Warning: contains spoilers for Black Widow #4!
The latest Avengers: Age of Ultron - a 'blink and you'll miss it' addition that will nevertheless capture the attention of anyone who was ticked off by director Joss Whedon's choices surrounding the MCU super-spy.
When Natasha got captured by Ultron in the Avengers film, fans weren't happy, because despite Black Widow being the only female member of the Avengers, she's no damsel. The moment felt like a low blow considering how badass Natasha had been to that point, especially since the purpose was to give Ultron an audience for his monologue. So, what does Black Widow #4 have to say about it?
With Natasha desperate to keep her family safe and Weeping Lion's men trying to kill her at the start of the issue, Black Widow thinks back to her capture and her foggy memory regarding the incident, considering who may have been behind the occurrence. The list she comes up with includes Ultron (in the top right), despite the fact that her current predicament is definitively not his style.
Over the current run of Black Widow, Natasha's hidden enemies have tried to take her off the board by giving her the perfect life, including a brainwashed husband and a cloned son. While she's considering every option in this moment, Ultron still seems like a baseless choice, both in of the approach taken and the lack of reason for the evil robot to have any particular grudge against Black Widow. This makes it feel more likely that the detail is intended to reference the last time it didn't make sense for Ultron to capture Natasha and keep her alive, especially since Ultron has been bonded with Hank Pym since 2015's Rage of Ultron, displaying a half-human face ever since. Reverting to the full-mechanical look is a head-scratcher for Nat... unless it's intended to more directly evoke the movie.
The reference is incredibly subtle, and may simply be a coincidence, but many would argue that a team so in tune with what makes Black Widow awesome are also likely to the times other writers have dropped the ball. Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande certainly don't imagine Natasha as a damsel, and the inclusion of Yelena Belova in the comic - now subtly reimagined as a young ally - shows that they definitely have the MCU in mind, even if they didn't intend a direct dig at Whedon's Age of Ultron. While it doesn't seem like Ultron is going to make an appearance in the Black Widow series anytime soon, that doesn't make the stakes any less extreme, and fans of the Russian spy shouldn't miss an issue.
