BLACK WIDOW

Beauty is in eye of the beholder: Marvel Comic’s “The Black Widow”,

Super-empowered woman or Super-exploited sex object in the movies and
comic books.

The Black Widow (Natasha Romanova) is a superhero character who first

appeared Marvel Comics Tales of Suspens No. 52 (April 1964). She was
created by editor and plotter Stan Lee who is responsible for a great number
of the heroes we recognize from the Marvel Universe. She was introduced
as a Russian spy who sometime later defects to the United states and
becomes an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. and a member of the Avengers. The
character is an expert tactician, martial artist and is stronger than most men
though not really super-strong. Her origin story, describes her being
biologically enhanced and psychologically but does not quantify the extent
of this. Important to her story is that she was trained in the Black Widow
Ops Program. This program was designed to make the ultimate femme
fatale assassin. A women who was mysterious, seductive, competent and
deadly. As this character was written in the turbulent 60s, the second wave
of Women’s Movement was in full swing. The Women’s Movement is
defined as the “social movement, largely based in the United States, seeking
equal rights and opportunities for women in their economic activities, their
personal lives, and politics. It is recognized as the “second wave” of the
larger feminist movement. While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and
early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, such as the right to
vote, the second-wave feminism of the “women’s movement” peaked in the
1960s and ’70s and touched on every area of women’s experience—
including family, sexuality, and work. There is little doubt that Stan Lee had
to be influenced in some ways by this when he wrote the Black Widow
character.