Is Black Widow dead?
Scarlett Johansson’s spy superhero finally has her own movie – but didn’t she die in Avengers: Endgame?
From the creative team that brought you “how is Vision alive” before WandaVision and “is Loki dead” during Loki, it’s time for another Marvel Mortality Marker – is Black Widow, aka Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, also pushing up daisies?
Really, this should be an easy question – who could forget her emotional send-off in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame? – but two years on, Johansson has returned for the character’s first solo movie, muddying the waters of Black Widow’s status.
So is Black Widow still dead? Yes. That was simple. But the explanation is slightly less so.
Is Black Widow dead?
Yes she is. Spy-turned-Avenger Natasha died in Avengers: Endgame in an act of self-sacrifice, and by the end of the 2019 film her death had been confirmed as genuine. It doesn’t appear Marvel has any plans to rewrite or undo this storyline, so as it stands in the “present day” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Black Widow is officially dead.
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How did Black Widow die?
It's complicated, but we’ll try to keep this brief – in Avengers: Endgame the whole team travel back in time to borrow earlier versions of the Infinity Stones (the originals having been destroyed), hoping to undo Thanos’ “snap” that removed half of the population of the universe.
Black Widow and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are tasked to travel to Vormir, the planet where the mysterious Soul Stone is located – but to get their hands on it, one of them has to be sacrificed. In the end, Natasha manages to be the martyr, leaving Clint bereft but in possession of the all-important stone.
How is Natasha alive in Black Widow?
So the obvious question might follow – how can she have an emotional death scene, then her first solo movie just a couple of years later?
Well, it’s simple – so simple that to be honest, most people already know this, and this section of the article is redundant – Black Widow is a prequel. And not an origin story like Captain Marvel, set years before the main action of the MCU.
Instead, this film is set shortly after 2016’s Captain America: Civil War but before Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame (where Natasha died in 2023…though technically, she must have died earlier given that they went back in time to 2014 to grab the Infinity Stones. In other words, at the time of this movie Natasha had also been dead for two years already on a distant planet. Weird).
Basically, this means that during the events of this film Black Widow’s death was yet to come, but it's still just as final. Fans hoping to see more of the character would be best to hope for Marvel to fill in more early gaps in her timeline.
Black Widow is in UK cinemas from Wednesday 7th July, and on Disney Plus Premier Access from Friday 9th July. Check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our TV Guide for more recommendations.
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
