Yep, I saw it and kinda rolled my eyes because that OP is
clearly reacting to a telephone-chain of bad information that antis like to put
out to taint everything Brubaker did with Natasha (therefore tainting all thing
BuckyNat) in the minds of new fans.
Despite what some people may try to claim, Brubaker did not
retcon Natasha’s backstory out of thin air just to make her Bucky girlfriend. Before
Brubaker ever got to write Captain America, Natasha already had two different
backstories – the Cold War spy (who may be much much older than she looks) backstory and the murder orphanage
backstory. As with all things Natasha, FYBW has an in-depth write-up [Secret Origins Part
1] [Secret
Origins Part 2] [Secret
Origins Part 3] that I highly recommend reading, but here is a quick
explanation:
Backstory 1, a.k.a.
the Cold War spy backstory: So way back in 1972 (when Brubaker was all of
six years old btw), Daredevil #88 laid out the groundwork for the Natasha
backstory we know today – she was a war orphan that Ivan had rescued in
Stalingrad, who chooses to join the KGB/becomes a Cold War spy and who later
decided to defect and eventually become a superhero. Daredevil #88 came out
about thirty years after the war, so the timeline made perfect sense. However,
as we got further and further away from WWII, things got a little weirder.
That’s when Uncanny X-Men #268 shows up in 1990. UXM #268 tells how Logan and Steve and Natasha first met in WWII:
While ignoring some of the specific details of DD #88’s timeline, UXM #268 doubles down on Natasha’s connection to WWII and is the first to suggest (but fails to explain) that Natasha is not as young as she appears to be:
The writer, Chris Claremont, left the book
shortly after UXM #268, so he never went into more detail/gave any explanations
for Natasha’s age. So it and the Cold War origins became a hanging plotline
that more and more writers choose to ignore the further we got from the end of
the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (Sidenote: The Red Room
entered into the Black Widow mythos in 1999 with the introduction of Yelena Bolova.)
Which brings us to…
Backstory 2, a.k.a.
the murder orphanage recon: 2004 was the year Marvel inflicted Richard Morgan onto Natasha, and he inflicted his murder orphanage recon onto all of us.
Morgan set out to tell a story about why sexism bad and proceeded to do so in
the most mansplainy way ever with the added bonus of removing all of
Natasha’s agency from her entire life. No longer did Natasha decide to join the
KGB and become a spy. Nope, instead she grew up in the 1970s in a murder
orphanage designed to produce perfect little spies. No longer did Natasha
choose to deflect from the Soviet Union and become an Avenger. Nope, instead
Nick Fury used special pheromone perfume that forced Natasha to do what he
wanted. Seriously. (Keep that in mind next time these people try to claim that
Brubaker reconned Natasha’s history just for Bucky’s dick. Because what they’re
trying to do is convince people a gross AU recon from a decade ago is Natasha’s
‘real’ origin story.)
SO!
Moving on to 2007 and Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America. In an interview following the release of Captain America #27, he states:
In the Winter Soldier origin issue, which is in my second
Cap trade, we show the history and the timeline, and in the late ‘50s and
early ‘60s he was deep in Department X. That was an actual Soviet special section
during the Cold War, where they did their experimental stuff, like brainwashing
and the like. So, when I was researching it, it occurred to me that the Red
Room program would have been attached to Department X, and that if the Black
Widow was being trained in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, they probably met. [X]
Brubaker either didn’t know about or actively chose to ignore a three-year-old recon, and decided to go back to Backstory 1 because
it worked with the story he was trying to tell. The only thing he actually
reconned was the ‘fact’ Natasha had a secret relationship with the Winter
Soldier for a short time in the late 1950s. So basically all Brubaker did was bring the unaging Cold War spy backstory back into play (with a tiny extra dash of tragic romance), which was then followed by Cornell and Liu who each filled in details and
shaped it into the backstory we know today.
Minor nitpick: Brubaker was very aware of Morgan’s stories and used them a lot to inform his version of the Red Room— he was also aware of Uncanny #268 and saw it as canon as well. This actually mirrored the timeline set up around the same time in Wolverine Origins, so it might have been the editorial direction Marvel had decided on instead of Ed Brubaker, who was never really all-powerful arbiter of everything that happened to Natasha anyway.
Anyway, Brubaker used and updated a lot of old continuity relating to Silver and Bronze Age Soviets: his stuff with Karpov and Department X touched on the Red Guardian mythos, the fourth Crimson Dynamo, Red Ghost and the Super Apes (!), and even featured a random cameo by Ursa Major so Bucky could fight a bear in a moody Russian gulag. This is a normal thing that happens in comics, not a specific violence against Natasha, and it’s not an indictment on Natasha’s ability to stand on her own, because no one lives that way in the Marvel Universe. Natasha would be much worse off as a character if her past and relationships were treated as sacred and unmovable.
Thank you for the nitpick – with comic book writers it’s not always easy to tell what they’re ignoring vs. what they’re actually aware of, so I was trying to hedge my bets. And I agree the timing of the Way stuff does suggest a move by Marvel or at the very least some sort of (very) rough coordination by the editorial teams. If not, it’s a hell of a coincidence.
…but you did forget one important fact: Bucky got to fight a bear in a moody Russian gulag shirtless. :3
kototyph 