Black Widow. What’s more intriguing to the post-Cold War American psyche than a female Russian spy? (Answer: very little).
The main problem with this costume is the lack of pockets. For a character regularly fighting with guns, there is absolutely no storage element to this costume. No holsters, no backpack, no purse. Nothing.
“But, the belt!” you say. Did you really look at it. I mean seriously ponder over it’s potential? Because I did. Without defying the laws of physics, or something, it can’t hold a darn thing.
Also! Given her hip-waist ratio there is no way for that clearly metal belt to not slide all over the place. Which should make a nice jingling sound, given that it’s thin metal. Just what every spy wants, to sound like Christmas!
Now, see what I mean:
(I edited the OP a little bit by putting the images as links for easy display.)
The thing is, historically, Natasha hasn’t used guns with any sort of regularity. Her primary weapons, even today, are the gauntlets she wears on her wrist, full of miniature spygenre gadgetry. The belt was likewise designed to hold all the miniature spygenre gagetry required to keep those gauntlets operational.
From Amazing Spider-man #86, the first appearance of Natasha’s costume.
The no-utility belt, streamlined look is used in comics to suggest particularly athletic, gymnastic fighters— like Daredevil and Nightwing. That’s the minimalist aesthetic the Romita design harkens to, something sleek and unencumbered by superfluous detail.
Of course, as time goes on, guns have become more common superhero fight tools and Liefeldian kneebelts and pouches all the rage. If you look, at say, Natasha’s movieverse costume, you can see they’ve added all sorts of harnesses to it, to fit in with the more “realistic” military feel of the MCU. If you look at the contemporary comics, artists will often add holsters or straps to her costume, based on the tone of the comic. More holsters and accoutrements gives her a practical, utilitarian aesthetic, but I think that comes at the expense of the more superheroic streamlined simplicity. But those pure superhero stories are probably not going to have her carrying guns much. It’s a continuum, where, I suppose, the spy and the superhero exist in opposition.
