I SPIDER

We have unfinished business,” says Black Widow in the trailer for her long-overdue headline movie. Throughout her 56-year comics career as a spy, villain, antihero, hero, killer and more, Natasha Romanoff has been subject to multiple makeovers – brainwashed, memory-wiped, self-reinvented, killed, cloned, zombiefied and more in a history of retcons. Combined with her supremely adaptable skill-set, the sense that there’s more to her than even she knows helps explain her longevity: she’s practically made of unfinished business.

If you want to confuse matters Widow-related, Marvel had a character named Black Widow in 1940, real name Claire Voyant (oof). She was a psychic, but that’s another story. Introduced on the cover as a “gorgeous new menace”, Black Widow proper debuted in #52 in April 1964, under creators Stan Lee, Don Rico and Don Heck. Tasked with helping fellow agent Boris), she doesn’t do much at first except skulk with insidious intent. But she is a canny Cold War operator, able to turn situations to her advantage.