Tag Archives: Scarlett Johansson

We’re at a point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where when a film is set matters as much as where. Past MCU outings have planted flags in 1942, 1995, 2023, and everywhere in between. More to the point, who’s alive (not to mention who’s on speaking terms) varies with each jump across the timeline. So when an adventure is set can tell the audience plenty before the story’s even started.

Black Widow, then, is set very deliberately after the events of Captain America: Civil War (or most of them, anyway). The story seizes on a time when Natasha Romanoff had just witnessed the break-up of one found family, as the Avengers split over the Sokovia accords. Their divide makes it even harder for her to process the break-up of another — a group of undercover Russian spies she lived with as a child a la The Americans.

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