The Russo brothers reveal the Black Widow Endgame story they should have kept

Apparently, Black Widow had a critical storyline that was scrapped into the ambiguous off-screen dimension, and we’re ready to make this Endgame storyline canon at any cost necessary.

It’s safe to say some fans have not been pleased with what the Russo brothers and the writers of Avengers: Endgame have had to say after the movie. For example, they already hurt us when they said the Vormir deaths are permanent. (This is comic book media, and you’re not fooling us, Joe and Anthony Russo, because there are very few comic-related deaths that are permanent.)

Now, the Russos are bolstering our unfinished fan fiction archives with even more inspiration because they revealed that Black Widow could’ve had an additional arc in Endgame. (Like Natasha’s screentime, it was just dusted.)

As if we weren’t already bitter about yet another woman in the refrigerator (in this case, another woman at the bottom of the pit of Vormir), Natasha’s almost-arc would have been a better conclusion to her characterization. So, what could have and should have been included in Nat’s Endgame fate?

Anthony Russo told The Gist podcast some ambiguous off-screen Black Widow storyline included Natasha founding an initiative to help and house orphaned children:

"One thing that we talked about a lot – and I thought was really profound, but it was almost too large of an idea for us to wrangle, but we did try for a while – the idea that one-quarter of all children have no parents"

Joe Russo continued:

"Assuming you started with two parents. So that’s a lot of global orphans. Just the staggering number of that. I believe at one point really early in development, Black Widow was actually leading the organization in D.C. that was in charge of orphans, basically."

At this point, all the Endgame writers and directors might as well just publish a novelization of all the missing content from the film. After all, they’ve spent most of their post-movie press campaign clarifying every remotely vague moment of the film, delivered conflicting definitions of time travel, and probably peeved Peggy’s comic counterpart. (You know, because comic Peggy divorced Steve for being a mutant-phobe.)

Regardless, this storyline omission would have given Natasha some solid character development. In fact, it would have reinforced Nat’s selfless sacrifice on Vormir. But, we shouldn’t be surprised that this story never made it to the final cut of the film, seeing as Nat’s funeral was delivered off-screen because, apparently, the Russos didn’t think Nat needed an on-camera funeral. Our expectations were low, given the sexist implications with the writers’ apparent reasoning as to why Nat became the Soul Stone sacrifice.

Kicking butt, saving dudes, and very gradually becoming an empowering character (albeit with questionable writing at the hands of men writers), Nat has been in the MCU for a decade. Black Widow’s Endgame sacrifice was in canon with every incarnation of her character because she is a selfless hero who would put the fate of her friends, family, and Earth itself before her own wellbeing.

However, the fridging is the troubling part of her arc that actually made it on-screen. Her death invoked male sympathy, and even then the male directors and writers decided that it wasn’t necessary to give her an on-screen funeral like her heroic colleague, Tony Stark.

This additional almost-arc only fortifies how bad Black Widow’s fridging was. Not only was she the only original Avenger who only had 35 minutes of screen time, but the Russos also shelved her critical arc in favor of distasteful fat jokes and character development that primarily served the men of Avengers.

While we’re glad to see that Natasha had an even more selfless arc after the snappening, we’re more than just a little disheartened that this arc never actually made it on screen. In our opinions, there’s no legitimate reason to clarify an arc that the directors didn’t even feel was necessary to include in the film.