Who is the Black Widow? Since surfacing in Iron Man 2, there’s not a whole lot we know about SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff, as played by Scarlett Johansson. By her words, she’s definitely a spy who has some red on her ledger, and she seems to have run black ops with pal Hawkeye for awhile now. But that could all be lies: the Widow is a spy, and in the comics, her name meant that she had walked down the aisles with several men before extracting what was needed for them, and killing them. Spy work ain’t for the faint of heart.
This latest featurette from Entertainment Tonight showcases the character as per her appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Mixing it up from the first film by throwing the Widow in the mix makes this essentially a two-hander, with Cap’s idealism bouncing off the Widow’s more contemporary cynicism and opportunism. Cap comes from a world where the most valuable asset was another man. Today, the prime asset is information. The question that hangs in the air from this featurette is, could there be a relationship blossoming between the two? And has someone told Hawkeye?
You wonder if this is the movie that reveals the real Widow. The film version has depicted Romanoff as a martial artist and gunfighter, using brute force and cunning in battle. But what about the popular comics incarnation, the spy with a shady Cold War-ish relationship between both the American and Russian governments? The seductress who could take Iron Man to bed, and walk away days later with millions in Stark Industry profits in her suitcase? The woman with a shady past, who may or may not be manipulated by SHIELD? Given the major changes to the organization in the film, and the fact that Avengers: Age Of Ultron could be beginning with a fractured team, it’s possible that Romanoff isn’t the most trustworthy partner for Cap to have.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier arrives April 4th. Though, FYI, if you really need your Johansson fix, the critically-acclaimed Under The Skin starring the actress opens up in limited release that day as well. The Jonathan Glazer film finds Johansson as an extraterrestrial visiting earth and sexually preying on men, and has been compared to Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth. Which means if you’re in one of the select cities and you love all types of movies, you can make it a super-sexy Johansson double feature. Excellent.
