What is the Red Room in Marvel Studios' Black Widow movie?
Black Widow, the latest Marvel Studios film and the first to come to theaters since 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home, gets its long-awaited release on July 9 - and the story, a flashback set in the time before Avengers: Infinity War, is all about Natasha Romanoff reconnecting with her past in the Red Room.
But what is the so-called Red Room? It was glimpsed briefly in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it played a minor role in Captain America: Civil War, but so far the MCU version of the concept is, true to its nature, largely mysterious.What is the Red Room?
In Marvel Comics, the Red Room is a program designed by the fictional USSR super-science division Department X (not too dissimilar to the Department H and Weapon Plus programs associated with Captain America and Wolverine in Marvel Comics' Canada and the United States) which was originally meant to train and cultivate the world's greatest female super-spy and assassin.Starting at the beginning, the Red Room was created following Department X's first creation of a Soviet super-spy and assassin, the Winter Soldier program. It was Department X that plucked Bucky's seemingly lifeless body from the ocean after he and Captain America were apparently killed disarming an experimental rocket. And it was Department X that rebuilt and reprogrammed him into the Winter Soldier - the only one of his kind, in comics.The Red Room also plied its subjects with a version of the Infinity Formula, an experimental longevity drug that allows those who receive it to remain youthful for decades. This is why, in comic books, Nick Fury and Black Widow (among others) have histories that go back to World War II despite remaining youthful and vigorous in the present day
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)Undoubtedly the most famous graduate of the Red Room is of course Natasha Romanova, who was selected from numerous candidates in the program to become the Black Widow, the USSR's premier female operative - and that perfect agent we mentioned earlier.Alongside the Red Room, Department X attempted a similar program to create a male super-spy, dubbed the Wolf Spider program. However, the program's only graduate, a man named Niko Constantin, went rogue and became an enemy of the Black Widow, leading to the end of the Wolf Spider initiative.When Natasha defected, the Red Room program began training a new Black Widow to operate as a Soviet agent, resulting in Yelena Belova taking on the mantle (though she didn't initially receive the Infinity Formula that Natasha was dosed with). Yelena worked for the USSR for some time, but she too defected and became something of a free agent.The Red Room in the MCU
The MCU version of the Red Room has only been seen in bits and pieces so far in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and in trailers for Black Widow ahead of its impending release. But what we've seen looks remarkably similar to the comic book version.We also know that at the same time the Soviet government was running the Red Room program, Hydra was attempting to create their own super soldiers to be led by Bucky. But the subjects were unruly and uncontrollable thanks in part to the unstable Super-Soldier formula they received, which was stolen from Howard Stark in the theft that also led to his murder at Bucky's hands. The subjects' inability to be trained led to them being put in cryo-freeze by Hydra until they were all tracked down and apparently killed in stasis by Baron Zemo decades later.
Yelena, like Natasha, appears to be a subject and graduate of the Red Room program, while Melina is apparently their successor as one of Russia's female super agents. Meanwhile, Red Guardian has been shown in trailers acting as something of a trainer for Natasha in her younger days.Unlike in comic books, Bucky and Black Widow don't share a direct connection as much as a thematic one. In both movies and comics, the success of the Winter Soldier program inspires Winter Soldier's creators to create more super-spy programs. But in the MCU, Winter Soldier is an agent of Hydra, who in fact is often in direct competition with Russian agents. This is why, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Black Widow has some hinting knowledge of who and what Bucky is, but doesn't have the same history with him.And if that's the case, the Red Room and its secrets will undoubtedly play a part in how the next chapter of Black Widow's story takes shape.
The Red Room is a key plot point in some of the best Black Widow comics ever.
Black Widow has kept much of its plot close to its chest - likely a necessity, given the story it tells is a flashback to the time before Avengers: Infinity War in the MCU. And with what we know of Natasha's fate thereafter in Avengers: Endgame, the film seems to be setting up a retroactive seed for how Black Widow's tale will continue in the MCU - perhaps in the hands of Yelena Belova, rather than Natasha Romanoff.
And, in the MCU, it appears Taskmaster is the main trainer of the Red Room, whom Yelena says actively brainwashes and mind controls the program's subjects.
Now, in the Black Widow movie, the Red Room will be brought directly into focus as Natasha's MCU backstory is fully explored for the first time - including reuniting with the MCU versions of Yelena Belova and Red Guardian (who is more of a father figure in the MCU, rather than her ex-husband as in comics), as well as Melina Vostokoff, all of whom have apparent connections to the Red Room.
Though the MCU Natasha Romanov is not an ageless Infinity Formula recipient with a career going back to WWII, she does seem to share some of her comic book counterpart's history as a ballerina, though in the MCU it appears these are actual memories of Red Room training methods for young women, rather than a falsely implanted backstory. And the MCU has also established that Natasha underwent medical experiments as part of her training and subversion as a spy and assassin.
However, Yelena was cloned by Department X, with many of her duplicates also put into the Red Room program - something they secretly did with Natasha as well. When Natasha died and her clone was activated with her knowledge and memories, it set her on a path to destroy all the Red Room clones, apparently ending Yelena's life in the process - though she's returned from death and had clones appear more than once before and since.
As such, Black Widow often teamed up with Winter Soldier during the Cold War, with the pair developing a strained romance while working together. Black Widow also worked alongside the American archer Hawkeye, whom she attempted to subvert to the Soviet cause (this story was initially told in the '60s when defection to the USSR was a going concern for America), though their relationship eventually led to Natasha defecting to the United States herself, eventually becoming an Avenger alongside Hawkeye.
Like the others, Natasha received the fake backstory and memories of a career as a ballet dancer. She was also placed in an arranged marriage with famous Soviet pilot Alexei Shotokov, himself the future Red Guardian.
The techniques that allowed the Soviet scientists to mindwipe and brainwash Bucky were soon developed into a program designed to train young girls to become adult spies and assassins, while also imprinting false memories of fake lives in their minds - that of ballerinas for Moscow's famous Bolshoi Theatre ballet company.
Let's just say they succeeded - but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The Black Widow movie is sure to dive deep into the lore of the MCU Red Room, with Yelena Belova, Melina Vostokoff, and Red Guardian all apparently associated with it. But before Black Widow is in theaters, we're digging into the declassified Cold War files to understand and unpack the Marvel Comics history of the Red Room.