Melanie Scott - Marvel Black Widow: Secrets of a Super-spy

D BLACK WIDOW: DEADLY ORIGIN #1 (JAN. 2010) Natasha was enrolled in an intensive training program for secret agents, endorsed by the General Secretary Josef Stalin himself.

Natalia Alianovna Romanova was born in the city of Stalingrad in 1928. This place is revered as a Hero City, so it is fitting that one of the most famous members of the Avengers should be one of its children. Like Natalia, the city has a long and tortuous history, and has worn many names and identities. Called Tsaritsyn until 1925, it was rewarded for its status as a crucial battlefield of the Russian Civil War by being renamed Stalingrad, after the then Communist Party Chairman, Josef Stalin. Assigned to the area by Premier Vladimir Lenin in the aftermath of World War I, Stalin used Tsaritsyna strategically valuable city on the Volga Riveras a testing ground for his leadership, ruthlessly purging his opponents and enforcing his will. As such, it had become a dangerous place for a child bearing the name of the despised, fallen Czars.

...and if the pupil is
named Romanova...
well, thatll show
something to
the world!

JOSEF STALIN

In the late 1920s, little Natalia Romanovaknown to those close to her as Natashawas rescued from a burning building by a soldier of the Russian Red Army, Ivan Petrovitch, as he searched for his sister. Luckily, her famous family name did not provoke Ivans hatred, but his protective instinct: he never found his lost sibling, but took Natasha with him and decided to bring her up as if she were his own child.

Ivan Petrovitch was not the only one keeping a close eye on Natasha Romanova. While still of an age to be attending elementary school, she was selected to enter the Red Room Academy with a small number of other girls. Their ultimate destiny was mapped out for themthose who proved themselves worthy would become elite secret agents, promoting the interests of the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on deadly stealth missions around the world. Like Natasha, all Red Room students were orphans, and therefore more or less the property of the state, ideal for manipulation and coercion.

Marvel: Black Widow

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N ot long after entering the Red Room Academy, a young Natasha made her first kill for her nation. It said something about her character that she chose to go out alone, without her handler, having failed in her first attempt at the mission.

Pride and determination drove her to prove herself to the Headmistress of the Academy by eliminating a target known only as the Yugoslavian. She found the man, who was considerably bigger than herself, sitting in his car with his young son beside him.

Unhesitating, Natasha struck her target through the vehicles open window, fiercely stabbing him despite the Yugoslavian wounding her with her own knife. She also attacked the little boy in the passenger seat, uttering the blunt declaration: No witnesses.

Marvel: Black Widow

D BLACK WIDOW #7 (DEC. 2016) Early in her training, Natasha exhibited a killer instinct and a dedication to the mission way beyond her years.

However, allowing herself to be hurt was one of several mistakes Natasha made on this mission. Not only did she bungle killing the young eyewitness, she also failed to notice that his cousin was asleep on the back seat of the car, errors that would come back to haunt her in later life.

When she returned to the Red Room,the Headmistress was most displeased that Natasha had set off on her own. She used the opportunity to teach the girl how to stitch up her own wound, advising her that the scar would serve as a useful reminder of the lessons she had learned.

The girls in the so-called Black Widow Ops Program spent a lot of time together, with limited contact with the outside world. Small wonder, then, that they formed close bonds with one another. These friendships, however, were forever tainted with rivalry as each strove to be the best and be granted the right to serve the USSR as a Black Widow. Natashas closest friend at the time was called Marina. Although both girls were being trained to be deadly assassins and spies, Natasha was the more fearless, with a highly developed sense of justice that occasionally exhibited signs of tipping over into sheer retribution.