Where Have You Been, Black Widow?

Last week, BLACK WIDOW #1 by writers Jen and Sylvia Soska and artist Flaviano blasted into stores with a high octane story balanced out by hard hitting, human drama.

But...wait a minute...didn't Natasha Romanoff die fighting an evil Captain America impostor in 2017's SECRET EMPIRE? We're glad you asked, True Believer! 

After Hydra Cap revealed himself as the villain in SECRET EMPIRE #0, Black Widow worked with Hawkeye to set up a Resistance base for heroes and civilians in the Mount. In the wake of Hydra's attack on Las Vegas, Natasha decided that Steve had gone too far over the edge and needed to die. While she lead many of the younger heroes–mostly members of the Champions–in that mission, the others tried to restore Rogers' humanity by gathering shards of the Cosmic Cube.

To fulfill her mission, Black Widow knew that they needed to get close to Cap. So, after using Red Room methods to train her pupils, she sent them undercover in SECRET EMPIRE UPRISING #1 which allowed her access to Viper (a Hydra higher-up) as seen in SECRET EMPIRE #5. Romanoff used Viper's secret drug ring as leverage to rescue Mosaic from a Hydra facility.

Assuming her comrades died in Hydra's bombardment of the Mount in issue #6, Black Widow led her squad in a direct attack on Captain America in Washington, D.C. During that encounter, when she jumped in between Miles Morales and Steve Rogers' fight, Natasha wound up on the receiving end of a shield hit that broke her neck. Natasha's death helped galvanize the other heroes in their plan to get the Cube pieces and restore the real Captain America, which worked in the event's final issue.

But just how dead was the Black Widow? Winter Soldier wasn't so sure as he recognized her assassination handiwork in SECRET EMPIRE OMEGA which led directly into TALES OF SUSPENSE #100-#104. Joined by another one of Natasha's former romantic interests, Clint Barton, Bucky sought out a person of interest in Chernaya.

Eventually, readers learned that the Red Room had figured out a way to clone their previous Widows and implant a variety of memories in them. They had done this with Natasha only for her to regain all of her memories thanks to an assist from Ursa Major. Natasha kept her memories secret from her Red Room handlers and began dismantling the operation from the inside.

After making it look like she killed Bucky and Clint, Natasha worked her way into a position of power with the Red Room only to kill most of the other clones and anyone else in charge of the operation. She then got the girls, Bucky, and Clint out of the building before running back inside to make it look like she died.

Far from dead, however, Romanoff appeared next in INFINITY COUNTDOWN #1. Though she'd been hiding out in Madripoor for a while, Natasha found herself in a very different kind of spotlight when the recently revived Wolverine dropped off the Space Stone in her safe house and asked her to keep it safe.

In INFINITY COUNTDOWN: BLACK WIDOW #1, Romanoff managed to use the Infinity Stone for limited teleportation, which came in handy as Jamie Braddock made it his mission to hunt her down and get the object for himself. She stopped him, teamed up with Merlin and then worked her way into INFINITY WARS, a story that involved a dead Thanos, collection of the Infinity Stones, and the merged realities of Warp World where Black Widow and She-Hulk combined into someone called the Green Widow!

Back on Earth, Black Widow continued using her skills from the shadows, allowing most of the world to assume she was still dead. She then reunited with the man who killed her–or at least the man who looked like him–when Captain America asked her to help keep an eye on the star of WEAPON H. The mission took her straight to Weirdworld and pitted her up against Morgan Le Fay as well as all the shady people who work at Roxxon.

With this week's BLACK WIDOW #1, though, our hero made her way back to Madripoor after helping Steve stop a terrorist bombing in New York City on New Year's Eve. There, she encountered Tyger Tiger who told her that someone had been kidnapping children from Madripoor and allowing the highest bidder to direct terrible acts on over the internet. Outraged, Black Widow agreed to take the perpetrators down...

Read BLACK WIDOW #1 at your local comic shop now!