In 1970, Marvel unveiled the first of its several female counterparts to Spider-Man. And it turned out she’d been around all along.
The Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, had been introduced six years before as a slinky femme fatale in Tales of Suspense 52 (April 1964).
“She had been born in Russia where she had served the Communists for a while before defecting to the States,” recalled Stan Lee. “She was either an evil heroine or a heroic villainess; I was never quite sure. Anyway, it didn’t take long to realize I really dug the lady, and there was no way I could think of her as someone genuinely evil. Thus, no matter what role she played, no matter what series she appeared in, she always came across as someone sympathetic, someone we found ourselves rooting for.”
Along the way, she traded her veil and mink stole for a more traditional superhero costume with a mask, a cape, and fishnet stockings. But it didn’t quite work.
Beginning in March 1966, Diana Rigg wowed American TV audiences with a catsuit in the imported British spy series with the ironic title of The Avengers. That look clearly influenced the new Black Widow who debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man 86 (July 1970).
“It may not be as fancy, but this new costume will be more in keeping with the swingy seventies, and with the modern image of the new Black Widow!” she enthused.
Lacking any actual superpowers, the wall-crawling, line-swinging Black Widow took on Spider-Man to discover the secret of his abilities, and perhaps just to prove she could do it.
“That’s all this blasted town needs!” exclaimed publisher J. Jonah Jameson, sticking his head out a Daily Bugle window. “Another crummy web-swinger… and a female to boot!”
Lee had intended the issue as a tryout, and so later that year the Black Widow got her own feature in the revived Amazing Adventures title. That solo series ran only eight issues, but the Widow began a long-running partnership with the Man Without Fear in Daredevil 81 (Nov. 1971), even sharing his cover logo.
“Though even her creators may not have known it at the time, this was Marvel’s second use of the name ‘Black Widow,’” recalled comics historian Don Markstein. “The original Black Widow, who appeared in 1940, was extremely obscure, but a far less run-of-the-mill character than this one.”
The first Black Widow, a psychic who called herself “Claire Voyant,” got her supernatural powers from Satan himself and used them to send evil men to hell.
About Author
