Who Is Black Widow’s Mother? Has The MCU Retconned Natasha’s Family

Marvel's Black Widow movie introduces Natasha Romanoff's Russian family, and it may be retconning her past for the MCU. Directed by Cate Shortland, Black Widow will give Scarlett Johansson's eponymous hero a long overdue solo movie, even despite the character's death in Avengers: Endgame. Largely set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, it finds Natasha on the run and going back to her family in Russia, which is comprised of Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz).

Black Widow is expected to explore much more of Natasha's mysterious past that previous MCU movies have only hinted at, including revealing what happened with her and Hawkeye in Budapest, and delving deeper into the red in her ledger. Alongside this is the family she had before she started working for SHIELD and became an Avenger. Yelena is a sister figure to Natasha, and the others are a more spiritual family like the Avengers were, but it's now been suggested that Melina is actually her mother.

In the new Black Widow trailer, we once again see the familiar dinner table scene between Black Widow's aforementioned main players, but this time with an added bit of dialogue. Melina tells Natasha not to slouch, and when she begins to protest, Red Guardian says: "Listen to your mother." It's an intriguing line, not least because it's unclear whether or not he is being serious (and literal) in referring to Melina as Natasha's mother. The most likely meaning here is that Red Guardian is just joking - this scene in particular looks like being comic relief, and since Melina is serving as the mother figure at the table, then it fits with what we've seen of Alexei's humor to jokingly call her Nat's mother.

Black Widow Melina Natasha Russian Family

That being said, it isn't impossible Melina really is Natasha's actual mother. Rachel Weisz is 15 years older than Johansson, so with a bit of ageing characters up/down it's plausible that she could play her mother. There's also very little known about Natasha's origins in the MCU, and especially not her mother. While Red Skull's line about Ivan in Avengers: Endgame hinted at her father, as he calls her "Natasha, daughter of Ivan", there's been nothing revealed about her mother. Because of that, it was assumed that she never knew who her mother was, and that she died when Natasha was young. This is what happened in the pages of Marvel Comics: Natasha was left orphaned at a young age, and raised by a man called Ivan Petrovich. Natasha's mother, meanwhile, was seemingly killed during the Battle of Stalingrad, and her identity is unknown.

The MCU has gone further with Ivan by suggesting he is actually Black Widow's birth father, and so it could be making changes to her mother too. At the same time, though, Natasha very clearly knows and has a real history with Melina. It'd be odd, then, if they spent all those years together and yet she never learned her father's name from her, as she confesses in Endgame never to have known it. If Marvel did want to find a way around this to make Melina into Natasha's birth mother, then it may just about be possible, but also perhaps not necessary. Weisz's Melina may or may not be a villain like Iron Maiden in the comics (the trailers so far suggest she definitely isn't), but she is a Black Widow and thus connected to the Red Room (the training process of which could mean Melina was unable to have children too). Calling her "mother" may be a reference to her role there, and how the other Black Widows viewed her. It makes more sense as an in joke or more adopted name rather than Melina literally being Black Widow's mother.

Next: Black Widow Theory: Natasha Is Completing The Avengers' Civil War Mission