BIOGRAPHY - Page 12
Black Widow remained active as Avengers chairwoman, bringing together the team to form a solid, dependable unit after the initial, oversized United Nations two-tiered roster fell apart. Regular members included Hercules, Black Knight, Vision, Sersi and probationary members Crystal and the new Thor who reached full status after Galactic Storm. [Avengers (1st series) #349-351] They confronted the rise of a mysterious new threat known as Proctor and his team of Gatherers culled from parallel realities. Unlike Captain America, Natasha was more willing to delegate leadership duties, tapping the Black Knight as field leader for tactical decisions while she oversaw administrative matters and overall team strategy and deployment. As she grew into the role, Natasha relaxed more as chairwoman, becoming comfortable with the lead. She arranged a 
dinner party for the stable roster and her romantic side came out to play matchmaker for her old friend, Hercules. Herk was smitten with Taylor Madison, a volunteer at a school for terminally ill children where he recently made an appearance. ‘Tasha seized the initiative and invited Taylor to the party on behalf of the Avengers when Hercules was too hesitant to make the first move. [Avengers (1st series) #355-357]
Natasha’s leadership of the Avengers was not without strife, however. The Watcher appeared at the aforementioned dinner party, indicating a major threat was on the horizon. When the Avengers traveled to Polemachus to aid Arkon, the Imperion’s rival Anskar murdered a girl named Astra who was in their care. Sersi then killed Anskar in cold blooded revenge, flagrantly against the Avengers’ by-laws. As the Avengers prepared formal charges against the Eternal, Natasha called on Captain America to return and lend support to the team. Sersi was revealed to be suffering 
from a mental instability known to the Eternals, and the Black Knight was forced into a psychic bond with Sersi in order to keep her thought patterns stabilized. [Avengers (1st series) #358-361] Black Widow was also called upon to guard the membership on other matters. She oversaw the court-martial of reserve member Moon Knight for abusing his credentials for personal gain and dealt with the mysterious Blue Marvel trying to force his way onto the roster after the disappearance of his predecessor, Quasar. [Marc Spector: Moon Knight #50, Quasar #41]
Natasha discovered signs that the Gatherers had infiltrated their ranks, and Vision was soon revealed as a doppelganger. The Avengers captured this Alter-Vision and used him to track the Gatherers back to their home base in the Andes to confront their leader, Proctor. He claimed the Gatherers were on a quest to stop Sersi, who inevitably went insane across the multiverse and destroyed all those dear to her. The Black Widow was pragmatic enough to hear him out, but 
Proctor’s mad ranting was long on emotion and short on facts. After blowing up his own base, Proctor left Black Widow and the Avengers to deal with the Lunatic Legion, Kree renegades who blamed the Avengers and Earth for the destruction of their empire. The Avengers stopped the Legion and prevented the detonation of another Nega-Bomb, but it left questions about Sersi and the Gatherers for another time. [Avengers (1st series) #362-366]
On a mission freelancing for S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Widow crossed paths with Wolverine, Le Peregrine of France and Courier of Germany. A feral child codenamed Lynx was used as an incubator for an experimental cure-all Panacea drug, and several countries and independents lay claim to her. Among the interested parties was the immense millionaire financier Imus Champion, who needed Panacea to cure him of a debilitating disease. Logan saw some of himself in the teenaged test subject, and so Natasha and Nick Fury had to convince him they had Lynx’s best interests at heart. They chased down the group known as The Third Person who financed Lynx’s development and destroyed their facilities. Lynx was let free to live her own life, but it would be many years before Natasha learned Imus Champion blamed her personally for his failure to claim Panacea. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #125-130]
Black Widow oversaw major changes in the Avengers as chairwoman. When the Genoshan civil war reached crisis level, the Avengers were told to stand down. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United Nations didn’t want to set bad precedent by letting costumed heroes interfere with a sovereign nation’s domestic matters. Natasha fought against Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. when a group of Avengers went rogue and intervened anyway. The remaining Avengers appeared before the United Nations to formally revoke their charter and rescind any alliance with the U.N. Black Widow gave a speech denouncing the U.N.’s hands-off approach to a clear human rights issue 
and rededicated the Avengers to avenging. [Bloodties crossover] Despite coming together against the United Nations, the Avengers soon crumbled under internal disputes. Vision and Captain America called into question the viability of the West Coast branch. A meeting to discuss the matter degenerated into several shouting matches as the west coasters quit en masse, leaving Black Widow in charge of the sole remaining Avengers team. [Avengers West Coast #102]
Natasha struggled when she heard about the death of Matt Murdock. Matt’s identity had been revealed in the press just as he entered a conflict with the Hand’s inner order, the Snakeroot, and other contenders for a military invention known as the About Face virus. Matt faked his death in order to avoid scrutiny, leaving old friends like Natasha believing it was an imposter vigilante running around as Daredevil after that. Natasha confided with Nick Fury about the details leading up to Matt’s death. She also learned her former rival Karla of the KGB had become the assassin Osaku in the Snakeroot. [Daredevil Annual #10]
Matters with Sersi reached a conclusion as the NYPD arrived at Avengers Headquarters to arrest her on suspicion of murder for two detectives and several men over the past few months. Natasha 
tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender, but the increasingly unstable Sersi exploded at the accusations and blasted out of the building, destroying the Avengers’ home. Over the next few hours, the Avengers learned the truth – Proctor had killed the men to frame Sersi, while also using the Gann Josin bond he shared with the Sersi of HIS reality to drive her to madness. Proctor and his Gatherers attempted to collapse all of reality on this Earth, bringing buildings from other worlds through as the breakdown began. Ultimately, Proctor was defeated and executed by Sersi for his machinations, for the damage he did to her mind proved irreversible. Sersi and the Black Knight went into exile from this dimension so she could no longer be a danger to anyone, and Proctor’s reluctant pawn Ute the Watcher restored all the buildings to their original configurations before he died. All buildings… save one. The destroyed Avengers Headquarters had been restored to its original likeness from before recent renovations, an alternate-reality version of the Stark Mansion first inhabited by the team. [Avengers (1st series) #372-375]
The appearance of this new, old Avengers Mansion caused Black Widow a great deal of consternation as chairwoman. The mansion’s layout, security system, and passwords were similar but different to their own, forcing the Avengers to hack into their own mainframe. On an exploratory trek through the mansion’s sub-basements, Black Widow and Giant-Man found a 
detention center locked down by passcodes neither of them could access. Beyond that was a door which went nowhere and could not be opened by any means. Hank Pym’s scans indicated it contained a dense chunk of displaced space-time – a moment, frozen and out of sync with the rest of time. The door would defend itself, even against Vision’s phasing ability, and so the Avengers were left with a potentially dangerous security breach in their own home. After all, a door may open both ways… [Avengers (1st series) #378-382]
Black Widow remained friends with Diamondback, who had continued an on-again-off-again relationship with Captain America for several months. While Natasha was respectful towards Rachel and encouraged Cap’s relationship, the other Avengers collectively held the opinion that Diamondback (a semi-reformed super-criminal) simply wasn’t good enough for Cap. When Rachel pressed Natasha for the team’s honest opinion of her, the Widow told Rachel what she had heard, even if she didn’t share the sentiment. This was one of several factors which led Diamondback to depart Captain America’s life for a time. When asked, Black Widow told Cap what she and Rachel had discussed. She counseled Steve to give Rachel her space and let her work through her own concerns. [Captain America (1st series) #431-434]
By all accounts, Natasha was genuine in her advice to both Rachel and Steve, despite her own growing attraction to the Sentinel of Liberty. Cap had been hiding the fact that his Super-Soldier Serum was deteriorating, costing him his abilities. Natasha noticed, despite his lack of candor, and on self-reflection surprised herself with just how deeply she cared. Whether it was her position as chairwoman or her respect for Rachel, though, the Black Widow ultimately never 
acted on her feelings for Captain America. [Avengers (1st series) #382] Tragic love became something of a theme for the Avengers. Taylor Madison, whom Black Widow had encouraged Hercules to pursue, was revealed as an enchanted construct created by Zeus and used by Hera in a bitter game to do Hercules harm. Taylor was innocent, and Natasha had the temerity to argue with Zeus himself that she had proven herself as real as anyone, but the King of the Gods dispersed Taylor as if she had never been, leaving his son a wreck. [Avengers (1st series) #384]
On behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Widow was sent back to Moscow when a vigilante named Blackbird killed a diplomat on the grounds of the U.S. embassy. Blackbird, formerly known as Night Raven, had pursued the immortal opium smuggler Yi Yang from Chicago in the 1930’s all the way to modern Russia. Yi Yang’s ties to the Russian mafia and corrupt politicians brought Black Widow and Night Raven together. Natasha coordinated with both Ivan and Nick Fury to learn more about the decades long bitter feud between Night Raven and Yi Yang. The smuggler’s agent, Snow Leopard, captured Ivan and brought him back to Russia for his meddling. Black Widow and Night Raven freed Ivan and tracked Yi Yang to Xanadu, her hidden enclave in Siberia. The drug route was closed, but Night Raven and Yi Yang escaped to continue their private war another time. [Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty]
[Note: In retrospect, it’s amusing to see Natasha and Ivan being confused how the arch-nemeses Night Raven and Yi Yang could still be alive today after starting their feud in the 1930’s, given the later revelations about their own extended lifespans.]
With the change in American and Russian relations, Stark Enterprises was poised to open their first plant on Russian soil after years of international espionage and counter-intelligence directed at Tony Stark and the defense industry from the Soviets. Natasha accompanied Tony back to Russia as his translator and diplomatic aid for the event. Not everyone was happy about the new Russia, however, as Boris Bullski the Titanium Man felt betrayed by his country after everything he had given to Communism. Titanium Man fought with Iron Man at the new Stark plant, but Black Widow tried to reach out to him. Natalia Romanova had trained a young Boris Bullski, a patriot, and once chose him as a partner because of his sense of duty. Bullski paused after hearing Natasha’s respect for him, but he was too far gone to stop entirely. He was brought down by his own countryman, as the Crimson Dynamo used his armor’s fusioncaster to kill the last true Soviet. [Iron Man (1st series) #315-317]
Ivan Petrovich Bezhukov reached out to Black Widow with some disturbing intelligence reports. It seemed Advanced Idea Mechanics had begun tapping into the energies of the Cosmic Cube once more. Black Widow prepped the Avengers to investigate the research site in Canada which Ivan’s reports indicated was consumed by a blast of the Cube’s Kempler radiation. Natasha chose to 
keep the Avengers in the dark about the Cosmic Cube, fearing that the uncontained wish-fulfillment energies of the Cube might be drawn towards those who were actively thinking about the Cube. The team chaffed at the “need to know” nature of the mission, though, especially after they were accosted in Canada by the Red Skull, who also sought the Cube. The Red Skull had intercepted Ivan back in New York and beaten him severely in order to get the information about the Cube station. Black Widow fought the Skull to a standstill, despite his armor and weaponry, but he fled to seek the Cube’s main research site on the A.I.M. island nation of Boca Caliente. [Avengers (1st series) #385-386]
Once they returned from the Yukon and got Ivan some medical attention, Black Widow and the Avengers prepared to storm Boca Caliente. Captain America and several allies had already attacked Boca Caliente, leading the Avengers to follow up from a different siege position. Natasha could no longer hide the nature of “Kemplar radiation” from the Avengers and informed them of the Cosmic Cube’s presence. As she feared, their minds began to wander as Natasha inadvertently summoned a construct of the Red Guardian, Quicksilver his adopted father Django and poor Hercules manifested his own recently lost love, Taylor Madison. The Avengers evacuated the civilian population of Boca Caliente, but A.I.M. fell to their own hubris as the island was consumed by Cube energies. [Taking A.I.M. crossover]
Back in New York, this also proved to be a final parting between Natasha and Ivan. Bezukhov 
admitted his feelings for Natalia had grown beyond that of an adoptive father. As two lonely immortals ever since taking the serum back in the 50’s, he had come to hope she would see him as a partner in life, in all things. Natasha had long ignored this change in his affection, and she could not return the feelings he had developed for her. They parted awkwardly, unable to find common ground after so long. [Black Widow: Deadly Origin #3]
Black Widow faced several more losses in rapid succession. Captain America finally passed away after a long illness due to complications with the Super-Soldier Serum. Natasha’s feelings for the man were left unresolved as she and the Avengers tried to comprehend how they would go on without him. [Captain America (1st series) #443-444] Although she wasn’t as close to him, Black Widow was also leader of the Avengers when Thunderstrike died, unable to overcome the influence of his own cursed weapon. [Thunderstrike (1st series) #23-24] Finally, Nick Fury was assassinated by the Punisher after Castle was driven mad by psychotropic drugs. The man who first championed Natasha’s defection and one of her longest allies in the American spy network was gone as well. [Punisher (3rd series) #1]