Today, we look at how an issue of Amazing Spider-Man was used to set-up Black Widow's first solo ongoing series.
This is "In The Spotlight So Clear," a feature where we spotlight times in comics where characters or plots need to be cleared out of the way to make room for a new status quo. Like, for instance, you want to introduce a new Captain Superhero, you might want to first get rid of the previous Captain Superhero. Or if you want to do a new Captain Superhero series, you might want to wrap up all of the plots from Captain Superhero's previous series first. Stuff like that. Stories that are specifically meant to clear things up for upcoming stories.
It is important to note just HOW influential the BBC TV series, The Avengers, was in the United States in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
The late, great, Diana Rigg's performance as Emma Peel was so striking that when the series aired on ABC on license from its British producers (also, coincidentally, named ABC), the shows were nominated for Best Drama Series (unheard of for a non-American show) and Rigg received two Emmy nominations for Best Actress in a Drama (the United States just skipped right to the Rigg seasons of the series. The first two seasons of The Avengers didn't air in the United States until the 1990s on cable). Rigg was the inspiration for Wonder Woman losing her powers and becoming just Diana Prince and going on adventures like Emma Peel, wearing outfits like her.
But was the same true for the Black Widow? As I addressed in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed (you know you've been doing this for too long when your 425th installment is still now EIGHT YEARS AGO), I don't believe so.
In an interview with Jon B. Cooke in TwoMorrows' Comic Book Artist #6, Romita explained why he redesigned Black Widow:
I did the costume on the Black Widow. One of my favorite strips from when I was a kid was Miss Fury. They had done a Miss Fury book at Marvel, and when I found out they had the rights to her, I said I’d love to do a Miss Fury book sometime. I had done an updated drawing of Miss Fury, and Stan said, “Why don’t we redesign the Black Widow costume based on Miss Fury?” So I took the mask off her face, and made the Black Widow the one in the patent leather jumpsuit. That was why the Black Widow changed.
That's one of the fascinating things about John Romita. He's timeless as an artist, but as a guy, he's 91 years old, so his references are very often to 1940s popular culture (he's a HUGE Terry and the Pirates fan, for instance) and so it makes sense that he would be thinking not of Diana Rigg and Emma Peel but of Miss Fury, whose comic strip adventures by June Tarpé Mills were collected into comic book by Marvel (back when it was called Timely).
Okay, now that we have the origin for the change in place, how did Romita go about setting up the new Black Widow? It occurred in 1970's Amazing Spider-Man #86 (by John Romita, Stan Lee and Jim Mooney - Roy Thomas also wrote her out of the Avengers at this point, but I'll address that bit in a whole other column eventually), where Black Widow is out in her old costume when she sees Spider-Man swing by and it inspires her to model herself after him a bit and then test herself against him. The hook for Natasha here is that she is so haunted by some of the messed up stuff she did in the past that she just needs to have the thrill of adventure as the Black Widow to make herself forget the past as much as she can...
She then introduces the new costume, complete with some of the new gadgets she now had, including what appears to be a stronger stinger than the one she had been using before. Romita certainly leans into how sexy he is making her (Mooney was certainly helpful there, as well, as he was a big cheesecake guy, as well).
The odd thing is that she had been swinging on lines before this period, so it's interesting that she leans so hard into the idea that she is ripping off Spidey's web lines with her rope. Anyhow, to quickly check in on Spider-Man, he's dealing with a major flu and as a result, he is a total mess and he is in no shape to suddenly be attacked by some vigilante looking to prove herself and thus, when she attacks Spider-Man and blasts him and then ropes him up, she briefly succeeds and it is funny how much she is like, "Wait, how in the world are you THAT easy to take down?"
It's interesting that she just assumes that it HAS to be that Spider-Man was just toying with her and not that there's anything wrong with him. You'd think a spy would be able to read body language a bit better than most. I suppose, though, that self-perception can cloud the judgements of even the best of us.
However, at the same time, it's good that she at least realizes that Spider-Man has, you know, SUPERPOWERS and thus she can't actually learn from him. Still, it has set her up for a new path in her life...
You have to love how open they were that this was, in effect, a backdoor pilot. Amazing Adventures #1 would launch soon after this issue, with Black Widow (by Gary Friedrich, John Buscema and John Verpoorten to start) splitting the series with Jack Kirby's Inhumans (Romita delivered the Black Widow's half of the cover).
The Black Widow series in Amazing Adventures wasn't necessarily a HIT, but it it led to her stint in Daredevil and also, her shower scene in Amazing Adventures #5 by Gene Colan will also live on in the memory of a good deal of impressionable young readers.
Okay, so that's it for this installment of In the Spotlight So Clear! Feel free to suggest other examples to me at brianc@cbr.com!
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