As MARVEL’s Avengers move farther into the limelight with each MARVEL cinematic installment, fanfiction devoted to the costumed team increases exponentially. While most of the original Avengers (with the exception of Hawkeye) received multiple films to their name, Natasha Romanov (codename: Black Widow) has no such films to her name, nor do they appear to be on the horizon. This, combined with the fact that she is the only female on the original team, makes her particularly unique. As such, Black Widow fan fiction is ubiquitous. Fans, noting the lack of Black Widow backstory, have exercised their right to creativity, filling in the gap that Marvel has left them. The result is both both delightful and worrisome, as fans play with the idea of what it means to be a sexy and powerful female who interacts primarily with men.
I read two pieces of Black Widow fan fiction: Secret Keeper by Sofia Bee and The Reunited Avengers: A Black Widow Fanfic by Charles O’Carry. The Reunited Avengers: A Black Widow Fanfic was unique in that it was one of the few pieces I could easily find that cast Black Widow as the leader of the Avengers. Set as a sequel to The Avengers (2012), the story begins with another Chitauri attack, this one after Nick Fury himself. Once Nick is kidnapped, Hawkeye and Maria Hill appoint Natasha as the new leader of Shield. She rounds up the team and leads them to fight for Nick Fury’s rescue. Rather like Derrida’s de-centering, O’Carry tells a traditional Avengers story, but with Natasha as the focus. She makes many of the plans, is the key force in bringing the team back together, and in essence, takes the place of Nick Fury. The adaptation shows originality and also makes a powerful feminist statement, as Natasha’s role in the Avengers, though key, is often downplayed by her male companions.
O’Carry did not, however, re-interpret the emotional depth of Natasha as a character. Throughout the story, she performs much as she does in the traditional narrative. She is underestimated by men, she beats up small time antagonists who taunt her, and she tries to calm all of her testosterone fueled characters down a notch. The piece also rotates from one character's point of view to another each chapter, which though imaginative, means that only a fraction of the story is actually told from Natasha’s perspective. The piece represents the strain often felt in fan fiction: an effort to move away from the source material, but retain the rules of play that the original authors have established.
The second piece, Secret Keeper, re-imagines Natasha in completely different way. The short story documents a single conversation that Natasha and Bruce Banner have while in bed. Bruce opens up about his anxieties with Tony’s goal to ‘loosen him up’ and Natasha listens to him and comforts him. They end by kissing passionately, though not overly erotically, the image of a romantic yet productive relationship. Bee, though not de-centering the narrative, has played with the piece emotionally and narratively, giving us access to a scene only loosely alluded to on screen. Like a videogame, this piece of fan fiction allows us as the reader to dwell on an element skipped over in a linear narrative. Similarly, we are made to identify with these characters. No super powers or fantastical feats are shown in the story, just words and actions of love. Again, like a game, we are brought to identify with these characters through the piece, rather than see them as other. In this way, the piece is progressive for Natasha, and represents her as a multifaceted female character.
Still, the extent to which the piece critiques some of the problematic feminism in Avengers is complicated. On the one hand, Natasha is playing a stereotypical female role. She is the antithesis to the masculine Bruce, and must use her softness and gentleness to balance out the monster inside of him. Though this role is far from progressive, it is, on the other hand, a role that is unusual for Natasha, who is often seen as an aggressive and caustic force, so it could be argued that it is still providing her with more realistic depth. The story ends rather sensually, yet another classically complicated issue for Natasha. In fact, the majority of fan fiction about Black Widow is R or NC-17 rated, and is extremely sexual in nature, Bee’s rather tame ending being one of the exceptions. This piece runs a fine line between identifying with her as a sexual being, and objectifying her image as she and Bruce spend a night together in bed. Progressive or not, it should be lauded that Bee’s interpretation of the piece opens up new questions that the source material does not.
Natasha remains a complex character in the MARVEL universe, one who is either forgotten, sexualized, or championed. Those who ‘play’ with the canonical story are as quick to objectify as they are to deepen and strengthen her character, a struggle that every artist encounters when they take the reins of creation in their own hands. It will be interesting to see if MARVEL is ever brave enough to do it themselves on screen.
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