MCU Phase 4: 8 Major Comics That Could Inspire Its Story
4. Black Widow: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Most Wanted
Marvel Comics/Chris Samnee
Cate Shortland's upcoming Black Widow film is said to be a prequel chronicling Natasha Romanoff's defection to the United States, and there are plenty of Marvel stories to have detailed this period of her life, albeit with a modern focus.
Several stories where the Widow details with her past coming back to haunt her have been published since 2010, including The Finely Woven thread and its follow-up, The Tightly Tangled Web, but it's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Most Wanted and its sequel, No More Secrets, that should inspire the new film.
Written and drawn by one of the most formidable creative teams of recent years in Mark Waid, Chris Samnee and Matt Wilson, this Black Widow run is right up there with the very best the character has ever seen, and even stars the Winter Soldier in a minor capacity. If Shortland were to marry past with present, this storyline, which sees Natasha's past in the Red Room come back to haunt her, must be on the top of Marvel's reading list.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
