In Avengers: Endgame, Natasha Romanoff sacrificed her life, but What If…? episode 8’s Black Widow was the superhero Romanoff was in her solo film.
Warning: SPOILERS for Marvel’s What If…? Episode 8 – “What If… Ultron Won?”
Episode 8 of Marvel’s What If…? showed Natasha Romanoff (Lake Bell) fighting to save the world, providing a better sequel to Black Widow than Avengers: Endgame. Romanoff and a robotic-armed Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are the last Avengers standing in “What If… Ultron Won?” and Natasha’s desperate gamble is to activate the A.I. of Hydra scientist Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), which she hopes can infect and deactivate Ultron. This offers a better conclusion to her story than the final MCU Phase 3 movie.
Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) famously sacrificed her life for the Soul Stone in Avengers: Endgame, which enabled Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to assemble the Infinity Gauntlet and stop Thanos (Josh Brolin). However, Black Widow was set years before Endgame and it showed Natasha facing her past and destroying the Red Room alongside her ‘family’, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz). While Romanoff in Avengers: Endgame was in mourning for the billions of people Thanos killed, in Black Widow she was at the apex of her abilities – taking down the Red Room’s evil creator, Dreykov (Ray Winstone), and overcoming the odds against a dozen mind-controlled Black Widows as well as the dangerous Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), who was the superior fighter.
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