NOTE TO SELF: needs moar Avengers icons

[fox1013]

UGH FANDOM HOW AM I IN YOU AGAIN?

I posted fic on Monday for the first time in ages (It Starts Out Like an A Word (As Anyone Can See), Avengers/Sesame Street, 8000 words) and am... pleased and overwhelmed with the response? I realize that pretty much all Avengers fic is getting a lot of feedback right now, but I'm NEVER in the middle of an active

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Do you want backstory as in 'first appearances' or as in 'flashback stories retconning her background?' I'm not sure there is a whole lot of Black Widow-centric canon (and if there is it's not in comics that's in print.) Also, movieverse canon and comics canon are fairly distinct so I'm not sure what kind of info you're looking for or what would be helpful?

[likeadeuce]

Black Widow: The Name of the Rose is the most recent story I know of, and it's pretty good but I'm not sure it clarifies things all that much?

Also, if you're interested in Natasha/Bucky (which is her current relationship and also goes into her backstory), Captain America: The Death of the Dream would be the way to go. She's in that as one of many supporting characters, though, so I don't remember exactly how much space she gets.

[fox1013]

I want to know about her childhood and the brainwashing and everything. I've gathered bits and pieces from wikis and fics, but I want to see what the actual story is, or at least what ONE of the actual stories is, if that makes sense?

[likeadeuce]

It does make sense. Unfortunately, I don't know of such a story in a readily available form (the two I mention are probably the closest). There's no definitive long run of Black Widow comics, more stuff that's been pieced together as she appeared in various teamup books.

Her Marvel wiki, which you've probably already seen, has some issue references, but not much that looks helpful.

Basically, I think people who write canon for Natasha basically do the same thing that fanfic writers do and slap together what they want to use based on various haphazard references that you run across. This is more common than you'd think, especially for a character who's never featured in an in-continuity solo title as far as I know.

[fox1013]

Basically, I think people who write canon for Natasha basically do the same thing that fanfic writers do and slap together what they want to use based on various haphazard references that you run across. This is more common than you'd think, especially for a character who's never featured in an in-continuity solo title as far as I know.

This is actually more helpful than you can KNOW; I thought the problem was that there were multiple in-depth stories about it, not that there were none.

[likeadeuce]

The two stories I mentioned are probably the most helpful for how people write her now. But since there's no definitive story that everyone has to deal with, they're all coming at it from their own angle, in much the same way fanfic does.

Fun fact: the female characters who have the most history/longest runs in Marvel are the ones who may be least likely to show up in the movies, because the most successful characters tend to be female versions of male characters (She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman) which filmmakers seem reluctant to deal with, because exactly what sells them to comic book readers (hook to an existing character) is what potentially makes them seem cheesy to a modern movie audience. Black Widow is in the films primarily, I think, because she's easier to sell as a movie character, but this hasn't necessarily translated to an audience for solo Natasha stories. She's basically a serial team member/team-up partner (to be fair, this also applies to Hawkeye, so it's not purely a gender thing.)