Key Issues - Black Widow (Natalia "Natasha" Romanoff)

One of my favorite covers by George Perez

Cover by John Romita Sr.

So this blog has been around for a couple of months now and I get a few hits each week from various search engines.  At least once a week, there's a hit from people searching for a list of key issues for Detective Comics.  Well, I'm not quite ready to tackle a volume that contains 870 plus issues.  However, a few weeks ago someone made their way to this blog by searching for key issues for Black Widow.  It was then that I realized that all the lists I've put together have been for various X-books.  I'm a big X-Men fan.  Without the X-Men I probably wouldn't be collecting comic books, but I don't want to rename the blog Key X-Men Issue Comics so I'm finally branching out.  Here's a list I put together of Black Widow key issues:

Tales of Suspense #52:  1st Appearance
Tales of Suspense #64:  1st Appearance in costume
Avengers #43:  Alexi Shostakov (Red Guardian) is Natasha's ex-husband.  1st appearance of Red Guardian.
Avengers #44:  Alexi Shostakov sacrifices himself to save Natasha.

Cover by Gil Kane

Amazing Spider-Man #86:  Her skintight costume appears.  Fights Spider-Man.
Amazing Adventures  Vol. 2 #1:  1st solo Black Widow
Daredevil #81:  1st appearance in Daredevil
Avengers #111:  Black Widow becomes a member of the Avengers
Marvel Fanfare #10 - 13:  "Web of Intrigue"  Macchio/Perez craft the tale that was later reprinted in Black Widow: Web of Intrigue (1999) and hardcover (2010)
Uncanny X-Men #268:  "Madripoor Knights" More history of Natasha during WWII.
Black Widow (1999) #1 -3:  Natasha vs. Yelena Belova (1st appearance was Inhumans Vol 2 #5)
Black Widow (2004) #1- 6:  "Homecoming" Natasha returns to Russia and discovers secrets about her training.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin: #1 -4:  Marvel tries to clean up Natasha's origins.

Widowmaker #1

I picked up this book primarily because I like Black Widow. Hopefully someone will follow my brilliant idea and cast Anna Chapman in the Avengers movie instead Scarlet Johanssen. Anyway, it was a difficult book to get into since I haven't been reading Avengers books. Lots of ref's to what I assume are the past few years of Avengers. If you've been reading all that, you might find this book enjoyable. Though I will warn you that the Soviet Super Soldiers or whatever they're called now show up towards the end. I always thought they were really lame.