| Former member and past chair of the Avengers
(tenth recruit); former founding member of the Lady Liberators; former
founding member and leader of the Champions; past participant in the
informal "Marvel Knights" vigilante alliance.
Formerly an infamous
Russian spy, the Black Widow's brainwashed loyalty to her communist
masters was broken by her love for the American adventurer Hawkeye,
prompting her to defect.
After Hawkeye joined the Avengers, Black
Widow enjoyed a lengthy vicarious membership of sorts since she often
associated with the Avengers and sometimes assisted them in their
cases.
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She sought or was offered membership several times, but was
initially rejected because of her communist past, and she later
declined membership due to conflicts with her new activities as an
American-based intelligence agent. She eventually ceased associating
with the team after ending her romance with Hawkeye.
Some time later, Black Widow finally
accepted official membership in the Avengers but resigned almost
immediately thereafter to concentrate upon her professional and
romantic partnership with the adventurer Daredevil. After that
alliance ended, she became a founding member and leader of the
Champions, remaining with the group until it disbanded. She remained
an Avengers reservist and assisted the team infrequently over the
years, but eventually returned to full active membership when the
group reorganized its roster under the auspices of the United Nations.
This began a lengthy membership term which continued until the
Onslaught disaster. Black Widow became close to team leader Captain
America during that long stint, assisting him by assuming many of the
team's organizational duties. When he took a leave of absence, she
replaced him as team leader and retained the position until most of
the Avengers seemingly perished in battle with Onslaught.
The loss of almost the entire active
roster under her leadership badly traumatized the Widow. She tried to
rebuild the team, but her attempts to recruit new members and inactive
Avengers were unsuccessful, and political pressure began building to
suspend the group's operations. Finally, she formally disbanded the
group, laying off its remaining staff and closing its hedquarters.
When most of the Avengers lost in the Onslaught disaster turned up
alive months later, the Black Widow helped reorganize the group and
assisted the team against menaces such as the Deviants and Kang,
though she declined full-time membership since she felt she was better
suited to solo espionage than super-heroics. She has not served as a
member of the Avengers since the team disbanded and reorganized
following their clash with the insane Scarlet Witch.
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