Acquiring

Target 20 of 30 · Thunderbolts*

Black Widow

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameYelena Belova

CodenameBlack Widow / White Widow

ContinentThunderbolts*

In DoomsdayFlorence Pugh (on Marvel's cast list; role not yet named)¹

First seenInhumans #5, March 1999²

Created byDevin Grayson, J.G. Jones, Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee²

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Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoA spy raised in the Red Room, Russia's secret school for Black Widow agents, who now uses the Black Widow name herself as a New Avenger.³

AbilitiesRed Room training in combat and espionage, honed as an assassin.³

In DoomsdayMarvel lists Florence Pugh in the cast but has not named her role; her most recent released role was Yelena Belova.¹

Last seenSpider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), as Yelena Belova / Black Widow: Now a public New Avenger, she feeds Spider-Man information but declines to join his case.⁸

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 4 sightings, 4 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of Black Widow, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2021
Black Widow MCU
Florence Pugh (Violet McGraw as young Yelena) Yelena is introduced as a Red Room assassin who spent part of her childhood believing a Soviet cover family in Ohio was real, before being returned to the program. In 2016 a dose of the Red Dust antidote breaks Dreykov's chemical hold on her, and she reunites with Natasha, helps spring Alexei from prison, frees the brainwashed Widows with a Red Dust bomb and destroys Dreykov's escape craft, killing him. In the post-credits scene, set in 2024, she mourns at Natasha's grave and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine gives her a new target, Clint Barton, blaming him for her sister's death.¹²³⁴
2021
Hawkeye MCU
Florence Pugh Yelena appears in the last three episodes, first as a masked attacker who ambushes Clint and Kate Bishop on a rooftop until Clint pulls off her mask, while a flashback shows her vanishing in the Blip in 2018 and returning five years later. She discovers that Kate's mother Eleanor hired her and sends Kate footage of Eleanor meeting the Kingpin. On Christmas Eve she finally corners Clint on the ice at Rockefeller Center, but when he tells her how Natasha sacrificed herself and whistles their private signal, she lets him go.⁵⁶⁷⁸³⁴
2025
Thunderbolts* MCU
Florence Pugh (Violet McGraw as young Yelena) Depressed and drinking, Yelena is still cleaning up after Valentina when she is sent to a sealed vault to be disposed of alongside other expendable operatives; she escapes with John Walker, Ghost and the mysterious Bob, and the group ends up named after her childhood soccer team, the Thunderbolts. When Bob's dark side, the Void, engulfs New York, she walks into the darkness to reach him and helps him face his pain, and when Valentina spins the group as the New Avengers she quietly tells her that the team now owns her. In the post-credits scene, set fourteen months later, she grumbles about Sam Wilson's trademark fight over the Avengers name as the team spots an extra-dimensional ship bearing a "4".⁹²³⁴
2026
Spider-Man: Brand New Day MCUCameo
Florence Pugh Now publicly known as Black Widow and a New Avenger, Yelena receives Spider-Man in the sauna she uses as an office, tells him the culprit behind attacks on Damage Control has been digging for something called "V-Max", and declines to get involved in what she calls a small-scale problem while teasing him about working alone. Later, on a video call, she tells him that Jean Grey's sister Sara was taken by Damage Control, and is pleased to see he has friends when MJ and Ned crowd into the frame.¹⁰³⁴

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.¹¹

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since March 1999

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Yelena Belova was born in Russia and raised in Moscow's Red Room Academy, the program that turns girls into Black Widow agents. Determined to make her parents proud, she set out to become the finest Widow there had ever been, and her test results were said to beat those of Natasha Romanoff, the Widow who had defected to the West. Unlike most cadets she was drilled almost entirely on the physical side, a gap in her psychological training that would cost her later. She was ruthless early: at twelve she killed her coach at the gymnastics federation. In the academy she rose to the rank of captain and grew close to her instructor, Colonel Starkovsky, and to the Red Room physician Lika Medvedev.

Her real test came when Starkovsky was found murdered in a fetish club and General Tischenko put her on the case. The club's manager, Nikki, seemed to know far too much about the Widow program, and Yelena learned that her mentor had been paying for time with a woman called Petra who dressed in a copy of Yelena's own uniform. When a police detective turned up dead in Petra's rooms, Yelena tracked her down: Petra had read leaked Red Room files and wanted to be the only Black Widow. Yelena was shot in the fight but killed her rival, then buried her grief. What she never learned was that Nikki was a Red Room captain and that the whole affair had been staged to harden her into a true Widow.

Now carrying the Black Widow codename, Yelena was attached to Colonel Yuri Stalyenko. In her first appearance she acts as a go-between with an American agent named Bixby, handing over a device supplied by Maximus the Mad that was meant to give the human nations an edge against the Inhumans' city of Attilan. Above all she was fixated on Natasha, whom she both idolised and resented, and she was eager for the chance to prove herself the better spy.¹²³⁴⁵⁶

The record, by era

1999
The itsy-bitsy spider The new Black Widow
At her own insistence Yelena is sent to shadow Natasha, who has been dispatched to the small nation of Rhapastan to deal with a bioweapon called the Deathless Frenzy. After spying on her for days, Yelena fights beside her rival against Rhapastani troops, then follows her to Zurich. Fooled into thinking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have shot Natasha dead, she takes over the mission against Colonel Khan, fails and is captured, and has to be saved by Natasha, who tells her that passion has no place in spy work.¹⁵⁷
Key issues: Black Widow #1 (1999) · Black Widow #3 (1999)
2001
Wearing her rival's face Breakdown
To show Yelena what spying really means, Natasha has Nick Fury's agents abduct her and surgically swap their faces. Waking in Natasha's apartment, Yelena is pointed at a target named Yelena Belova, really Natasha in disguise, while a reluctant Daredevil helps her hold on to who she is. When she secretly watches Stalyenko describe her as a disposable tool, she turns on her master and knocks him out, then confronts Natasha, calls the scheme a violation of her identity and demands her own face back.¹⁸⁹
Key issues: Black Widow #1 (2001) · Black Widow #3 (2001)
2005-2006
Havana Out of the game
Yelena steps away from espionage for a while and builds a lingerie business out of Havana, using it to protect sex workers and get HIV medication to people who need it. With the old rivalry behind her, she gives a hunted Natasha a safe place to hide and asks for help moving medical supplies out of Miami. When the operatives Kestrel and Martin Ferris capture Natasha and try to drug her secrets out of her, Yelena teams up with Daredevil to get her out.¹¹⁰¹¹
Key issues: Black Widow 2 #1 (2005) · Black Widow 2 #6 (2006)
2005-2006
A weapon built for revenge The Super-Adaptoid
Back in the field as a freelance S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, Yelena is part of a rogue unit using enslaved locals to mine vibranium in the Savage Land, and she orders her troops to open fire on the New Avengers. Sauron leaves her horribly burned, and a Hydra agent offers to rebuild her: A.I.M. scientists turn her into a living Super-Adaptoid aimed at the Avengers. She storms their tower around the time of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' wedding, soaking up the team's powers, including the Sentry's and the instability of his dark side, the Void, until her handlers kill her with a remote failsafe.¹¹²¹³
Key issues: New Avengers #6 (2005) · New Avengers Annual #1 (2006)
2009
A borrowed name on the Thunderbolts Dark Reign
After the Skrull invasion Norman Osborn appears to find Yelena looting an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. base and makes her field leader of his Thunderbolts. The Widow on the team is really Natasha in disguise, planted by Nick Fury. Osborn knew all along and used her to reach Fury and Songbird; he fails to hurt any of them but does get hold of the real Yelena's body, which he keeps at Avengers Tower.¹¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶
Key issues: Thunderbolts #128 (2009) · Thunderbolts #134 (2009) · Thunderbolts #136 (2009)
2013-2014
Minister of State A.I.M. Island
Recovered by A.I.M., Yelena joins its High Council as Minister of State of the group's new island nation in Barbuda and pushes for an army, backed by Taskmaster, who is secretly a double agent. Using her Adaptoid powers she helps steal the Iron Patriot armour from a weapons expo, killing Senator Rebel Ralston, and later nearly kills Natasha before Hawkeye saves her. She captures a S.H.I.E.L.D. team sent to rescue Mockingbird, but in a fight Mockingbird slips her own holographic disguise onto Yelena, and an A.I.M. soldier guns Yelena down thinking she is the escaped Avenger.¹¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹²⁰
Key issues: Secret Avengers #2 (2013) · Secret Avengers #3 (2013) · Secret Avengers #5 (2013) · Secret Avengers #15 (2014)
2018-2021
The Red Ledger clones Second life
A revived Red Room has been growing clones of its best agents, Yelena among them. Natasha, now a clone herself, secretly wakes three blank Yelena bodies, apparently after killing the original, uses two in her schemes and destroys the program, sparing only the third; to make amends she has the psychic Epsilon Red give it the real Yelena's memories, though not her Adaptoid powers. Later, hired by the billionaire Justin Cask to break a prisoner out of an Antarctic facility in a white version of her old suit, Yelena realises she is only there as target practice, frees the imprisoned Red Guardian instead, and empties Cask's bank accounts into charities.¹²¹²²²³
Key issues: Tales of Suspense #103 (2018) · Tales of Suspense #104 (2018) · Widowmakers: Red Guardian and Yelena Belova #1 (2021)
2020-2022
Ally to Natasha, partner to Alexei White Widow
When Natasha's enemies brainwash her into a quiet life in San Francisco as an architect with a husband and son, Yelena slips into her household as a babysitter called Helen and helps her break free once her memories return. Taking the name White Widow, she becomes Natasha's ally and helps train young women to look after themselves. She also teams with Alexei Shostakov to recover hard drives exposing old Soviet corruption, flying on a knock-off set of Falcon wings, only for him to leave her to the Winter Guard and run off with the last drive.¹²⁴²⁵²⁶²⁷²⁸²⁹³⁰
Key issues: Black Widow #2 (2020) · Black Widow #7 (2021) · Winter Guard #1 (2021) · Winter Guard #4 (2022)
2024
Idylhaven and the Thunderbolts Finding herself
After Captain America interrupts one of her contracts and urges her to use her skills for good, Yelena moves to the small town of Idylhaven with her dog, Bint Clarton, and starts a wall listing everything she has an opinion on. The town turns out to be a training ground for Armament Industries' assassins and robots, and once they wreck a neighbour's shop, take over her coffee place and attack her at home, she brings the company down with help from her neighbour Griffin LaChance, killing its hidden owner Renata Best. Having found she likes being on a team, she joins Bucky Barnes' Thunderbolts to seize the Red Skull's fortune and hunt him down in Latveria.¹³¹³²⁶³³
Key issues: White Widow #1 (2024) · White Widow #4 (2024) · Thunderbolts #2 (2024) · Thunderbolts #4 (2024)
2024-2025
Blood Hunters Blood Hunt
When vampires overrun the world, Yelena is turned and goes hunting in Brooklyn until Elsa Bloodstone pins her down and Dagger burns the curse out of her with her light, briefly taking it on herself. Yelena repays the debt by stopping Elsa from killing the infected Dagger, and with Hallows' Eve the four form the Blood Hunters. After the event, with vampires now able to walk in daylight, Yelena leads the raid to rescue Dagger from the super-powered Bloodcoven, survives being possessed by Smoke Eater, and watches Cloak trap the vampires in the Darkforce before the team agrees to part until it is needed again.¹³⁴³⁵³⁶³⁷
Key issues: Blood Hunters #2 (2024) · Blood Hunters #4 (2024) · Blood Hunters Vol. 2 #1 (2024) · Blood Hunters Vol. 2 #5 (2025)

Capabilities

Red Room training

The academy's top cadet, trained almost entirely in physical skills, with scores that surpassed Natasha Romanova's.¹

Master martial artist

Trained in armed and unarmed combat, at peak human condition and an Olympic-level gymnast.¹

Espionage

Extensively trained in spycraft, using tools such as smoke pellets, sleeping gas and lockpicks.¹

Tactician

A highly intelligent tactician, though the wiki notes she lacks the psychological training most spies receive.¹

Widow's Bite gauntlets

Wrist gauntlets that fire a stunning energy charge, worn with a bulletproof Black Widow uniform.¹

Adaptoid mimicry (former)

When A.I.M. remade her as a Super-Adaptoid, she could copy the powers, looks and gear of super beings with one touch.¹

Source of power

No natural powers: the Red Room trained her as a spy and fighter, and her physical test scores beat Natasha Romanova's.¹

Fights with Widow's Bite gauntlets, a bulletproof suit, firearms and spy gadgets, and once flew on bought copies of the Falcon's wings.¹

Recorded feats

comics Rebuilt by A.I.M. as a Super-Adaptoid, she attacked the New Avengers in their tower and copied their powers, including the Sentry's. New Avengers Annual Vol 1 #1 (June 2006)¹³
comics Using her Adaptoid powers, she overpowered Daisy Johnson and Nick Fury Jr. at an arms fair so A.I.M. could seize the Iron Patriot armor. Secret Avengers Vol 2 #3 (June 2013)¹⁸
comics Turned the self-destruct systems of Armament Industries' killing machines against them and took down Renata Best, the company's hidden owner. White Widow Vol 1 #4 (April 2024)³²
screen Freed the Black Widows from mind control with a grenade of Red Dust, then wrecked Dreykov's escape helicopter by jamming her baton into its rotor. Black Widow (2021)³⁸³⁹
screen Ambushed Clint Barton on a rooftop and held off Barton, Kate Bishop and Maya Lopez together with her Widow's Bite and a grapple. Hawkeye (2021), episode 4⁴⁰³⁹
screen Planned the escape from the O.X.E. vault and, tied to Bob by a fire hose to protect him, defeated a wave of armed agents. Thunderbolts* (2025)⁴¹³⁹

Notes from the archive

Yelena was created by Devin Grayson and J.G. Jones for their 1999 Black Widow series, but she was borrowed for Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee's Inhumans #5 a few months earlier, which is why that issue counts as her first appearance.¹²⁵
The opinion wall Yelena builds in White Widow #1 includes liking Kate Bishop because she is funny, disliking Cyclops because he refuses to gossip with her, and hating the Eiffel Tower because it is hard to climb. The same issue gives her shoe size as 7.5.¹³¹
The green vest Natasha wears in Avengers: Infinity War was later reassigned to Yelena by Marvel Studios visual development head Andy Park, and Black Widow (2021) explains it by having Yelena hand the vest to her sister as a keepsake.⁴²³⁸
In the Hawkeye episode "Ronin", Florence Pugh found a bottle of hot sauce on the set and improvised dousing her macaroni with it; the MCU Wiki lists macaroni and cheese with hot sauce and green beans as Yelena's favourite food.⁴³³⁹