Claire Voyant is the first costumed, superpowered female protagonist in comic books. Created by writer George Kapitan and artist Harry Sahle, she first appeared in Mystic Comics #4 (Aug. 1940). She kills evildoers to deliver their souls to Satan, her master. The character is unrelated to the later Marvel Comics superheroines who took on the codename.[1]
Yelena Belova is the second character to take on the Black Widow codename in the modern mainstream comics who debuted briefly in Inhumans #5 (March 1999) and was fully introduced in the 1999 Marvel Knights mini-series Black Widow. A second miniseries, also titled Black Widow and featuring Natasha Romanoff and Daredevil, followed in 2001. The next year, she did a solo turn in her own three-issue miniseries titled Black Widow: Pale Little Spider under the mature-audience Marvel MAX imprint. This June to August 2002 story arc, by writer Greg Rucka and artist Igor Kordey, was a flashback to the story of her being the second modern Black Widow, in events preceding her Inhumans appearance.[3]Florence Pugh portrays Yelena in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Black Widow[4] and the Disney+ miniseries Hawkeye, and will reprise the role in the film Thunderbolts*.[5]
Alternative universe versions
Ultimate Marvel
Besides the Ultimate Marvel version of Natasha Romanoff, there were other characters who went by the name of Black Widow.
The Ultimate version of Jessica Drew is a female Spider-Clone who uses by the Black Widow alias.[7][8]
Marvel 2099
Different version of Black Widow were seen in the different Marvel 2099 realities with one of them being the 2099 version of Yelena Belova:
Tania
During the "Secret Wars" storyline, the futuristic 2099 version of Black Widow is an African-American woman named Tania. She operates as part of the Avengers 2099 at the Alchemax corporation's behest in the Battleworld domain of 2099.[9] Like black widow spiders, she literally eats her mates after having sex with them.[10]
A character loosely inspired by Black Widow 2099 named Layla appears in the Avengers Assemble episode "Into the Future", voiced by Jennifer Hale.[13] This version is a guerrilla warfare-styled resistance fighter from a future ruled by Kang the Conqueror.
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