Marvel's The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes will be published as a serial in the Russian version of Maxim before being released as a three issue comic book this May. Written by Fred Van Lente and with art by Wellinton Alves, Renato Arlem, Neil Edwards, Steve Kurth, Ron Lim and Agustin Padilla, the tie-in will be aimed at a slightly different audience than you might expect from this type of series.
"It's more risqué material than the typical licensed comic. Let's just say I spent an entire morning going through the photo galleries of nightclubs in Moscow, and 'all-ages' are not the first words that leap to mind to describe them."
"The basic premise of the story is that Natasha's hunting down bootleg Stark Industries technology created by Justin Hammer and Whiplash from Iron Man 2, Van Lente revealed.
"So there's kind of a bridge between Iron Man 2 and Marvel’s The Avengers here." The Black Widow will also run into a brand new enemy during the course of the series who is described as,
"a younger female super-spy who is kind of her groupie; who worships Black Widow and wants to take the mantle away from her." S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Agent Coulson and Nick Fury are also expected to appear.
Of course, to write a series such as this one, Van Lente was granted a great deal of access to
The Avengers film. One of the perks of the job included being able to read director Joss Whedon's script, and while he understandably refused to reveal anything too specific, he did let slip the fact that Black Widow has been give a
"huge, important" role in the upcoming big screen adaptation. For more, be sure to click on the link below to head on over to
Newsarama.
STARRING:
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Ramanoff/Black Widow
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
RELEASE DATE: April 27, 2012. (UK) May 4th, 2012. (US)