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“Marvel’s Agent Carter” Brainstorm Session: The Red Room

By Christina Roberts

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Marvel’s Agent Carter is delving deeper into the comic book lore than I initially thought it would. That’s not a bad thing–in fact, it only seems to ramp up my energy and excitement for everything Marvel. …But that’s not too hard to do.

If you are trying to avoid any and all spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron plot points, then you may want to shy away from this one and keep it bookmarked for several months.

The Red Room

This is something that has been hinted at for quite some time in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, even if people didn’t quite notice it.

What is The Red Room? In Marvel Comics, it’s an integral part of Black Widow’s back story. It’s the Soviet/KGB’s super-science division, which makes and trains super-spies, posing as a ballet academy. It’s like a Soviet version of the Weapon X program that created Wolverine. But we can’t talk about those things here; it’s not the same cinematic universe (even if it is the same comic company).

This is where Natasha Romanoff becomes Black Widow. Now, in the MCU, it hasn’t been confirmed that Natasha Romanoff has superhuman powers, since the Red Room in the comics used a Captain America-like serum on its recruited girls. It also implanted false memories in the girls (not unlike Project TAHITI).

In fact, there has been no direct mention of the Red Room in the MCU. Black Widow alludes to having her mind played with and molded by someone else and that she used to work for the KGB. Joss Whedon has confirmed that Avengers: Age of Ultron will give us a look at Black Widow’s back story, and trailers for the movie definitely show the silhouettes of ballerinas. No mention by name yet.

In our last Agent Carter brainstorm session, I talked about who Dottie Underwood might actually be–because she’s way too innocent to be just a ballerina from Iowa. They didn’t let that plot thread dangle for very long; in this week’s episode, we saw Dottie in action, breaking Mr. Mink’s neck in an outstanding fashion and landing exactly like “Natalie Rushman” in Iron Man 2.

In an interview with IGN, showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters confirmed that Dottie is part of the Black Widow Project, though they don’t call it the Red Room:

"It is safe to say that Dottie is a Black Widow?Michele Fazekas: That’s correct! She is a product of the Black Widow Program.Tara Butters: But we, in the series, are not actually calling her a Black Widow.Fazekas: Yeah, we actually never say Black Widow, but people who know about it… You’ll learn even more about it and her history in the next episode."

The previews for next week’s episode–“The Iron Ceiling”–show Agent Carter and the Howling Commandos heading to Russia and encountering a little girl who seems to be just as adept at combat as Dottie. I can’t help but wonder if they stumble onto the actual ballet school/science division or if they just find one of the young agents.

Marvel’s Agent Carter is carving itself a nice little niche within the MCU. I have often wondered how it would tie into everything, and it seems to have two different ways to do so: The Red Room and Leviathan. We don’t know much about Leviathan so far, and like I just said in 500 or so words up there, we still don’t have much information on The Red Room.

But Agent Carter keeps popping up in other Marvel things, whether it’s cameos in Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, and everyone has said Hayley Atwell is a pleasure to work with. Joss Whedon even wrote a scene for her in Age of Ultron just to bring her into the fold.

The Red Room may just be the perfect link between Marvel’s Agent Carter and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Of course, we’ll know more next week when “The Iron Ceiling” premieres and we have closer looks at both Russia and Dottie Underwood.

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