Current CuriositiesReading | Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline Listening | Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter on repeat this summer Watching | Bravo's The Valley because ohmygod cishet relationships are truly dark Natasha "Ariadne" RomanoffOutside of taking a group of INMED campers to see the midnight showing of The Avengers (2012), I had never seen a Marvel movie. I tended to be very picky about science fiction and fantasy — as in, if it wasn't Star Wars, I was not interested. Fast-forward to 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic (and lots of free time). In August 2020, I accepted a position in the Center for Community & Civic Engagement at Carleton College and moved to hella rural Northfield, Minnesota. (The slogan for Northfield is Cows, Colleges, and Community. Uff da.) I didn't know anyone in town, save a handful of my new colleagues. Carleton, to its credit, was navigating the pandemic cautiously, so when I started my new position as Student Experience Manager, I worked from my kitchen table in my one-bedroom apartment in an old Arts and Crafts style house on the St. Olaf College side of town. (Scandinavian Sharks and Jets, baby!) When not Zooming into team meetings or one-on-one virtual coffees, I searched for activities to complement long walks with Diego Dog through our neighborhood. During one of these walks, I remembered laughing uncontrollably with my grad school friend and fellow camp counselor Maggie (a truly stellar human) at the scene where the Hulk picks up Loki, swinging him side to side into the cement floor of Stark Tower near the end of The Avengers. In fact, Maggie and I used to send each other this GIF back and forth for years when students at our respective universities asked silly questions. (Sometimes educators need gallows humor to reach the end of the semester.) Reflecting on the Hulk GIF, I decided to watch everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had to offer. All I needed was the internet and Disney+. Luckily, I had both. So on a cloudy afternoon after my last virtual meeting of the day, I began working my way through the MCU in order of theatrical release, starting with Iron Man (2008). I've never been a comic book reader, so each character and every plot was new to me. While I find Tony Stark insufferable, I powered through Iron Man II, where I found my curiosity piqued by Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow). She started a through line, acted as a kind of MCU guide for me. Aside from Captain America (and! that! ass!), I had not found any of the other Avengers particularly interesting, but Black Widow deeply fascinated me — her darkness just below the surface, her sense of justice, her loyalty. As I worked my way through the MCU, I loved watching Black Widow pop into individual Avenger's movies and every team movie. What I realized is Black Widow, while not having her own standalone movie until after her death in Avengers: Endgame (2019), was stitching together the individual stories of her fellow Avengers. Natasha brings Iron Man and Hawkeye into Nick Fury's fold. She works closely with Captain America in his original trilogy. And she learns how to manage and care for Bruce Banner and his alter-ego the Hulk. As she collects allies, Black Widow leads viewers (or at least this one) through the complicated, labyrinthine plots that when woven together create the MCU much like Ariadne and her red thread lead Theseus through King Minos's labyrinth to save the Athenian sacrifices from the monstrous Minotaur. Sidequest: Growing Up Greek-ishMy whole life I've loved Greek mythology, which I suppose is not all that different from comic books and superheroes. My family comes from the island of Corfu. According to legend, the original inhabitants of the island, the Phaeacians, sprung out of the blood and sea foam, the result of Cronus gelding his father Uranus with a sickle. The sickle is said to be buried under the island, which is why the it's sickle-shaped. With such primordial ancestry, I often joke about being the descendant of Titans. As a child, my favorite myths were Daedalus and Icarus (I really wanted to fly), Heracles (what's not to love — muscles and queerness???), Medusa (I'm with her!), and of course, Theseus and the Minotaur. As a child with anxiety, the labyrinth represented the unknown, with the prospect of danger lurking around every turn, the potential to be lost forever. Knowing that Ariadne provided Theseus a red thread, a guide to navigate the labyrinth safely, provided a small sense of security — if Theseus could manage navigating the unknown, then so could I. Ariadne's thread, along with Daedalus's ingenuity and Heracles's grit, lessened my anxiety and instilled in me a drive to face challenges with creative problem solving. Focus! Find the Thread![Please note, I'm updating this section live as I rewatch movies featuring Black Widow because as I used to say to my research and writing students Where! Is! The! Evidence!]
In Iron Man 2, Natasha Romanoff joins Stark Industries on orders from Nick Fury as Pepper Pots' assistant. Fury reveals Natasha works for S.H.I.E.L.D. (so many periods!) and Romanoff and Happy Hogan team up to find Vanko, the Big Bad funded by a squirrelly Justin Hammer. (While I love Sam Rockwell, even his smooth dance moves can't save Iron Man II for me.) Natasha outperforms Happy (obvi) as she topples goon after goon and hacks into Hammer's system to aid Iron Man's final battle with Vanko. This is our MCU introduction to the Black Widow. She works from the fringes, supporting her teammates as they fight bullish Big Bads to win the day. Next in The Avengers, Black Widow, again on orders from Nick Fury, locates and recruits Bruce Banner to join the newly reactivated Avengers Initiative. Captain America, Iron Man, and Bruce Banner join her on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaked sky fortress. (Sometimes, I cannot believe I'm typing words and phrases like sky fortress. It all sounds so silly.) Natasha interrogates and outsmarts Loki and saves her old friend Hawkeye from Loki's mind control. During the final battle over New York City (renters insurance must be astronomical!), Natasha again uses her brilliance and badassery to reprogram the portal to stop Loki's army, allowing Iron Man to redirect a nuclear missile, seemingly sacrificing himself [eye roll]. In these first two Black Widow outings, not only do we see Natasha fighting alongside her male colleagues to save the planet, but we also witness Natasha guiding her male colleagues through the chaos, supporting the collective defeat of their monsters. Then in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Natasha initiates events by pulling up in a sports car. Later while rescuing hostages held on a ship, she yet again hacks into the system, another web of information needed to move the plot forward. (I realize I'm conflating spiders and webs and threads and the MCU with labyrinth, but this slippage is interesting.) Natasha uses her ability to see, to sense the world around her (like a spider feeling silk vibrations) in order to guide Steve through a maze-like shopping mall, secret military installation, and compromised S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. She deftly detangles recursive webs of secret identities and misinformation to, again, win the day against Hydra's Alexander Pierce and Fascism 2.0. (Uff da, The Winter Soldier feels very 2025.) And the team gains an Icarus of sorts in the form of Sam Wilson's Falcon! (Yes, I know there's already an Ikaris in The Eternals.) Admittedly, I don't care for Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's hella bleak. (Is this our AI future???) In an interesting move, Natasha is captured and her Ariadne is replaced temporarily by Agent Maria Hill (and Fury), as Hill traces Ultron's movements and directs the team to Sokovia to destroy Ultron and his AI goons. It seems Black Widow's narrative thread is to be present, as she negotiates her feelings and culpability in what has occurred in the past and what's currently happening in Sokovia. Her relationship with the Hulk continues to grow, well, before you know what happens. Age of Ultron represents the midpoint in Natasha's narrative trajectory, bringing her low before the events of Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame. Black Widow's presence is our thread. Next in Captain America: Civil War, ... I love this movie so much. And Spider-Man's lil tukhus could challenge Captain America's bum for superherioc bottom supreme. Then in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, ... Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame is arguably more meaningful than Tony's snap of his fingers. (Fight me.) Black Widow pays Red Skull's price for the Soul Stone in the hope that her death leads to an Avengers' victory, resurrecting trillions of beings. Rebellions are built on hope after all. (I know, wrong franchise.) Tony, on the other hand, knows (with a nod from Doctor Strange) his bejeweled gauntlet will return half of the universe to life and eliminate Thanos, his henchmen and army of death. Tony knows. Natasha hopes. I realize my analogy is probably (definitely) forced. But for me, Black Widow acts as a kind of MCU pedagogy. Natasha gives structure to this unwieldy franchise by leading viewers (okay, me) from movie to movie, creating a web of growing superhero connections. Natasha is a dependable presence, and often she's the calm, level-headed Avenger while the men measure their, umm, powers. Finally, in her solo movie, we witness Natasha hand off her MCU thread to Yelena, who plays a similar narrative role, as she dips in and out of movies and series stitching together a new Avengers team. Only a family of Widows could achieve such a feat! Twice. And I'm looking forward to this new maze of entangled MCU stories led by Florence Pugh. Curiously, Disney+ does not feature Black Widow in their MCU character collections. As of writing this post, I'm fully caught up on everything MCU, except The Thunderbolts*. I enjoyed Captain America: Brave New World because I'm just happy to revisit characters and exist in this universe. (This is also my approach to And Just Like That. If you know you know.) And so far, Ironheart's first three episodes are fantastic! For what it's worth, here are my favorite parts of the MCU:
If you're interested in Greek mythology, check out Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!. Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): TWSBI Go [Fountain Pen] | Colorverse Cat Ink (No. 22) Glistening [Ink]
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