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What The Black Widow Movie Will Truly Be After Avengers: Endgame

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The last two movies of the MCU have had some fun killing off characters, something we don’t believe has actually happened before in any MCU movie prior. Sure, they’ve killed off plenty of villains but rarely if ever any hero characters. The one exception to this rule is probably Thor: the Dark World, where Thor’s mom was murdered. Infinity War, however, killed off Heimdall, Vision, Gamura, and at first glance Loki. Then Endgame came along and decided to continue its predecessor’s work, but this time around, we only lost two characters -- two very important characters: Tony Stark, and Black Widow.

Now Tony Stark is one thing: we all -- for the most part -- saw his death coming. We were predicting for months that it was either going to be him or Cap or both of them. Tony completed his trilogy of movies, and as a result, while his death stings, it doesn’t change anything too drastically. Black Widow, on the other hand, is a different story. Not many people saw that one coming, for one thing, Black Widow is scheduled to come out with her first movie in the near future. Kind of hard to pull off a future adventure when you’re so dead that not even six reality-breaking gems can bring you back with their combined might.

So how then exactly is Black Widow going to pull off her movie? What is the movie going to be about?

Black Widow Prequel: The Red Room

Of course, the most obvious answer is that the Black Widow movie will be a prequel. Marvel has made statements about this, we believe Kevin Feige actually came out and said earlier this year that the movie would be a prequel, but hey -- this is Marvel. They tend to have a little fun with the truth every now and then when it comes to the content of their movies. It was only towards the end of last year (if even) that we learned that Spider-Man: Far From Home was going to be a sequel to Endgame rather than a prequel to it. Marvel (or Sony -- whichever) was promoting the movie before Endgame came out, so it’s easy to see why there would be some confusion there (It didn’t help that Peter was reduced to space dust in Infinity War and had his fate left up in the air). But, now that Endgame has come and gone, it seems there was some truth to Marvel’s statements on Black Widow’s movie being a prequel.

This actually sounds like an awesome concept. If there was anyone in Marvel that would have an interesting backstory it would be Black Widow. The MCU has dropped a number of hints on it before the character passed and all of them just make us want to see it even more on screen, especially now that Marvel seems to have perfected their formula. The idea of seeing how the Red Room created Black Widow and how she came to be such good friends with Hawkeye and Nick Fury just sounds like an awesome action-packed story. It sounds like the Red Room isn’t operational any longer in the MCU, and we can only bet that Black Widow and Hawkeye are responsible for that.

Black Widow Movie: Why Did It Take So Long?

This movie, of course, should have come out a long time ago. It should have been here before Captain Marvel ever made her debut. The best time for a prequel movie about Black Widow actually would have been right after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where we were so enthralled with her character and how Marvel pulled off their version of a "spy movie" that we would have loved to have seen a Black Widow counterpart. Not to mention Black Widow has been holding down the female side of the MCU all by her lonesome since the start. She’s one of the original six for Pete's sake, and a movie starring her would have been a good way to get Hawkeye in on the action as well, making it so that it felt like all of the original Avengers members had their own movies going on while the MCU built itself up to its climax.

On the other hand, that could very well be the reason why the movie wasn’t released in the first place. Most of the MCU’s original heavy hitters received a trilogy (poor Hulk), and each of the movies in these trilogies sort of blend seamlessly into their next installments. But if Black Widow’s movie is a prequel, it could have a harder time doing that depending on how it is presented. What does that mean? Well, let’s look at Captain America. Captain America’s first movie isn’t a prequel. It takes place seventy years before the events of Iron Man, but it isn’t a prequel. To Steve, the protagonist, the events in The First Avenger are his present, and time ticks forward accordingly until he finds himself standing before Nick Fury in Tony’s present.

But Black Widow would be different. We already know what Black Widow’s present is like because Iron Man 2 introduced her to us. So if they were going to make a movie about her and it was going to be a prequel, that means we’d be jumping back in time to take a look at what she was like before the events of Iron Man 2 and the Avengers. If this prequel movie of hers did well, then, of course, Disney and Marvel would want to make a sequel. It would be weird actually if they didn’t because they were just starting to build the MCU up at that time.

But how exactly would they pull off another Black Widow movie off? Would they just jump right back into the present with her in Black Widow 2? That would be incredibly jarring, to say the least, and it wouldn’t really fit into the style of the other MCU trilogies that simply move forward from whatever happened last with the character. Then, do they just keep her movies grounded in the past? Well if they do that, the movies would feel disconnected from the rest of the MCU, like a bunch of side adventures that don’t really have anything to do with the prevailing plot. They’d be stuck see? However, by waiting until after Endgame, they have a few options with what they can do with Black Widow and her prequel. For instance, they can present it as a one-off aside that pays tribute to Black Widows character and once it’s done that’ll be the end of it.

Black Widow Revived?

There is a very slim chance that the Black Widow movie isn’t a prequel and is actually a sequel to Endgame after the Avengers managed to somehow bring her back. How they manage to bring her back however is a mystery. Again, six different reality-breaking stones were used all at once with the intent to bring her back and nothing happened. If the stones couldn’t do it, what other possible methods are left to Avengers to bring her back? They seem very slim, but then again this is a movie franchise based off superhero comics, and irreversible death is more like a minor inconvenience to those people rather anything remotely permanent. So even if there isn’t a way currently, that doesn’t mean there can’t be one in the future.

For instance, Spider-Man: Far From Home might just introduce the concept of a multiverse. A multiverse would open up to the possibility of there being an infinite number of Black Widow's to choose and pluck into the main MCU universe. This is a cheap way of reviving Black Widow since, in essence, it’s not the Black Widow that we spent nearly a dozen years getting to know, but you know, a revival is a revival, so we should add it. This new Black Widow could have a time getting used to the people of the main MCU universe, or she could have flaws that the original Black Widow already overcame.

Another possibility to bring Black Widow back would deal with Galactus and the Silver Surfer. The Power Cosmic in and of itself is similar to the six Infinity Stones. Each has the ability to bend reality in all sorts of absurd ways. For instance, the Power Cosmic has the ability to resurrect people in the comics. If the stones couldn't bring Black Widow back then the MCU’s version of the Power Cosmic might just be able to. It’s not completely out of the question anyway. Just depends on how they want to power scale things whenever they do introduce the concept. Galactus and the Silver Surfer are big parts of the Fantastic Four roster, and now that Marvel has the right to use the Fantastic Four, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that they're going to make an appearance here soon.

Another way Marvel could bring Black Widow back is through time travel. They still have the time machine after all. They could just go back in time to the moment before Black Widow decided to kill herself, pluck her from that time and then bring her into the future. After all, apparently time travel has no consequences. You can go back and change your present to whatever the hell you want it to be. Thanos snaps half your universe away and gets rid of the murder weapon? No problem, just go back in time and reassemble said weapon to use against him. It’s not like Kang the Conqueror will pay you a visit or anything.

Black Widow Movie as a Sequel

Whatever the case, if Black Widow were revived, her movie could be a followup to Endgame rather than a simple prequel. The fact remains though that Black Widow has completed her character arc. Like the rest of the original Avengers, Black Widow doesn’t seem like she has much left to explore with her character. Any stories she has left to tell are in the past with the Red Room. There’s a way to rectify this of course. We don’t know what the ultimate fate of the Red Room was. We don’t know if still stands or if Black Widow managed to shut it down. All we know is that it had a hand in creating our favorite reformed cold-blooded murderer.

If the Red Room does still stand, however, Black Widow’s movie could still take place in the present Marvel timeline and explore Black Widow’s backstory at the same time. The idea is simple: once Black Widow has been revived by whatever black magic Marvel decides to use on her, then -- in her movie -- the Red Room program could come back to haunt her again. Without much choice left to her, Black Widow decides to confront her past and put a stop to the Red Room once and for all. While she’s doing that, we can also get a full look at what her past was like. Past and present blend together to give us a transformed Black Widow.

Wrap Up

Black Widow’s movie would work well as either a sequel or a prequel, just depends on what they want to do with the character. If they decide they want Black Widow to stay dead, then they can just keep her movie as a prequel. They can use it to show us the only story of hers we missed before she died. On the other hand, though, there are a few ways Marvel can bring back Black Widow before her movie drops. If they do, then they can use her movie to feature her in a “past refuses to stay buried sort of movie.” They have options for lack of a better term.

Whatever they decide to do, Marvel owes Black Widow because they’ve done her some pretty serious injustices over the years. First, you force her to give up her spotlight to Captain Marvel after she did all the work making females look good as heroes, and then you have the audacity to leave her out of the A-Force gathering at the end of Endgame? Come on now Marvel.