Ballerina with PTSD: imagining Russia in contemporary Black Widow comics

This article offers a visual discourse analysis of the Marvel comic superheroine Black Widow in the 2010 miniseries Black Widow–Deadly Origins, the 2016 Black Widow–S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Most Wanted series and issues 103 and 104 of Tales of Suspense from2018. Focusing on issues of gender and cultural representation, it identifies the Widow as a figuration of Russia through the tropes of the ballerina and the trauma patient. It shows how the comic books deploy the comic form to create visual narratives on the intersection of gender and trauma. Furthermore, it analyzes how the images of the Widow bring forward trauma and at the same time confirms symbols, images and ideas about Russia. To argue that the meaning of trauma embodied by the Black Widow is a symbol for Russia as such, the article contextualises the individual visual and textual narratives of current Black Widow iterations within the long history of the Black Widow figure as point to negotiate the relationship between the USA and Russia within the Marvel comic universe. Thereafter, it relates contemporary imaginations about Russia through the figure of the Black Widow to current and long-standing cultural ideas about the Russian country, history and its people.