Captain America: Civil War - 8 Ways It Could Ruin Everything

4. Further Waste The One Strong Female Character

Natasha Romanoff's backstory as laid out in greater detail in Age Of Ultron (brutal Soviet training, forced sterilisation, yadda yadda) is probably the most psychologically warped of all the Avengers' origins. When you consider that Cap slept in for 70 years and missed pretty much everything he'd ever known and loved slide toward the endless abyss of deep time, that's a fair achievement. However, there's a danger that rather than tackling her story head-on and expanding on the more interesting themes opened up within her character in Age Of Ultron, they'll leave all that for a possible Black Widow solo film and just have her be defined by the burgeoning lust between herself and Bruce Banner. I'm not sure what exactly it is she likes about him, further than his nerdish adorability. Age Of Ultron didn't really bother to explain that bit of it. More than anything, it'd be a really, really lame resolution to have Romanoff cured of all her neuroses and guilt complex by a big old kiss with Banner at the climax of Civil War. It was bad enough that they went down the standard 'thwarted maternal instincts' route in Age Of Ultron (she sings lullabies to Hulk, for heaven's sake); they don't need to double down on the shallow female character tropes. This doesn't just affect Widow though - she's the franchise's strongest female character. To once again wastes her sets a worrying precedent leading into Captain Marvel and Ant-Man And The Wasp.