Spy. Avenger. Love interest. Monster. Leader. Friend. Sacrifice.
These are all faces worn by Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff across her seven film appearances.
Nat’s treatment by the numerous MCU writers and directors has varied greatly, but one through-line is this: Natasha does not have a (biological) family, and this is bad. She can attempt to have vulnerable relationships with other people, but because she cannot have the “ultimate intimate relationship,” i.e. motherhood, she is a tragic figure.
When Black Widow is introduced in Iron Man 2, she is Natalie Rushman, Tony Stark’s new assistant. She’s mysterious, flirty, and full of surprises. After the audience (and Tony) learns of her true identity of Natasha Romanoff, super spy, any vulnerability she shows is thrown into question—it is safe to assume that her every interaction with Tony is under some layer of subterfuge.
Nat is an expert at feigning vulnerability to get what she wants: ingratiating herself to Tony in Iron Man 2 to spy on him, the interrogation scene at the start of Avengers, her tricking Loki into revealing his plan to use the Hulk, kissing Steve in Captain America: Winter Soldier to distract their pursuers. Her decision at the end of Captain America: Winter Soldier to leak S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets is a bold choice, and one that marks some personal growth. She opts to be vulnerable to the entire internet, revealing all of her misdeeds on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records, for the sake of taking down HYDRA.
After Captain America: Winter Soldier, Nat is primed for a character arc revolving around her ability to be vulnerable to another individual. She has opened up to the world at large by leaking S.H.I.E.L.D. data, but we have yet to see her be truly vulnerable with another character besides Clint Barton.
And Avengers: Age of Ultron tries to move Nat’s character in that direction. We see her friendship with the Bartons and her burgeoning romance with Bruce. But the writers’ attempts at making Nat vulnerable fall flat when she and Bruce discuss starting a family.
“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?” she asks after describing the sterilization process forced on her.
It’s not wrong for a character to have “problematic” views. But what makes Nat’s question here so bad is that the movie goes to no lengths to prove her wrong.
Nobody tells Natasha that she is not a monster for being infertile. Nobody reminds her that everything that happened in the Red Room was forced on her and is not her fault. Nobody points out the false equivalency of equating her infertility with the Hulk causing massive destruction in Johannesburg. And nobody ever brings up the possibilities of surrogacy or adoption.
Nat was forcibly sterilized, and that’s it. She’s a monster who can’t have children and is very good at killing.
There was such potential for this movie to give Nat a satisfying story in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
What does it mean that she has better chemistry with the Hulk than she does with Bruce Banner? How involved a role does she take on with Nathaniel Barton, her namesake? Will she ever pursue alternate ways to have a family? Does Nat ever come to terms with her infertility or what was done to her in the Red Room? Will she take on a motherly role in the Avengers, especially now that a young woman has joined? Will she ever believe that she is not a monster?
But Nat is denied much closure to these questions, not just in Avengers: Age of Ultron but in her next two film appearances. Captain America: Civil War sees Nat as a supporting character to Steve, willing to sacrifice her found family of the Avengers for what she believes. And in Avengers: Infinity War, she is (like almost all the Avengers) a minor character. We can assume that she has developed a friendship or mentorship with Wanda in the time since Captain America: Civil War, but this is mostly speculation. She doesn’t have a major role again until Avengers: Endgame.
It is impossible to address Nat’s arc in Endgame without also discussing Clint’s. These two have shared a special friendship since Avengers, and Avengers: Endgame brings the pair to the forefront. We open the movie with Clint losing his entire family to the Blip, which leads to him becoming a violent vigilante. Nat, on the other hand, deals with loss from the Blip by leading the Avengers.
So when Clint and Natasha board the Benatar to travel to Vormir, there is a choice to be made: the family man-turned-murderer, or the family-less woman trying to be better?
Marvel certainly made a choice on Vormir—the wrong choice.
It feels like less of a narrative beat and more of an excuse to not have to address the “monster” they created in Natasha. She is a woman who cannot have a biological family, even though she wants one. Rather than present her with other options for making a family, or give her space to grieve and rage at the violence done to her, Marvel sacrifices her so that Clint can return to his bio-family.
I fully believe that it is in-character for Nat to want to die for Clint. That rings true for her. But I think there are so many missed opportunities with her death instead of his. What would it be like for Clint, who spent years killing out of rage, to let himself die out of love? And what role would Nat take on for the Barton children without their father there? Could we see Nat thriving in a role as a mother figure for the other Avengers? Could Nat ever learn to view herself as worthy of another’s sacrifice?
Plenty of other (male) characters with as much or more screen time as Nat are allowed to not have biological families. Bruce Banner is thriving as Professor Hulk. Steve has no children, as far as we know. Thor, Star-Lord, and T’Challa all have no biological children, nor have they expressed any particular interest in them, and the films are fine with it. (All three of them are busy working out their own daddy issues, though, and are still functionally children in parts of their own movies, but that’s another essay.) Male characters are allowed to find fulfillment in all sorts of relationships, not just parent-child. But the first female Avenger is missing something because she cannot have the experience of being a biological mother.
Marvel is playing into an age-old trope that defines womanhood by motherhood. Womanhood without motherhood is empty, tragedy, monstrous.
Even if the Black Widow movie addresses these issues with Nat’s story beats, even if she finds closure to her personal issues, this movie is stained by the fact that the audience knows Nat’s eventual fate. Even if this movie “fixes” to problems presented by Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Endgame, it won’t erase the two years in between Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow during which Nat’s story ends on Vormir.
I want to love Black Widow. I want to see Nat thrive, heal, and love (and also kick lots of ass). I want to see her grow. But the problem with non-chronological media is that I already know Nat’s endgame, and it would take another Time Heist to change it.