15 Most Ridiculous MCU Controversies
9. Black Widow's Reproductive Problem (Avengers: Age Of Ultron)
The Controversy: As Black Widow and The Hulk bond, Bruce tells her that he's a monster, to which she replies that she was sterilised while training to become an assassin. She follows up with the line, "You still think you’re the only monster on the team?"
Many interpreted this as Widow referring to herself as a monster because she can't bear children, implying that she, like so many women in TV and film, has been reduced to nothing more than her reproductive abilities.
This perceived sexism kick-started a hate campaign against writer-director Joss Whedon so fierce that he quit Twitter not long after, apparently in response to the vitriol.
Why It's Ridiculous: It seems pretty clear that Widow was only referring to herself as a monster in the sense that she's a trained assassin who has likely killed hundreds of people whether they deserved it or not.
As she said in the first Avengers movie, she's got plenty of red in her ledger, and to suggest that Whedon, a card-carrying feminist, would deliberately demean a female character in such a way is just absurd.
Whedon's done with the franchise now anyway, and given how much Age of Ultron took out of him, he's probably looking forward to some smaller-scale projects.