“Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister,” sang Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas. Black Widow takes a similarly hard line on the subject, with mutually protective siblings Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena (Florence Pugh) reacting unfavourably to anyone who threatens their sisterhood. “Natasha” may be the name on her library card but it is as Black Widow that she is a member of the Avengers superhero team. Not that newcomers would guess these credentials from the scene in which she sits in a rusty caravan eating dinner in front of the TV and mouthing along to Roger Moore’s dialogue in Moonraker. Alan Partridge would be proud.
During a tiff with Yelena, Natasha points out that they are not technically sisters, but then family in the movie is whatever you make it. The girls grew up together as part of a Russian sleeper cell in Ohio, along with two adult operatives: Melina (Rachel Weisz), a scientist, and Alexei (David Harbour), whose alter-ego is the Soviet superhero Red Guardian. “I could’ve been more famous than Captain America,” he gripes, squeezing himself into his old costume – a gag that is familiar from The Incredibles but has been in service at least since The Return of Captain Invincible in 1983.
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