BIOGRAPHY - Page 23
Andrew Forson and A.I.M. proved to be major opponents to both the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. With their own United Nations-recognized country of Barbuda Island, A.I.M. had credentials and political capital it never had before. Forson provoked Director Johnson into a confrontation at a weapons expo, leading to the death of Senator and former Howling Commando “Reb” Ralston. In retaliation, Daisy sent Black Widow, Hawkeye and Nick Fury, Jr. to assassinate Forson on 
Barbuda, an unsanctioned and illegal attack on a member nation. The operation went bad as Natasha was spotted by A.I.M.’s Minister of State, Yelena Belova. In the chaos that followed, the team was forced to leave a member behind, Mockingbird, and had their memories wiped of that fact. Daisy was relieved of command of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Forson was placated for this embarrassment with a spot on the U.N. Security Council. [Secret Avengers (2nd series) #4-7]
The Avengers Machine was tested to its limits when a massive space fleet controlled by the Builders marched across the universe towards Earth. Black Widow and the Avengers joined forces with the Galactic Council for a war of epic proportions. When they returned to Earth, they discovered Thanos had taken advantage of their absence to invade, but the Mad Titan and his Black Order fell to the expanded Avengers roster as well. [Infinity event] In the aftermath of Thanos’ attack, a Terrigen cloud erupted from the besieged Inhumans’ city of Attilan, mutating many people around the globe with latent Inhuman genes. Black Widow and the Avengers dealt with securing the cocoons left by mutating NuHumans. They also worked directly with Captain Marvel’s former protégé, Spider-Girl, whose teacher was among the early NuHumans. Natasha helped Anya search for clues about the missing cocoon as Kashmir Vennema and June Covington the Toxic Doxie fought over these genetics “prizes.” [Avengers Assemble #21-25]
M.O.D.O.K., former Scientist Supreme of A.I.M., applied for an immunity deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. to eliminate Andrew Forson and his new version of A.I.M. Acting on his intelligence, Maria Hill sent the Widow, Fury and Hawkeye to an A.I.M. base where Yelena was reportedly training A.I.M.’s new Black Guard. They were captured and brought to Barbuda, but this activated a secondary mission to rescue Mockingbird. In the scuffle that followed, however, Mockingbird was left behind again and the Secret Avengers only escaped with a dying Yelena Belova. Afterwards, Hawkeye and other agents refused to keep working for Hill, and she activated their Reverie mind wipes. Black Widow was among those who remained. [Secret Avengers (2nd series) #12-16]
Natasha’s desire for atonement continued to guide her behavior. She moved past the marker system and set up a trust for the benefit of her past victims and survivors of her misdeeds. Natasha helped a former mob attorney named Isaiah Ross get free of his past and, in exchange, he oversaw the trust and acted as manager for new contracts. During her downtime from the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha accepted jobs for espionage, extraction and morally-justified assassinations. She kept just enough money from the contracts to pay Isaiah and cover expenses, sending the rest into the trust. Isaiah always grumbled a bit about this, but Natasha 
insisted that profit was not – and could not be – the point of her work. The Black Widow maintained a Web of safe houses throughout the globe but began to call a small apartment in the Little Ukraine neighborhood of New York her home. Natasha’s life was a lonely one these days, and she was very reluctant about making new attachments. Still, she slowly allowed a stray cat she called Liho to “adopt” her. [All-New Marvel NOW! Point One #1, Black Widow (5th series) #1-3]
While on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Widow was present when the Ukrainian embassy was blown up. She learned the hitman Molot Boga did this to kill a single ambassador, and his next target was the Croatian ambassador visiting Cape Town. Molot was an enormous monk wielding heavy firepower, and Natasha was unable to stop his next hit while fighting him one-on-one. Only on his third hit, when Molot shot down a passenger plane outside of London, was Black Widow able to stop the assassin permanently. The plane carried only a single passenger, who survived the attack but was brought into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. The passenger was so scared that Molot’s employer would come for him again, that he committed suicide in front of Natasha.
Black Widow’s informant, Tori Raven, told her to seek out a yacht off the coast of Montenegro. Natasha was discovered trying to board it and brought before Molot’s master, her old adversary Damon Dran the Indestructible Man. No longer indestructible, Dran was living in a state of 
paranoid fear that a group known as “Chaos” would be coming for him. Not knowing who Chaos truly was or employed, Damon Dran assigned Molot to assassinate his known enemies in the hopes that Chaos would die in the sweep. Natasha overwhelmed his security from the inside and delivered Damon to S.H.I.E.L.D. In a matter of hours, Dran was killed by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on behalf of Chaos, who then committed suicide to avoid being questioned. Natasha and Maria Hill were left knowing only that a major new player was in the field. [Black Widow (5th series) #4-6]
Maria Hill asked Natasha to look into Chaos unofficially, since they didn’t know how deep S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated after Dran’s death. The Black Widow followed a trail from San Francisco to Prague to Costa Rica, crossing paths with Daredevil, Punisher and even the Winter Soldier. But Chaos remained one step ahead of her, and they kidnapped Isaiah to get her attention. An old client of Natasha’s named Rashid was working for Chaos on this, and he held 
Isaiah on the top floor of a casino in Macau. Tori Raven brought Natasha the intel, but Black Widow was becoming suspicious over how easily Tori kept finding what she needed regarding Chaos. With the help of X-23, Black Widow rescued Isaiah, avoided a bomb and threw Rashid from a burning helicopter, but she still didn’t understand what Chaos seemed to have planned for her. [Black Widow (5th series) #7-11]
[Note: Black Widow (5th series) #10 had a flashback showing how she first met Rashid, extracting him from Pakistan. Her mission was opposed by Hawkeye and Captain America acting as Avengers. It’s unclear when in Natasha’s timeline this could’ve occurred.]
With several members leaving the field team, Black Widow arranged for Spider-Woman to renew her association with S.H.I.E.L.D. through the Secret Avengers Initiative. Although less of a strict professional than Natasha, Jessica had intense training in espionage ops and Black Widow knew how useful she would be, recommending her to Hill. Hawkeye was dragged back into the Initiative by accident after he was attacked by A.I.M. in Black Widow and Spider-Woman’s presence just as they were called in by Hill for a space mission. (It’s uncertain if Clint’s prior memories of the Initiative were reactivated or not when he became active again.) [Secret Avengers (3rd series) #1-2]
On a mission to Sokotra, Black Widow and Spider-Woman recovered a sentient black hole bomb named Vladimir being sold by Artaud Derrida. Natasha engaged the assassin Lady Bullseye during the fight in Sokotra, continuing the rivalry between them. When Lady Bullseye returned and called out the Widow, Natasha was eager to face her. Lady Bullseye commandeered a Japanese bullet train and demanded Black Widow face her in combat, or she would blow up the train. 
Natasha was deployed for the confrontation, while Jessica was assigned to locate and disable the bomb. However, it turned out to be a trap. There were no hostages on board the train, and the “bomb” was another version of Vladimir’s design, opening a black hole as a space warp into another dimension. Black Widow got Spider-Woman off the train in time, but she and Lady Bullseye were sucked into the portal. [Secret Avengers (3rd series) #3-6]
Black Widow and Lady Bullseye ended up in a deserted landscape of the realm of Tlon. [Secret Avengers (3rd series) #9] Natasha defeated her adversary, but they were accosted by the many-tentacled Old Ones who inhabited that realm. [Secret Avengers (3rd series) #12] Fortunately, a gate existed to bring them back to their home reality, as part of a larger scheme being run by M.O.D.O.K. at the time. [Secret Avengers (3rd series) #15]
A series of betrayals soon rocked Black Widow’s world and those closest to her. While at their regular “meat night,” old soldiers Natasha, Logan, Steve Rogers and Nick Fury were interrupted by reports that the Watcher was killed on the moon. An investigation began to find his killer and the collection of secrets and technology lifted from his home. However, they eventually learned the killer was Fury himself. Although other forces assaulted the Watcher first, Nick was provoked into killing Uatu because of his own secrets. As “The Man on the Wall” or the Unseen, Fury had been defending Earth from alien threats for decades in secret, conducting assassinations based solely on his own judgment and code for the greater good. Now that his Infinity Formula was 
failing, Nick was aging rapidly and feared he would need to pass on the role soon. Everything unraveled as Fury’s chosen candidates largely rejected his role, and he attacked the Avengers and others while trying to force secrets from the Watcher’s severed eyes. Black Widow was NOT among the candidates Nick considered to replace him, and he revealed it was because Natasha’s temperament was much closer to Steve’s than his these days, whether she believed it or not. [Original Sin #1-8]
The secrets erupting from the Watcher’s eyes also drove a wedge between the Avengers. Captain America learned that Iron Man and the Illuminati had secretly reformed to address a threat known as the Incursion crisis. The Incursions were a vicious occurrence where universes collided with two Earths as the impact point. Both universes would be destroyed unless one Earth was destroyed first, sparing the universes. When Cap refused to consider extreme measures in the crisis, the Illuminati wiped his mind and sent him away. The “Avengers Machine” Tony and Steve built together was deliberately designed to keep the Earth protected from all other threats while the Illuminati dealt with the Incursions alone.
Captain America brought Black Widow and other Avengers to confront Stark over his betrayal. Mercifully, the Illuminati had yet to destroy an inhabited Earth to save their own, but it was only a matter of time. Iron Man had a chance to escape when Natasha and the others were struck by the Time Gem, sending them on a journey through future time periods. In a future ruled by Ultron under attack from its own future, Natasha interacted with a robotic archetype of herself who 
selfishly wanted to survive the current war. Because Natasha passed on a message to the Future Man on her next stop, the Ultron-Natasha survived to become the very future enemy threatening the past’s Planet Ultron in the first place. For this gift, Natasha’s counterpart gave her a message to remember for “when she saw Stark in his cell.” [Avengers (5th series) #29-34]
Chaos made their next move against Natasha. Using doctored footage and media spin, they orchestrated a news expose that accused her (somewhat accurately) of violating international law, which put her relationships with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers in jeopardy. Chaos also allowed Rashid to seek redemption with them by draining Natasha’s accounts, shooting Isaiah and leaving him for dead. Isaiah warned Natasha to lie low when she visited him in the hospital, but the Black Widow always became very focused when her friends were hurt. Tori Raven approached Natasha and revealed she had been an asset for Chaos. They weren’t happy with her performance, though, and so now Tori was willing to help Natasha take them down to save her own neck. Tori revealed 
Chaos was primarily a financial manipulating organization. They were infamous for their ability to anticipate events and turn seemingly random and unpredictable acts towards their advantage, building their mystique among their operatives. Tori gave Natasha a list of Chaos’ top accountants to work her way through. Black Widow began in earnest, and Rashid didn’t even make it out of the city. [Black Widow (5th series) #12-13]
As she started interrogating the accountants, Black Widow discovered even these top assets didn’t know much about Chaos’s origins. Unexpected phone calls would lead to random meetings among a masked board. Natasha used one board member to falsify an official Chaos meeting aboard a charter cruise ship so she could confront them all at once. For reasons she failed to understand, the Winter Soldier was on her tail and helped Natasha overcome Chaos’s invisible bodyguards and pursue her leads to the end. The hunt led to a singular man who represented her enemy, the self-styled Prophet of Chaos. [Black Widow (5th series) #14-15]
According to the Prophet, Chaos was a voice from the future which spoke to him and empowered him to act as a caretaker for the present. While much of the work Chaos did seemed random, it was intended to orchestrate the present to create a better future for those who would inherit it. The Prophet was impressed by Black Widow and offered her a place by his side, serving Chaos for the greater good. Chaos hoped they had isolated Natasha enough that she would see the logic in joining them, but she refused to serve as a puppet for some faceless manipulators. Despite his 
powers and vision, Natasha fought back and killed the Prophet, denying Chaos their voice in the modern era. The experience with Chaos left a bad taste in her mouth regarding spycraft and mercenary work. Black Widow told Maria Hill she would no longer operate as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and she told Isaiah to close shop on her freelancing. Instead, Natasha returned to Avengers Tower and recommitted herself to serving as a hero rather than an agent. [Black Widow (5th series) #16-18]
Black Widow commitment to the Avengers kept her busy. She worked with a field team containing riots in Madripoor when the entire island rose atop the crown of a massive dragon. [Avengers World #1-14] Natasha and Vision were also drafted into the future by an independent Doombot to save humanity from the Ultron Singularity which Natasha previously witnessed. Along with younger versions of Thor, Hulk and Iron Man, Black Widow was joined by the future Jane Foster as Thor and Danielle Cage-Jones, a toddler in Natasha’s time who grew up to become Captain America. This diverse group of heroes came together and recognized Black Widow as their ideal 
leader, ceding her authority over their missions for the Doombot to defeat Ultron. Naturally, Natasha recognized how the Doombot planned to betray them and take control of Ultron’s world for himself instead of setting the people free. Still, she trusted the Vision when he reached out to the Doombot and convinced him to be his own person, rather than dictated to by Doctor Doom’s personality programming. [Ultron Forever crossover]
While Natasha had recommitted to the Avengers, Jessica Drew had tried to leave them behind to focus on real world problems and her private detective agency. As the Incursion crisis became imminent, however, Nat reached out to Jessica and forced her out of retirement to be her partner among the Avengers. [Spider-Woman (5th series) #10] Tensions were high among Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Steve Rogers’ vendetta against the Illuminati led him to declare Tony Stark, Reed Richards and the others as wanted fugitives. He even rejoined S.H.I.E.L.D., bringing the Avengers under his and Maria Hill’s direction, to give them the authority to hunt the Illuminati wherever they went. Many Avengers left the team rather than hunt down their friends at Steve’s command. Natasha was uncomfortable being forced back into an espionage role after just breaking ties with S.H.I.E.L.D., but she and Spider-Woman initially serving with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Avengers aboard the Helicarrier Archangel.
Weeks passed and the situation grew even more dire as the public learned about the Incursion threat and the accelerated collapse of the multiverse. Natasha and Jessica recognized that Steve’s crusade against the Illuminati was personal and pointless considering the stakes, and they abandoned the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. They sought out Tony Stark and found him a prisoner of the Cabal in occupied Wakanda. Stark was utterly unrepentant for his role in events up until now, and they reluctantly realized releasing him would do more harm than good. Black Widow and Spider-Woman instead teamed up with the new Avengers helmed by Sunspot and the repurposed A.I.M., helping to force a truce between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Illuminati. Time ran out and, as the final Incursion loomed, they constructed a life raft which could theoretically allow a select few to survive the destruction of the multiverse. [Time Runs Out] Natasha’s final mission was to gather the scientists needed to rebuild in whatever came after. The invasion from Earth-1610 struck, however, and Natasha’s ship Courier One was shot down on its flight to the Baxter Building. Natasha Romanov died along with the future of humanity. [Secret Wars #1]
