'Black Widow': Natasha Romanoff's spy work might just take a hit since she's a world-famous Avenger

A decade after her first appearance on ‘Iron Man 2,’ Marvel’s Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) will finally star in her own solo film. Set after ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ but before ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ ‘Black Widow’ will explore the titular character’s Red Room origins and her history as a spy. Black Widow has one significant disadvantage that most spies don’t have to deal with - it’s hard to blend into a crowd when you’ve saved the world as an Avenger. 

The Avengers have to be world-famous. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) are already famous characters to begin with - one as a celebrity superhero/tech giant, the other as a World War II figure plucked straight out of history. Add to that the actual Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and the force of the destruction that is the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) the very existence of the Avengers must have sent news sites all around the world into a frenzy - not even taking into account that they saved the world from its very first alien invasion. Pictures of the heroes had been plastered everywhere - and we’ve seen from the Netflix MCU shows that footage of “The Incident” is being sold worldwide.

To be fair, we don’t know to what extent Natasha Romanoff has been publicly declared to be an Avenger - her and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) were essentially lesser superheroes and agents on loan from S.H.I.E.L.D. Between the footage of ‘The Incident’ and other Avengers sightings from their missions around the world, any news agency worth its salt would be able to identify Romanoff as a key player in Avengers operations. 

This, of course, is not even taking into account the fact that Natasha publicly released all of S.H.I.E.L.D’s files in ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier,’ all her secrets out for anyone with an internet connection to be able to read about. The world knows who the Black Widow is, and exactly what she looks like. After the events of ‘Civil War,’ Natasha is now a wanted fugitive, and her situation cannot be worse.

Spies are chosen for their ability to fade into the background, and blend into a crowd.  A spy whose name, face and history is public knowledge is certainly challenging for a spy to be undertaking, but if anyone could somehow make it work, it would be Natasha Romanoff. 

‘Black Widow’ releases in cinemas May 1, 2020.