to fake Blevins' death. After the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye caught sight of her, Natasha had another clone of Belova impersonate her in order to mislead the heroes. Eventually, Natasha killed one of her handlers, Alexander Cady, and pinned his death on the Winter Soldier to make the Red Room believe that he was on their trail, which prompted her superiors to send her to deal with him. Natasha revealed herself to Clint and Bucky after abruptly killing the Orphan Maker, then used their disbelief and trust in her former self to trap them in a Red Room safe room in order to prevent them from interfering any further with her work.
The apparent disposal of both Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier, as well as Cady's death, allowed Natasha to rise to the ranks of Commander. She influenced the Red Room recruits to secretly turn them against their masters. Natasha's plan came to an abrupt end when Clint and Bucky tracked her down to the Red Room base. The discovery by her superiors that the two heroes were still alive forced Natasha to drop her cover. She killed her superiors, liberated the recruits and killed all of the clones as well as Epsilon Red. When the authorities arrived at the scene, the Black Widow had made her escape. She left her former lovers two notes, one for Hawkeye asking him to stop looking for her, and another to the Winter Soldier inviting him to join her in her endeavors to end the Red Room.
With the world still unaware of her existence, the Black Widow spent a few weeks traveling by freighter to arrive in Madripoor off the grid. Upon arriving, she went on to check her dead drop due to a signal, secretly left by a mysterious Logan, only to learn that he had left the Space Stone under her care. Since the Black Widow could only use the stone to teleport within her line of sight, she could not teleport directly to New York, where she intended to seek out Doctor Strange's help. Natasha started making small jumps, and when she reached London, she was targeted by Jamie Braddock. Despite evading her pursuer with no problem, Natasha decided to take him down since he had enchanted several children to use as hounds. After taking down Jamie, Natasha was approached by Merlin, who lent her a portion of his power so she could teleport directly to Manhattan.
Natasha started to lose some of her memories and at the same time a woman started to watch her. She consulted Tony Stark about her memories and he told her that the easiest way to restore them would be to find the source. She had several violent encounters with important people from her life when she was following relatives of her old supervisors from the Red Room, where the mysterious woman set her up before finally confronting her when thinking Natasha was all alone, revealing herself as Anya. In truth, however, all of those fights with her friends were staged to set up Anya herself. The resulting fight ended with Anya in custody and Natasha having her memories restored by Tony Stark.
One night, while returning home, Natasha noticed that her apartment had been breached. As she entered through her window, she was taken down by tranquilizers and abducted by Hydra forces led by Madame Hydra. Under their custody, her DNA was mixed with the DNA of a stranger, a man named James Grey, to create a genetic son. Natasha and James' minds were then manipulated to form fabricated memories and make them believe that they were in love and engaged. After three months of leading a false life with her "fiancé", Natasha was seen in the background of a news report by Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes, and they came searching for her. Meanwhile, Yelena Belova started posing as their babysitter, Helen.
After some Hydra associates barged into her home, Natasha subconsciously used her decades of training to defeat them. During the attack, she regained all of her memories, and (with the help of Clint, Bucky and Yelena) took James and their son, Stevie, to a safe house. The group that abducted her, including Madame Hydra and a few others, then went on the offensive, aiming to kill her since their plans of mind manipulation had backfired. After Bucky helped Natasha fake the deaths of James and Stevie, the group of heroes finally faced Madame Hydra and the other masterminds, successfully defeating them, although Madame Hydra managed to escape.
For her next mission, the Black Widow began looking into the criminal organization Noname which had been after the employees of Alchemax. She went to a warehouse where one employee was being held hostage, but by the time she arrived, the Widow found it destroyed from an explosion after Venom and Toxin had broken inside. There she came across an offshoot of the Venom symbiote and, seeing it as useful, she decided to bond with it. As Noname threatened to kill the children of Alchemax's employees, which included Toxin's alter ego Bren, the Widow teamed up with Venom to save the victims. She and Venom learned about Noname's true nature and goal, and convinced Bren's father, Ozkar, to expose Alchemax's crimes, saving Bren just in time.
The Black Widow came to Hawkeye's rescue after he was accused of assassinating a Russian diplomat by the name of Mikhail. Their relationship went through some turmoil due to Hawkeye unwilling to reveal the whole truth behind this situation, which was made worse by the symbiote intermingling between them and the assassins going after them. It was eventually revealed that Damon Dran had planned to frame the U.S. for Mikhail's death in order to start World War III, but Hawkeye intervened by taking the blame for himself to avert any direct conflict. The Widow and Hawkeye then worked together to take down Dran, with Clint reconciling with the symbiote, and once Dran was taken out, the duo again went their own separate paths.
She continued researching Alchemax's nefarious operations while working on her bond with her symbiote. With the assistance of Agent Anti-Venom, the Black Widow broke inside the Alchemax Tower to gain additional intel, but had inadvertently freed Alchemax's latest experiment, the Zombiotes. They fought their way out, coming across Alchemax's CEO Liz Allan, who had also bonded to a symbiote. As Anti-Venom was needed somewhere else, the Black Widow was left with Allan to hold off the Zombiote horde.
The symbiote-possessed women lured as many Zombiotes as possible back to Alchemax Tower where they formed a plan to take them down. Misery would go replace the water in the fire sprinkler system with her Anti-Venom, while Widow kept the Zombiotes busy before activating said system. She temporarily separated from her symbiote for it to fight the Zombiotes while Natasha went to activate the system. To her dismay, her symbiote Sliver became infected by the Zombiote plague and before Natasha could bring it back to its senses, the symbiote perished from the Anti-Venom symbiote alongside the Zombiotes. Now without a symbiote, Natasha made sure that the situation was stabilized and, with her mission complete, she tearfully bid Sliver farewell.
In the Legacy of Chris Thorndyke,
And she is reprised by Laura Bailey in the English dub and Mayumi Asano in the Japanese dub.