Black Widow (Yelena Belova)

"Yelena Belova" redirects here. For the Russian athlete sometimes called Yelena Belova-Novikova, see Elena Novikova-Belova.

Yelena Belova
File:BlackWidow2002No.1.jpg Cover for Black Widow: Pale Little Spider #1, starring Yelena Belova. Art by Greg Horn
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Inhumans #5 (March 1999)
Created by	Paul Jenkins Jae Lee
In-story information
Full name	Yelena Belova
Team affiliations	S.H.I.E.L.D. Thunderbolts
Notable aliases	Black Widow Pale Little Spider Rooskaya Super-Adaptoid
Abilities	Peak athletic condition Extensive military, martial arts, and espionage training

Yelena Belova is a Marvel Comics character and the third to use the alias Black Widow. She debuted in 1999 in Inhumans #5 by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee

Publication history

Belova, the second modern Black Widow, was initially a post-Soviet Russian spy of the GRU. She debuted briefly in Inhumans #5 (March 1999), and was fully introduced in the 1999 Marvel Knights mini-series Black Widow. A second miniseries, also titled "Black Widow" and featuring Natasha Romanoff and Daredevil, followed in 2001. The next year, she did a solo turn in her own three-issue miniseries, also titled Black Widow (officially Black Widow: Pale Little Spider in the series' postal indicia) under the mature-audience Marvel MAX imprint. This June to August 2002 story arc, by writer Greg Rucka and artist Igor Kordey, was a flashback to the story of her becoming the second modern Black Widow, in events preceding her Inhumans appearance.

Fictional character biography

Belova is an amoral spy and assassin who was trained by the same spymasters who trained Natasha Romanoff, the first Black Widow. After the death of her trainer, Pyotr Vasilievich Starkovsky, she is activated as the new Black Widow and deployed to investigate. However, she is still set to battle Romanoff for the official title. The battle is inconclusive, and later confrontations between the two lead Belova to doubt herself. Belova eventually retires to Cuba, where she becomes a successful businesswoman and model.

She is lured back, however, by the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and becomes involved in the agency's mining of vibranium in the Antarctic Savage Land. Shortly afterward, she barely survives an attack by Sauron, receiving severe burns and being subsequently approached with an offer for revenge against S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers.

Belova is genetically altered by the terrorist organization HYDRA, as she had suffered debilitating and disfiguring injuries after her last encounter with the Avengers in the Savage Land. HYDRA recruited her with the prospect of revenge and after hiring the services of A.I.M. transferred her mind into a new Super-Adaptoid body. This body appeared as Belova had originally until it began to absorb powers, at which time it changed as the original did, though now yellow in color.

Now equipped with the ability to copy all of the Avengers powers, she engages the superhero team in combat. She is eventually defeated by a combination of Tony Stark's 49 successive Iron Man armors — from the first, Tales of Suspense #39, to the then-current — and the Sentry's use of his Void persona, which she absorbs with the rest of the Sentry's powers and energy. When she is defeated, HYDRA kills her using a remote self-destruct mechanism they had implanted in her, rather than let her reveal intelligence to the Avengers.

She has since turned up alive and working with a vigilante group, the Vanguard.

Thunderbolts

Norman Osborn discovered Belova breaking into an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, and offered her the position of field leader of the new Thunderbolts. On her first mission, she and Ant-Man take control of Air Force One with the Goblin, Doc Samson, and the new President aboard.

References

• Yelena Belova at the Marvel Directory
• Yelena Belova at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
• Yelena Belova at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)

External links

• Yelena Belova at the Marvel Universe