So I’ve been doing this series of articles where I look at Black Widow’s costumes and the storylines where they were introduced. There’s not much to say here: Frank Miller had a run on Daredevil. You might not have heard of it, it’s pretty obscure.
So, wow, I’ve gotten a lot (uh, relatively) of new followers in the past few days! First off, hello. I am Alex and this is my frightening Black Widow blog. I try to post analysis and scenes that I find awesome more than pin-ups, for that is how I doth roll, and right now I am in the middle of a series where I examine Natasha’s costume changes and the in-universe and out-of-universe context in which they occurred.
Tales of Suspense #64 marked Natasha’s transformation from plainclothes spy to costumed supervillain, and a pretty big step forward for her character. I can’t bring myself to knock the fishnets, because of the significant level in badass they represented.
Most of the time, when a character gets a new costume, it’s the visual cue to a major new direction. It marks status quo shift, a turning point, or something else of similarly inescapable the-solicits-said-this-would-break-the-internet significance—
But sometimes it’s just the nineties.
In Amazing Spider-man #86, Natasha got a new costume.
This was significant not just because the John Romita redesign is her most iconic look, what she wears today in the comics and in recent adaptations in other media. It was also a very 1970 costume, representing not only a brand new Natasha, but Marvel’s first major attempt at creating a viable solo superheroine.
