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Today, we look at when Marvel officially confirmed that Black Widow does not age normally and is actually roughly 80-90 years old.
In “When We First Met”, we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, “Avengers Assemble!” or the first appearance of Batman’s giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man’s face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Okay, this one is extremely tricky. As I write this, I’m not even 100% I’m right with this, as for all I know, there’s some random ass Marvel Comics Presents story that has a one line reference about this, but I am pretty sure that this is correct (thank to Tom A. for sending me on this quest, that bastard! I kid, you know I love this nonsense).
As I have written about in the past, Black Widow’s slow aging is probably the most absurd example of choosing to not work with a sliding timeline in all of Marvel Comics. As you all know by now, the concept of a sliding timescale can be something as simple as Aunt May rushing home to go watch the newest episode of the Beverly Hillbillies to, you know, NOT doing that, since the Beverly Hillbillies went off the air over fifty years ago. Or how Captain America couldn’t have gone on an adventure with Bill Clinton since Captain America likely only got taken out of his suspended animation sometime in the past twenty years. Of course, the idea is that you don’t pick any specific dates, it’s just “sometime in the last ten years” and move on from any specific points in time.
Mark Waid cleverly did a bit in the recent History of the Marvel Universe where he established a war that was the substitute for the Vietnam War that lasted an indefinite amount of time, so it fits perfectly into the sliding timeline idea.
But today, though, we’re going to be looking at an example of how to blow the sliding timeline up into a million little pieces.
Okay, it all began in in 1972’s Daredevil #88, with Gerry Conway firmly established World War II as being part of the Black Widow’s origin in her first real origin (an early Avengers story by Roy Thomas SORT of gave her an origin)…
Here’s the big problem, of course. This comic book was written in 1972. Therefore, saying that Natasha was a little girl in 1942 would make her in her mid-30s in 1972. That’s just normal background stuff. In other words, characters like Perry Mason on Perry Mason or Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip both fought in World War II. That wasn’t because World War II was an inherent part of their background, but rather because their TV shows came out in the late 1950s, so of course Mason and Bailey would have been involved in World War II, like most every guy their age. So it wasn’t that Conway felt that World War II was some important part of Black Widow’s origin, it was just that she’s a Russian who was in her mid-30s in 1972, so obviously World War II logically had an impact on her.
You know who else was tied to World War II? Reed Richards!
And Ben Grimm, as well, of course. That was just normal, because they were introduced as dudes in their late 30s/early 1940s in 1961. Similarly, when the Punisher was introduced in the 1970s, he was made a Vietnam War veteran, because that just made logical sense. As time went by, though, Reed, Ben and Frank Castle were no longer veterans of the wars they were when we met them (similarly, Peter Parker’s high school classmate, Flash Thompson, no longer fought in the Vietnam War, either).
So there was clearly no intent to specifically tie Black Widow to World War II.
Well, there WASN’T until Chris Claremont famously used her as a child in 1990’s Uncanny X-Men #268 (by Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott Williams), as she is abducted and Wolverine and Captain America have to save her (by the way, this doesn’t even make sense, since this in 1941 and the Daredevil issue says she was found by Ivan in 1942. Also, how the heck hasn’t IVAN aged in fifty years?)…
There’s even a bit where it specifically acknowledges how odd it is that she does not look like 49 years have passed since she first met Wolverine…
However, that story could obviously be ignored just as much as the whole “Reed and Ben fought in World War II” story was ignored. After all, it wasn’t like Uncanny X-Men was even Black Widow’s main comic book series. She was already in the Avengers by this time, so that would have been her “main” book.
And because of that, everyone else just dodged the question. People just didn’t discuss how old Black Widow was. It simply never came up.
Finally, the first comic to outright try to explain Uncanny X-Men #268 was 2004’s Black Widow #6 by Richard K. Morgan, Goran Parlov and Bill Sienkiewicz when we learn that Natasha, along with the other Black Widows were genetically manipulated to make them age slower…
That issue has problems with continuity itself, which I’ll explain in future columns, but suffice to say that, for now, that is the issue that first actually tried to come up with an explanation for WHY Black Widow was a little girl during World War II and, you know, not super old in 2004.
As I’ve said before, though, I really don’t think it adds much to the character to have her nearly 90 years old, so I would have just ignored the Uncanny X-Men #268 revelation (hard to do with the iconic Jim Lee Captain America art in that issue, but still).
Thanks to my pal Tom A. for suggesting this one.
If anyone else has a suggestion for/question about a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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