Здравствуйте from FYBW, your one-stop tumblr shop for Black Widow news, no-prizing, and oversaturated .gifs. Some MCU, mostly comics. Often overwritten. Always overthinking.
Black Widow created by Lee, Rico and Heck & is © Marvel Entertainment.
Clint Barton again. Fate plays tricks with me. I used to love that man— when he was only an adroit archer. He’s changed… and so have I. Perhaps that’s why I’ve come here— to see my past, and to realize that it can never be reclaimed. For good or bad, I am what I am, and I must live with it… until I die!
MOMENTS IN MALE OBJECTIFICATION— Natasha sneaks into Avengers mansion, to watch Clint Barton lounge casually in his boob window.
From Amazing Adventures #7, by Gerry Conway and Don Heck.
Since there’s been a lot of talk lately about how women are drawn in superhero comics, anatomy, costume design, and the ongoing case of the disappearing spines, I thought I’d show you how Natasha used to be drawn, in panels dated 1970-73.
Note with wonder and amazement the fully functional all-the-way-up-thank-you zipper, the lack of gratuitous, lovingly detailed asscrack, and the sheer possibility of this anatomy. These panels aren’t perfect, or free from exaggeration or awkwardness (what illustrated story of adult human beings dressed in really tight pyjamas and swinging from rooftops is?) but they are typical.
One of the most bizzarre claims I hear about superhero comics is that objectification is an inherent part of the genre, like powers or capes or everyone in Gotham being too stupid to figure out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. While sexism has always been a part of the superhero stuff, it’s hardly been a constant. The Liefeldian nipple-guard aesthetic couldn’t have survived under the strictest days of the Comics Code, when Marvel editorial had Jim Steranko actually erase the cleavage lines from his pencils. I’m not dreaming of a return to a rigid house style, or a return to Bronze Age dialogue, but man, I’d love it if artists today all suddenly, collectively realized that the zipper on Natasha’s costume goes up all the way.
There’s nothing about the way she’s “always” been drawn that says that they couldn’t.
Panels by John Buscema, Don Heck, and Gene Colan.
Woman: So you live alone— with two men?
Natasha: On separate floors, deary. Does that scandalize you—? Or just make you jealous?
From Daredevil and the Black Widow #104, by Steve Gerber and Don Heck.
Tony: It might interest you to eavesdrop with me! Here’s a tiny pair of ear-plugs. Tune in and learn your reward for trying to destroy me! It will show you how trustworthy your leader is!
“Leader”: Remember, comrades! Seize Vanko the instant he returns, and machine-gun him! I cannot take any chances of the Crimson Dynamo being more popular than I! So Vanko must be liquidated!
Vanko: The unscrupulous scoundrel! So! Death was to be my reward for serving him!
Tony: Poor Vanko! He doesn’t know he really heard my voice, not his leader’s! When I left Vanko momentarily… I quickly recorded the speech he just heard on my tape machine! I was certain that he’d believe it— because he knows how treacherous all communists are!
Vanko: Thank you Iron Man! You have saved my life! I realize now that my scientific genious has been at the service of a savage, double-dealing system.
Tony: My ruse worked!
It’s tradition for these communist engineer villains to create machines that are bigger, stronger, and bulkier but lack the finesse of their American counterparts, and introduction to Crimson Dynamo rides that off into the sunset. Vanko’s mastery of electricity lets him build a suit of armor that might be a match for Iron Man’s, but the mysterious power of ~transistors~ make the Dynamo’s best weaponry useless. Stark gets Vanko to surrender by cooking up a bit of Mutually Assured Destruction: it becomes plain that Tony is willing to die for his cause, but Vanko is not.
Then Tony gets Vanko to defect by putting on a really good Khrushchev impersonation. Again, apparently the Premier’s secret (but not so secret they aren’t broadcast into Tony Stark’s headset) orders are given in English. The thing that’s really fascinating here is that Tony’s absolutely right— Khrushchev is definitely planning to kill Vanko because he needs to be the most popular boy at the dance. The story has shown us that, indeed, all commies are chronically suspicious of one another, and that there’s no room for scientific innovation under a “savage, double-dealing system.” Tony wasn’t just lying to Vanko, he was also telling the truth.
But he was also lying. And, in fact, when Vanko started sabotaging Stark labs, US government spooktypes thought that since his property seemed to be under perpetual communist attack, Tony Stark might be a communist. Stark had to record Vanko’s confession to clear himself. Governments are a threat to individual genius everywhere! But not as much in America as beyond the Red Curtain. Stark gives Vanko a job at his company, and they feast on communist gold. Meanwhile, in Russia, Khruschev starts throwing vases at his secretary.
When Natasha makes her first appearance, her assignment will be to capture the traitor Vanko.
From Tales of Suspense #46, by Stan Lee, R. Burns, and Don Heck.
Can you recognize the pudgy, scowling figure entering a strange laboratory just outside Moscow?
Leader: Guards! Follow me!
If you don’t, then you know nothing about the Cold War! For this stocky fellow is the “Mr. Big” of the Iron Curtain!
Guard: Here we are, excellency! The laboratory of the Crimson Dynamo!
Leader: How I hate this Professor Vanko… and fear him! But Vanko is the world’s greatest expert on electricity! So I must regretfully use him, and not liquidate him.
Vanko: Ah! Comrade Leader! I am honored by your presence!
Leader: Stop lying, Vanko! I am aware of your arrogance! You think you’re the cleverest man in the nation— even more ingenious and important than I!
Vanko: I, more important than our glorious leader? Surely you jest!
So, I’m starting a new blogging serial, All Commies are Chronically Suspicious. I’m hoping to examine the shifting stereotypes of Russia through the lens of Black Widow’s appearances. It’s not so much about Russia as it was, but Russia how American comic book imagined it.
To begin I’m actually trekking back to Tales of Suspense #46, a land where at least 50% of Russians are large men with larger mustaches, with the introduction of the Crimson Dynamo. Nikita Khrushchev is in this comic! He is pudgey, paranoid, and generally incompetent. Vanko puts together a standard “look what awesome things my robot armor can do” montage, and Khruschev is terrified and basically starts plotting to kill Vanko right there.
He also sends Vanko to destroy Iron Man.
Note that in strange laboratories just outside of Moscow, signs are apparently hung in English.
From Tales of Suspense #46, by Stan Lee, R. Burns, and Don Heck.
Did you know…I once tried out for the Bolshoi… and the Russian Olympics gymnast team, too? And I made both? We should work out like this more often, I’m so stiff.
That’s right, Natasha actually was an Olympic gymnast. How do you like them apples, everyone on tumblr considering the Avengerlympics? 1970s comics are the gift that keeps on giving.
From Daredevil and the Black Widow #104, by Steve Gerber and Don Heck.
