'Black Widow': All you need to know about Red Room organization that made Natasha world's best spy
There are more secret agencies in Marvel Comics than the number of countries in the world, so it makes sense that it might be hard to keep track of all of them. Besides the instantly recognizable KGB, there are two other important Russian secret organizations in Marvel Comics, Leviathan (not the one in 'Supergirl') and Red Room, the latter of which plays an integral role in the life of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's top spy, Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).
In the comics, the Red Room was a KGB program, which eventually evolved into a more-or-less independent organization in its own right. Their specialty? Training young orphan girls into super spies called Black Widows.
That's right, Natasha did not get her powers from a radioactive black widow spider. She was raised by the Red Room alongside her "sister" Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) to become one of Russia's most deadly assassins.
A number of other Marvel Comics characters also have connections to Red Room. Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) was one of the instructors at Red Room in the comics and Nadia van Dyne, the daughter of Ant-Man / Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas in the MCU) from his first marriage, was raised by Red Room before escaping and seeking out her estranged father.
Besides general espionage training, the comic book version of Red Room also used an experimental recreation of the Super-Soldier Serum that gave Captain America aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) his abilities. This allows the Black Widows to be at peak physical condition and slows down their aging so that they appear young and beautiful for decades, perhaps even centuries.
They also implanted false memories in the minds of their trainees so that the young assassins believed they were actually being trained in ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre. A version of the Red Room appears in Marvel's 'Agent Carter' TV series, where the organization appears more or less accurate to the comics.
So far, the only thing that the MCU seems to have added to its depiction of the Red Room is a twisted 'Graduation Ceremony' where new Black Widows are forcefully sterilized to prevent pregnancies in the field and "eliminate weakness". We'll be seeing even more of Red Room come 2020 in the upcoming movie 'Black Widow', which is expected to follow Natasha on a mission that forces her to confront the demons of her past.
'Black Widow' will arrive in theaters on May 1, 2020.
