The Black Widow, aka Natalia Romanova or Natasha Romanoff, will be played by Scarlett Johansson in next year’s film "Iron Man 2.” Marvel is doing its best to catch up readers on the character before the film, starting this week with the comic-book series "Black Widow: Deadly Origin.”
"Deadly Origin” is written by Paul Cornell, who wrote an acclaimed revamp of "Captain Britain” for Marvel Comics and is known for his work as a writer on the "Doctor Who” television series. The art is by Tom Raney.
"A hidden enemy is killing everyone our heroine, Natalia, has ever been close to: romantic partners, friends, people she was kind to in passing,” Cornell wrote on his blog at Paul Cornell.com. "The first issue has guest appearances by Wolverine, the Winter Soldier and Joe Stalin, flashbacks courtesy of John Paul Leon.”
Several of Black Widow’s earliest appearances, in "Tales of Suspense,” "Amazing Spider-Man” and "Daredevil,” as well as her own solo story in "Amazing Adventures,” are collected in the hardcover "Sting of the Black Widow.”
The Black Widow also pops up in two hardcover collections from Marvel slated to come out before "Iron Man 2.” The first, "Iron Man: Deadly Solutions,” collects the first seven issues of writer Kurt Busiek and artist Sean Chen’s work on the title in 1998.
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