Character Analysis
Hollywood's getting better when it comes to the whole women-in-action-movies thing. A woman was front and center in The Force Awakens. Wonder Woman finally got her own flick. Mad Max: Fury Road should have been called Furiosa: Furiosa Road.
But apparently 2012 was long enough ago to be the dark ages…because Black Widow is a bit of a cypher.
We meet Black Widow briefly in Iron Man 2, but beyond the fact that she can break men in half between her mighty thighs and can be a super-awesome secret agent when she wants to be, we don't have a lot of Black Widow backstory. (She gets her really meaty character development in 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier.)
Here, she's doing the job as a SHIELD undercover operative, called in for her finesse in dealing with superheroic types. Right off the bat, we know that she's loyal. SHIELD is everything for her, and though she covers it up in plenty of cynical snark, she'll cheerfully go to her death for the sake of the organization and its mission.
That just leaves the why,as in, "Why would she be so freaking loyal?" Well, we don't know much about her background, but we do know her loyalty is a fairly recent development.
Or, as she puts it to Loki while she's interrogating him:
BLACK WIDOW: Before I worked for SHIELD, I… well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for. Or on.
That's no mistake. The character actually started out as a villain in the Marvel Comics and became a heroine only after a serious change of heart. The Avengers shows us just enough of that to know that it's true.
It's especially interesting because she's supposed to be an ace undercover agent, able to assume any identity she wants. She's super-skilled at presenting the face she wants to. That line above? That comes in the middle of an epic verbal rope-a-dope with Loki.
We're not sure how much of it is true…in fact, she might not even be sure anymore.
Nevertheless, she goes out and does the job, because she believes that it ultimately does right… for the world, and for her. She tells Hawkeye that as he struggles to recover from zombiedom.
BLACK WIDOW: I've been compromised. I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out.
She's more compromised than the others, but she also knows what evil can do. She's learned the tricks of the villain trade, but now she's decided to use her knowledge of the Big Bad to fight for the Big Good.
No wonder she's so fascinated by the Hulk.