The Black Widow Trailer
The first trailer for Black Widow, the solo vehicle for the
heroic Avenger, is finally here, and it is pretty spectacular.
There's plenty to unpack in the spot, but with all of the
insane action, there are a few details that you may have missed. Fortunately,
we're pretty good at spotting those. The trailer opens on a panoramic view of a
city, one which might not be immediately familiar to American eyes.
That statue in the center of the shot is pretty distinctive,
however, and if you already have a gut feeling as to what this setting might
be, let us go ahead and confirm it for you. That installation is called the
Liberty Statue, and it watches over the great Hungarian capital of Budapest.
Now, a few of you may be asking:
"So what?"
For the rest of you, we'll give you a second to pick your
jaws up off the floor. You'll recall that, during the absolute mayhem that was
the Battle of New York in 2012's The Avengers, Natasha Romanoff and Clint
Barton had a humorous exchange while they were smack dab in the middle of
shooting and arrow-ing the heck out of the invading Chitauri hordes.
"This is like Budapest all over again!"
"You and I remember Budapest very
differently."
It seems highly unlikely that this would be a mere
coincidence. It's also worth noting that after this shot dissolves to a montage
of previous Marvel films, with Romanoff's voiceover wistfully recapping the
road to her "family" in the Avengers, the first recognizable
character we see is Barton.
Will Hawkeye join in on the action in Black Widow?
A Few Things
We feel pretty safe in guessing that he will. After a very
Widow-y Marvel Studios card, we see Romanoff arriving at Budapest's train station,
followed by a shot of what appears to be a convoy of military vehicles headed to
an unknown location. We then briefly see who is leading that convoy: General
Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, who is not the biggest fan of the
Avengers.
You'll recall that during Civil War, Romanoff was on the
pro-registration team led by Iron Man. However, during the enormous brawl at a
German airport, she had a slight change of heart, allowing Captain America and
Bucky Barnes to escape, while the rest of Cap's anti-registration team was
captured and hauled off to the Raft super prison. Romanoff's role in helping
them skedaddle would not have been lost on Ross, who almost certainly has
designs on making sure she ends up cooling her heels in the Raft, as well.
Of course, we know that she eventually joins Rogers and Sam
Wilson on the run, ending up in Scotland, where we catch up with the trio
during the first act of Avengers: Infinity War. This likely means that Ross
won't have any luck bringing the Black Widow in, but that doesn't mean he won't
be a major thorn in her side.
The spot finally gives us our first look at an iconic Marvel
villain: Taskmaster, who in the comics is capable of perfectly replicating the
fighting style of anyone he might encounter. The baddie's super-muscle memory
also allows him to use any weapon after observing its use just once, and you
will notice that in the Black Widow trailer, he's using a weapon that we've only
ever seen one MCU character employ before, a character who just happens to have
very close ties to Romanoff.
We suppose this could be a coincidence or a mere aesthetic
choice, but we do find it a bit odd that Taskmaster would be channeling Barton
in his first appearance in the trailer. We'd also like to point out that we're
using the descriptor "he" because Taskmaster is male in the comics,
but it's not at all clear that this is the case here. The actor portraying the
villain hasn't been disclosed, and it stands to reason that this is a detail
that Marvel has been keeping under lock and key for a reason.
The Taskmaster of the MCU could very well be female...and
could, in fact, even be one of Romanoff's "family." As we see in a
brief scene around a dining room table, this family includes Yelena Belova, with
whom Romanoff has a nice, friendly fight near the opening of the spot and with
whom, at points in the comics, Nat shares the Black Widow moniker; Alexei
Shostakov, AKA the Red Guardian, Russia's answer to Captain America; and Melina
Vostokoff, whom we first see briefly wearing a very Widow-y outfit. We know
that Belova and Vostokoff are products of the same "Red Room"
training that molded Romanoff into a deadly weapon, but in Vostokoff's case in
particular, we don't necessarily know what her motives will be.
In the comics, Vostokoff is known as the Iron Maiden, and
she is driven by a deep-seated hatred of Black Widow, whose shadow she has
never been able to escape. She's even tried to assassinate Romanoff, so if the
character indeed remains an ally throughout this film, it will represent a
complete 180 from her comics incarnation. We were heartened to see that David
Harbour, who has earned household name status thanks to his role as Chief
Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, didn't get crazy jacked for his role; indeed,
he's just as doughy, yet he still manages to squeeze into his old suit to join the
party.
"Yeah! Ahahahahaha…Still fits."
And kick ass, he does, in a very brief shot, we see him
going toe to toe with Taskmaster, an extremely dangerous opponent if ever there
was one, and holding his own. Unfortunately, we only see a literal second of
the fight, but if we're being honest, all we can hope for is that it isn't the
last scene in which Red Guardian appears. Harbour is an extremely endearing
actor, his few appearances in this trailer have us anxious to see more of
Shostakov, and that old costume even looks pretty bad-ass.
But it's obvious that the Guardian hasn't seen action for
quite some time. There have to be some high stakes involved in Black Widow, and
what we're saying here is that we really, really hope that the Guardian
survives this fight, unlike…well… you know what happened in Stranger Things’ 3rd
season.
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