15 surprising facts you didn’t know about Black Widow

Iron Man marks Black Widow’s first appearance in the comics and MCU

Natasha now feels like a permanent fixture in the MCU, but the fact is, she wasn’t always part of Marvel’s lineup of characters. The Black Widow moviegoers know and love made her first on-screen appearance in Iron Man 2, posing as a notary within Stark Industries’ legal division.

The end of the film reveals she’s actually an agent sent in by S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and it gives fans the first taste of Natasha’s assassin skills. Even with later criticisms that the film “hypersexualized” Natasha’s character, there’s no denying she made an epic entrance into the MCU — and one that fans aren’t likely to forget any time soon.

An Iron Man installment marked Natasha’s first outing in the film franchise, and that’s also the case for Marvel Comics. Natasha makes her first appearance in 1964’s Tales of Suspense #52, an Iron Man series despite not featuring the character in its title.

Black Widow’s comics debut shared a similarity with her first MCU appearance: both of them saw her acting as a spy around Tony Stark’s hero. In the comics, however, Natasha’s first run-in with Iron Man isn’t because she’s keeping an eye on him or protecting him; it’s because she’s been ordered to kill him.

Although the MCU’s Natasha is introduced after her career as a Russian spy and assassin, her comics run tells her full story. In Tales of Suspense #52, she’s still working as both, making her more of an antagonist to Stark’s character than an ally.