Relationship Spotlight: Natasha Romanoff & Yelena Belova (Black Widow)

Natasha’s dysfunctional relationship with her Russian-agent surrogate family is my favorite part of Black Widow, and within that, my favorite of those familial relationships is the one between Natasha and her estranged fake little sister Yelena. Seeing the growing pains of their reunion is a great way to probe more deeply into Natasha’s character while also introducing a great new one (a few Natasha-Yelena-related spoilers.)

During the three years they spent as the decoy children in an Americans-style family unit in Ohio, Natasha understood the real situation – that their “parents” were actually deeply-embedded Russian spies and that the whole family act was simply cover – but Yelena didn’t. She was too young, and whatever hazy memories she had of the family she was kidnapped from quickly blended into the new memories she was making with her fake parents and big sister. It wasn’t until Melina and Alexei completed their mission and extracted themselves that the truth came slamming down. Natasha and Yelena were delivered up to the Red Room, Natasha returning to continue her training/conditioning and Yelena being subjected to it for the first time. Both were tortured and brainwashed as they were molded into highly-efficient assassins.

Natasha was eventually turned by S.H.I.E.L.D., and as a parting gift, she killed Dreykov, destroying the Red Room in the process. Or she she thought. As she refocused her loyalties and became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, she didn’t cross paths with Yelena again, but she comforted herself with the idea that Yelena got out and was living a normal life somewhere. However, when Yelena lands herself in hot water and she and Natasha are brought back together after the events of Civil War, it’s time for Natasha to get her own rude awakening: Dreykov escaped her hit all those years ago, the Red Room is still active, and Yelena has only just regained the free will that was stolen from her through chemical conditioning. Yelena is armed with the only way to free Black Widows, and Natasha convinces her younger sister to join her in taking down the Red Room for good.

In my review for Black Widow, I mentioned my appreciation for the way that Natasha’s “family” brings out different sides of her, as well as the way they all tease her. Both of those things are especially true with Yelena. Their unexpected reunion might begin with a physical fight, as neither is sure how much they can trust the other, but it quickly slides into sisterly bickering and truth-telling. Natasha moves into big-sister mode, making Yelena’s safety her responsibility and positioning herself as the chief decision-maker for their mission. Meanwhile, Yelena is serving up peak little sister, relentlessly mocking Natasha’s impractical fight poses while simultaneously fishing for Natasha’s approval about her new vest (it’s the first piece of clothing Yelena has ever been able to buy for herself as a free woman and she’s very proud of it.)

It’s not all squabbles and teasing, though. Both women have experienced serious hurt, and they’re able to delve into that together. Yelena and Natasha compare what memories they have of their original families and ponder what they do with what the Red Room made them into. What’s more, Yelena has plenty of hurt that she specifically associates with Natasha, the pain of knowing her Avenger sister never came back for her/saved her, the fact that she was the only one in the “family” who didn’t know their Ohio life was a lie at the time. Yelena pushes Natasha on these things and doesn’t allow for excuses.

And within all of this, we also get the fact that they work extremely well together. Both have similar training, of course, so both share the same considerable skill set (which makes them a little too evenly matched in their initial fight scene, their parallel moves canceling each other out.) They’re well-versed in hand-to-hand combat, shooting, getaway-driving, infiltration, and improvising as needed when things go to hell, and they prove to be a formidable force when they team up. They’re a pair to be reckoned with, and despite some of the long-nurtured hurts between them, they have each other’s back until the end.

Relationship Spotlight: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff (The Avengers)

Hands down, my favorite friendship among the main Avengers.  I was excited to see Natasha in The Winter Soldier just because I love Black Widow so much, but I came away really liking the great relationship between her and Cap.  Although Natasha is a little too shunted into her plot with Bruce in Age of Ultron for there to be much Natasha-Steve, the duo resurfaces in Civil War and makes up for it nicely (some spoilers, including Civil War.)

The Avengers is very much a “throw different characters together and see what sticks” sort of movie, still figuring out where the best dynamics are, and it’s pretty light on the Cap-Natasha front.  At a time when Steve is still feeling like a misplaced museum piece, she’s casual with him, not viewing him as a relic of SHIELD history but not skirting around his past, either.  The scene in which she tells him about Coulson’s Captain America trading cards in fun, and they do some good work together at the street level during the final battle.

It’s not until The Winter Soldier that we really see their relationship.  At this point, they’ve been working alongside one another at SHIELD for a while, and they’ve gotten to know each other well enough that they joke around and play well off of each other on missions.  Steve, having trouble with the transition from soldier to agent, struggles a bit with Natasha’s spy sensibilities – he doesn’t like her having undeclared agendas, and he sometimes feels he can’t get a read on who she actually is beneath all her assorted covers.  However, when everything hits the fan at SHIELD and there’s no one to trust, Steve (somewhat reluctantly) lets Natasha in on what Fury’s shared with him, and they set off together to uncover the dark truth at the center of SHIELD.

Oh yeah, and they’re awesome.  Since Steve’s new to the spy game, Natasha’s skillset comes in handy for sneaking around and acquiring intel while they’re being hunted by shady people.  She helps Steve blend in/adopt covers, and she traces an important location they need.  When it comes to combat, they work seamlessly together, each lending the other an assist when needed but completely trusting that the other can handle themselves.  It’s an excellent equal-footing partnership, because even though the serum gives Cap abilities that Natasha doesn’t have, she knows how to do plenty of things that he can’t.  All in all, not a pair you want to mess with.

It’s also during this on-the-run team-up that each learns to understand the other so much better.  In between avoiding capture and learning shocking secrets, they talk about their lives and histories, the similarities and differences between the paths they’ve taken.  Steve admits his discomfort with the idea of deep-cover missions like Natasha has done, and despite her matter-of-factness about it on the surface, it troubles her not to know if he really trusts her, and she admits as much to him.  For his part, Steve confesses that he might have answered that question differently in the past, but due to what he’s seen on the mission, he’s absolutely confident that she has his back.  This is the relationship we see, albeit briefly, in Civil War.  Cap and Natasha are two of the few people that remain pretty cordial to each other throughout the film.  Though she signs the Accords and he doesn’t, each understands why the other makes the decision they do, and when the chips are really down, Natasha listens to what Steve has to say and helps him out.  Finally, in the midst of everything going down, I love that she takes the time to fly to London for Peggy’s funeral, just because she knows what a hard time it is for Steve and doesn’t want him to be alone.  Now that’s friendship.

Favorite Characters: Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (The Avengers)

That’s right, I’m one of those fans clamoring for a Black Widow movie – I would watch the crap out of that.  I was almost entirely indifferent to this character in her first appearance to the Avengers movie-verse, but her more recently outings display how incredible she is.

When Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2, she did hardly anything for me.  The film basically casts her as another hot redhead to put in Tony’s sphere, but with a quarter of Pepper’s personality, and then whips out her hand-to-hand combat skills for the final act.  She’s either a sexy vessel or a sexy killing machine, depending on what’s needed at the time.  Not exactly riveting.

Thank goodness for Joss Whedon, who showed me in the first Avengers movie how truly awesome Black Widow can be.  Her initial scene in that film wipes the floor with the entirety of Iron Man 2.  Captured and menaced by a group of Russian mobsters, she makes it clear that she’s exactly where she wants to be, as well as wholly in control of the situation.  Her brutal takedown of the mobsters – all while tied to a chair – is one of my favorite fight scenes in recent years, and throughout, she just radiates the cool capability that is so essential to her character.

Between The Avengers and the most recent Captain America venture, Black Widow kicks serious butt, has massive amounts of agency, and always keeps me guessing.  For those unfamiliar, she’s a former Russian agent, recruited as a child and trained as a shrewd spy and a ruthless assassin.  Those days, however, are past, and though her actions from back then still haunt her, she fights for the good guys now.  S.H.I.E.L.D., the government’s intelligence agency that takes on superhuman threats, puts her skills to better use.

I love that.  All too often in comic book films, the toughest, most capable female characters are baddies, while the female leads tend to play love interests/damsels for the male heroes.  Black Widow used to be an enemy, before we knew her, and there’s more than a little gray to her character, but she’s firmly on our side.  It’s great to see her fight alongside Captain America or perform a little sly spy-fu for Nick Fury. 

It’s obvious that she’s a boss.  Her fighting skills are off-the-charts – quick, efficient, and endlessly impressive.  She’s also an intelligent woman who can think on her feet.  In the latest Captain America, she’s often the one calling the shots when she and Cap go on the run, because she has a talent for improvising disguises, misdirection, and contingency plans.  She can work alone, leading a gaggle of nameless agents, or as half of a team, like with Hawkeye or Cap.  She’s a hard person to get to know – experience has caused her to play everything close to the chest – but she’s brave, loyal, and determined to make up for the evils of her past.

Probably the most amazing thing about Black Widow is her lack of superpowers.  Like Hawkeye, she’s not technically one of the Avengers.  She’s not an alien, a science experiment gone wrong or right, or someone augmented by incredible technology.  She’s just a supremely capable human being with the skills to hold her own alongside Captain America and the nerve to try to defuse the Hulk.  Awesome, kickass human with tactical knowhow and a dark past?  I mean, seriously – how does she not have her own movie yet?