BLACK WIDOW Will Have HUGE Role in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

By on Monday, September 30th, 2013

I love Black Widow as much as the next red blooded American.

She’s a sultry femme fattale with killer assassin karate chops, a set of futuristic wrist guns, and a clearance level that would turn the President green with envy… but does she really deserve more screen time in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON? Well, we’ll have no say in the matter, because our great ginger overlord, Joss Whedon, has decreed this latest clash of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as a Black Widow mini-fiesta.

“Natasha is a huge part of the sequel because you do want to concentrate on the people who don’t have their own franchises,”

I’m assuming “huge” is a jump up from her “unreasonably large” role in the first Avengers. Listen folks, I love Black Widow (especially her much more intimidating, much more ruthless comic book iteration), but I have to disagree with Whedon. I don’t shell out $60 for a pair of 3-D tickets, a large popcorn, and that oddly delicious radioactive nacho cheese to watch a $200 million spectacle comprised of B-list heroes.

(By the way, did you know that Black Widow received more screen time in The Avengers than Thor? Thor! The very guy responsible for Loki’s invasion of Earth!)

The Avengers is marketed as the clash of the largest superheroes in the Marvel Universe, and unfortunately for Black Widow (and even Hawkeye), only four titans comprise that group: Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Sure, if Natasha Romanoff received her own standalone flick, I’d allow her to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the Manvengers (especially since the absence of female heroes is an unreasonable and unrealistic slight in the modern world), but she’s simply not that important in the grand scheme of things. Marvel created 5 origin films (I’m tossing Iron Man 2 in there) to prepare audiences for their eventual battle against Loki, and to artificially emphasize Widow in order to diversify the sausage fest of a flick is a vanity move by Whedon. I can’t help but suspect that his desire to incorporate female leads in projects equates to some misplaced notion that he’s a master in the field, which his recycled character archetypes in Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD plainly refute.

Alright, alright, that’s a tiny bit mean. I love Whedon as much as the next guy, but I love Thor Odinson infinitely more, and I’m still miffed that he was cinematically castrated in The Avengers. All I’m saying is… don’t exploit The Avengers movies to expand a personal favorite’s screen time, or provide further history. That’s why we have solo movies. And if research dictates that audience members won’t support a solo Black Widow movie, then they probably wouldn’t want to see her role increased much more in Age of Ultron… after all that’s what Captain America: The Winter Soldier is for.

SOURCE: CBM

S#!T Talking Central

  • danmeek

    As a gay man it feels a bit weird I have to point this out — Avengers is a bit of a sausagefest without her.

  • zjongb

    I’m hoping that Ultron kills off Black Widow and Hawkeye.

    There are so many more interesting characters in the Marvel universe. Dr. Strange, Black Bolt and the Inhumans, Cable, NOVA, Vision to name a few.

    Black Widow served her purpose, but since they nodded at the mad Titan after the credits of The Avengers, they should introduce a more formidable female character, Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel.

    • LibraryDrone

      There are so many interesting non powered heroes in the marvel universe. And I don’t think we should just replace one female hero with another just because one has powers.

  • katie

    Hey solution to you not wanting more Black Widow in Age of Ultron, give her a movie and it wouldn’t be necessary. Some people who love Thor like myself don’t mind that Black Widow gets some more screen time because Thor has his movies to build his character. Black Widow doesn’t. Her character needs to be built upon somewhere and not just as Winter Soldiers love interest.

  • http://twitter.com/danielfowler danielfowler

    Wow, you didn’t mention the word “Scarlett” or “Johansson” even once in this article! That’s impressive! And poor for your SEO but let’s move on… in this sex-crazed society and sex-obsessed industry… Ms. Johansson is probably a huge reason for this plot line expansion. Pressure from the investors to exploit her mind blowing sex appeal.

  • bbbbbbbb

    $60?! where the fuck are you watching these movies?!

    • The Mighty Avenger

      $60 = two 3d tickets + large popcorn + two large drinks.

  • Dark Llama

    I’m thinking it’d be sweet to see blackwidow. Again, Thor has his own movies, so yea, He should probably have a little less screen time. I’d like more of both widow and hawkeye in the new movie because they don’t have their own movies. And yea, they’re B heroes… but it’s kinda like in firefly. The most interesting story is probably Shepherd Book’s mysterious past. I’d pay the shit out of a ticket to see his story. We don’t really need Mal’s story because he’s already covered by the series in flashbacks and memories. Likewise for Black widow. She’s kinda the less mysterious (because we know already–super spy chick) Shepherd Book of avengers.

  • Smash Adams

    She’s going to betray them just like in the comics.

  • k

    Well that turned into a shit storm quite quickly

  • sdg

    are they allowed to use the fight club font for another movie?

  • C. Koutsoutis

    “Thor” was the weakest of these movies and this article is misogynistic as all hell. Grow up, nerd.

  • Amadi

    There is no research to suggest that a Black Widow (or a Black Widow/Hawkeye) origin film wouldn’t work, just the same old nonsense about women not liking these movies (which is why women are creating fan works about them at an astronomical rate) and previous women led superhero films doing poorly as though that was about the hero’s gender and not screamingly awful screenplays which were all written by men.

    It’s kind of rich to complain about this before we have any clue what the plot is, how her role will be increased or anything else. There will be more Black Widow and that’s just supposed to be de facto bad? Spare us the whining.

    • Ricardo Aguilera

      Believe it or not, people dont always judge things by gender because sometimes characterization and story make a slight impact. The large female fan base you speak of was largely contained to the good looking actors in the movie, namely loki who has somewhere around 90% of the female fans hugging his nuts. Most fan fics on avengers come from women writing erotic short stories or romance tales between the male characters…its likely these fans will not be inclined to watch a movie about black widow considering she was never a point of interest for them to begin with as least in relation to their interest the attractive male characters.

      Secondly what difference does it make if those terrible female lead super hero movies were written by men…if a woman writes a female lead film it instantly will be a hit?

      Female lead characters could have the chance to sell as well as their male counterparts but the market simply hasn’t proven itself…and given that their isn’t a collection of willing female script writers who are jumping at the chance to write for bat woman, captain marvel, wonder woman, birds of prey and so forth….you can cut out that passive aggressive implication that men are deliberately writing bad movies just to stick it to women.

      Lets get some common sense before we speak with the grown ups.

  • Mal Usairways

    Fictitious character development for nerds VS Entertaining movies for jocks.

  • Michael Moore

    Her character isn’t important, she’s nothing like her character from the comics. I am definitely against having a big sausage fest, but bring in some more female characters that actually matter!

    • Caleb

      She was the only one to figure out that the portal needed to be closed in order to stop the Chitauri coming through. I would say that is pretty important.

  • wphayduke

    I thought Scarlett Johansson was the ONLY reason to go see these comic book movies, the gay guy is right. Way to go bro!

  • DemonBob

    Do you not realize that quality material like the Avengers movie is what turns B-list characters into A-list ones?

    Do you not realize that, at least ideally, a character’s popularity stems from good writing, rather than the reverse?

    “Fanboy” indeed.

  • majorb

    Black Widow was the audience identification character, making her integral to that movie working as well as it did. If they’re increasing her role in the film it means the scope is probably way bigger and the film needs more grounding for the audience to have a foothold in the story.

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