Yelena Belova Will Be the Heart of the Avengers

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Flying super fast towards the release of Doomsday in December, we still have some great things ahead of us like Vision Quest, and this is my last episode before we start coverage of that, which is exciting because Vision Quest looks good. But today I want to lay down an idea and a thought. I think Yelena Belova is going to be the heart of the Avengers, and I don't just mean that because I love the character. I've had this episode sitting in the back of my mind for a while now, and after going back through Black Widow, Hawkeye— great Christmas watch, by the way— and especially Thunderbolts, or the New Avengers, or whatever the hell we're officially supposed to call this damn movie now, I think Marvel has quietly been building Yelena into something much bigger than just Natasha Romanoff's replacement. I think she's becoming the emotional center of the next generation of Avengers. And apparently I might not be completely insane here because Kevin Feige recently said that Yelena plays a big part in Avengers: Doomsday. And a recent Vanity Fair profile on Florence Pugh said that Feige has hinted that Doomsday will actually be anchored by her character. That's huge. So So let's talk about how the hell we got here, because Yelena's journey through the MCU has actually been incredibly consistent, and I don't think we're talking about it enough, to be honest with you. Obviously, massive spoilers for Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thunderbolts. Yelena comes into the MCU in Black Widow, which takes place shortly after Captain America: Civil War and before Infinity War. And even though this is Natasha's movie, I always looked at this story as Natasha quietly passing the baton. Not necessarily the literal Black Widow title yet. May I may I add a yet? Yelena still hasn't really planted a flag and said, "I'm Black Widow now." But spiritually, come on. Natasha helps free Yelena from the Red Room. Yelena helps destroy the system that created both of them, and by the end of the movie, Yelena has a mission of her own. She's gonna find the other widows and she's going to free them. And Hawkeye actually shows us that she did that. The flashback takes us to 2018 where Yelena and Sonya are going around finding former widows, using the antidote to free the ones who are still under chemical control. That's about 2 years after the events of Black Widow. So Yelena didn't just disappear after Natasha left, she spent years doing this. She spent years becoming her own person, making her own decisions, getting better at what she does. In a weird way, already becoming someone other people can rely on. Then Thanos snaps his fingers, Yelena disappears, and from her perspective, she comes back almost instantly. One of the coolest visual looks at the Blip from someone's perspective who was blipped. 5 years have passed, and the first person she wants to find is Natasha, which obviously leads her into one of the most important parts of Yelena's character arc— Hawkeye. Because we never really got to watch Yelena grieve Natasha. We knew she lost her sister, and we saw her at Natasha's grave. We saw Valentina point her directly at Clint Barton and basically weaponize Yelena's grief. But Hawkeye lets us watch what happens when somebody who has every reason to be angry chooses not to stay angry. Yelena goes after Clint because she believes he's responsible for Natasha's death, also having some sort of agreement with Kate Bishop's mother to have an assassination put out on him. I think this is more personal than that though. I think she just seizes that opportunity and eventually she listens to Clint, and that's important. Yelena talks a lot. She's funny as hell. She can dominate a scene just by walking into Kate Bishop's apartment and making macaroni, or by being in her office, AKA a hot tub, in Spider-Man: Brand New Day talking about potatoes and comparing them to big crises and small crises that, um, Spider-Man and then the New Avengers would be dealing with separately. She knows how to listen and she knows when to listen. And when Clint finally gets through to her, Yelena makes probably the biggest decision she's made since leaving the Red Room. She lets him go and she forgives him. And in doing that, she finally gives herself permission to stop trying to avenge Natasha and start figuring out how to honor her. That does not mean the grief disappears, and that's where Thunderbolts picks up, because by the time we meet Yelena again, she's basically gone on autopilot. The movie opens with this absolutely insane shot of her stepping off one of the tallest buildings in the world like she's just Walking off a curb. Yelena is officially a Widowjumper, and we've established that. But while she's carrying out this mission, she's talking about something much darker. There's an emptiness inside her. She's lonely. She doesn't really know what she's doing anymore. She works, she kills somebody, she goes home, she drinks, and she thinks about all the terrible things she's done, and then she does it all again. And I think that's one of the biggest changes we've seen in Yelena. She's still hilarious, still incredibly skilled. She's arguably more dangerous than we've ever seen her, but nothing fazes her anymore. And at first that looks like strength, but the more you watch her, the more it feels like numbness. She's strong. She's also hurt, and she knows it. And that's why she wants out. She's done being Valentina's weapon. She wants something that actually means something. Unfortunately, Val's response is basically, cool, here's one more mission, except the mission is actually designed to wipe out Yelena and everybody else who knows too much. And that's how Yelena ends up locked inside a bunker with John Walker, Ghost, Taskmaster— rest in peace— and eventually Bob. The beginning of a superhero team made almost entirely out of people who punch things and shoot things, which Yelena herself basically acknowledges later. And I look and I still think Emil Blonsky would have been an awesome addition here. Give these poor people a Hulk. Everybody can't just have a gun and a shield. But that's a different episode, because what makes this team work isn't their power set. It's that every single one of these people is lost. They're castoffs. They're soldiers without a war, weapons without somebody telling them where to People carrying regret, trauma, anger, loneliness, failure. And Yelena fits into that group almost immediately, not because she's happy, but because for the first time in a long time, she's surrounded by people who are just as screwed up as she is. And Alexei notices it when he sees Yelena around this group. He notices that some of her light is coming back. That matters because later we get, in my opinion, one of the most important Yelena scenes Marvel has ever done. Yelena finally breaks down in front of Alexei, and she admits how lonely she is. She admits that after Natasha died, she needed him and he wasn't there. She talks about her life and how it's become this cycle of missions and drinking and sitting alone staring at her phone and just thinking about all the horrible things she's done. And then we get to Anya, her first Red Room test, which has kind of been haunting her the whole movie through Bob slash the Void. A little girl Yelena had to lead into the woods knowing that the girl was going to die. That memory has apparently been sitting inside Yelena all these years because this is what Yelena does. She told us earlier in the movie, something hurts, push it down, bury it. Don't look at it and keep moving. Eventually you run out of places to bury things. It's a completely relatable thing too. That's what makes this movie so human, and Yelena especially so human. And Alexei reminds her of somebody Yelena doesn't even remember anymore. The little girl she used to be. The kid who brought light into the room. The kid who played goalie for an absolutely terrible Little League soccer team called the Thunderbolts. And Yelena jokes that she wanted to be the goalie because she didn't have to run as much, which, fair. But Alexei remembers the real reason. Yelena told him, I want to be the person everyone relies on when they make a mistake. There it is. That's Yelena Belova. That's the whole character before the Red Room, before Natasha died. Even before Valentina, before all of it, Yelena wanted to be the person everybody could rely on. And the rest of Thunderbolts is Yelena remembering how to be that person. Which brings us to Bob. I love what this movie does with Bob and Yelena because Bob is basically a physical manifestation of the thing Yelena has been talking about the entire movie. Yelena begins Thunderbolts talking about the void inside herself, Then she meets the Void. That's not subtle, and it shouldn't be. Bob is somebody drowning in the darkest parts of himself, and yet Yelena recognizes him almost immediately. She cares about him, and that's something we haven't got to see very much with Yelena outside of her family. There are exceptions, obviously. Kate Bishop— put Kate and Yelena in a movie tomorrow and I will be there opening night, no doubt. Their chemistry was unbelievable. But Bob is different. Yelena sees somebody in him who genuinely needs help. And when Bob becomes something infinitely more powerful than any of them could ever hope to fight, Yelena doesn't stop seeing Bob. That's the important part. Bucky can't overpower this thing. John Walker can't overpower it. Ghost can't. Alexei can't. And Yelena sure as hell isn't physically stronger than Sentry. But that's the point. They don't defeat the Void by overpowering him. They defeat isolation with connection. And yes, if you reduce that down far enough, you could say that the power of love saves the day. That sounds cheesy as hell. But I think it works because look at who's doing it. These aren't the Care Bears. These are assassins, soldiers, experiments, killers— people who have spent most of their lives solving problems by hitting them, shooting them, or blowing them up. And none of that works. The biggest threat in this movie gets defeated because these people decide not to leave somebody alone. And Yelena goes first. When Bob disappears into the darkness, Yelena doesn't hesitate. She walks straight into it. She fights through the worst memories of her own life. She literally breaks through walls made out of her trauma to get to him. And when the Void has Bob pinned down and everything looks completely hopeless, Yelena gets loose. She runs through everything being thrown at her, and she gets to Bob. She hugs him, and then everyone else joins her. That's Yelena becoming the goalie again. That's her becoming the person everyone can rely on when something goes wrong. And the beautiful part is that while Yelena is saving Bob, Bob is also helping save Yelena, because that void inside her doesn't magically disappear. Her trauma isn't gone. Natasha isn't coming back. The things she did aren't undone. But now she isn't carrying all of it alone. She has family. Which is exactly what Natasha spent years trying to explain to everybody else about the Avengers. Natasha Romanoff had a family once, then she lost it, and the Avengers became another one. Yelena never gets some giant speech from Natasha explaining that lesson. She learns it herself. She lives it, and I love that parallel between those two. And then almost by accident, this group of losers and outcasts stumbles directly into becoming the new Avengers. Valentina does what Valentina always does and turns the whole thing into a PR move. Of course, she somehow has an entire press conference ready approximately 4 seconds after New York stops being consumed by living darkness, but that's Val. And Yelena's response to her is one of my favorite tiny moments in the movie. We own you now. That line is bigger than it sounds because Yelena has spent years taking orders. The Red Room told her what to do. Valentina told her what to do. She has been somebody else's weapon almost her entire life. And now, no, she's not Val's weapon anymore. She has a team. She has leverage, and she has a purpose. And 14 months later, that team is still together. In that post-credits scene that may very well be an exact scene from Avengers: Doomsday, they're operating out of the Watchtower. Sam Wilson apparently has a problem with another team running around using the Avengers name. Bucky is trying to deal with that situation. Very curious to see, like, if we get to see some of that on screen. Bob is still hanging around. even though using his powers risks becoming the Void again. I'm sure we'll learn more about that. And then the Fantastic Four— at least their ship shows up— and we know exactly where all this is heading: Avengers: Doomsday. And this is where both of my biggest excitement and biggest concerns for Yelena lie. Yelena Belova is not Thor, she's not Captain Marvel, she's not Sentry, Hulk, or Doctor Strange. If Doctor Doom is throwing around the kind of power we're expecting in this movie, Yelena cannot survive this story by suddenly becoming physically comparable to these people, and I don't want her to. That's what makes Yelena special. She's one of the most highly trained assassins on Earth. She's an incredible fighter. She has gadgets. She's resourceful. She's fearless. But she's human. And that's exactly the challenge Natasha Romanoff had in every Avengers movie. How do you make Black Widow matter while she's standing next to Thor. You give her something important to do. Natasha didn't need to punch Ultron harder than the Hulk. She didn't need lightning. She needed to be smart. She needed to understand people. She needed to infiltrate and to make decisions. She needed to keep the team grounded. And eventually, in Endgame, she became the person holding what was left of the Avengers together. And that's what I want for Yelena. Don't power her up. Don't suddenly turn her into somebody she's not. Give her a mission that matters. Give her information nobody else can get. Give her the responsibility of keeping this completely insane group of superheroes pointed in the same direction. Let Yelena be Yelena. Because I think she's already becoming Natasha's successor without even consciously trying to become Natasha. She's learning the same lesson Natasha learned. Family doesn't have to mean blood. Sometimes family is just the collection of broken people who decide that they're not going to leave each other behind. And here's where my little Yelena theory suddenly got a lot more interesting, because Kevin Feige didn't just vaguely say Florence Pugh would show up in Avengers: Doomsday. He specifically told fans that Yelena plays a big part in this movie. And more recently, Vanity Fair reported that Feige has hinted Avengers: Doomsday will be anchored by her character. Anchored. That's an interesting word. Anchor being? Now, I'm not taking that to mean that Yelena is secretly the sole main character of Avengers: Doomsday. Look at that cast. Good luck having one main character. But an anchor, that makes sense to me because somebody has to connect the human story to all of this multiversal insanity. We're dealing with the Avengers, New Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Doctor Doom, Incursions, probably reality smashing into each other. And somewhere inside all of that spectacle, you need somebody who reminds the audience why any of it matters. And that's where I think Yelena comes in. Maybe Sam's Avengers and Yelena's new Avengers start off against each other. Honestly, it looks like that's where we're heading. They're arguing over who gets to even call themselves the Avengers. That's just hilarious. But when worlds are literally colliding, That argument is going to become very stupid very fast, and somebody is eventually going to have to help turn all these different groups into one team. I'm starting to believe that person could be Yelena. Not necessarily the captain, not necessarily the strongest person in the room, but the heart. Natasha Romanoff was never the most powerful Avenger, but take Natasha out of those movies and something is missing. She understood everybody. She could Talk to Bruce. She could challenge Steve. She could call Clint back from the edge. She could tell Tony when he was full of shit. And when the Avengers completely fell apart, Natasha was still there trying to hold the pieces together. Yelena is becoming that kind of person, except she's doing it in her own way. She's funnier. She's weirder. She's more openly vulnerable. She's got that Florence Pugh ability to make you laugh your ass off and then 30 seconds later completely destroy you emotionally. And now Yelena has something Natasha has spent most of her life searching for— a family of her own. So maybe Doomsday is where Yelena realizes what Natasha was trying to tell her all along. Maybe this is where she really earns that Black Widow legacy, not by putting on Natasha's costume or taking her name, but by becoming the person who keeps an Avengers team together when everything else is falling apart. And yeah, they could kill her. Marvel could absolutely rip my heart out and kill Yelena Belova. Please don't. I don't even like saying that out loud, but anything can happen in these movies. What I actually expect is that Yelena has a much bigger role in Doomsday than people currently realize, and the Russo Brothers find some way to make her essential without pretending she's suddenly one of the strongest beings in the universe. Because that's the trick— Yelena doesn't need to become more powerful. She already became stronger. Thunderbolts was about her realizing that strength doesn't mean feeling nothing. It doesn't mean burying everything, and it doesn't mean doing everything alone. Sometimes strength is walking directly into somebody else's darkness because you've been there before. Sometimes it's being the person everyone can rely on when they make a mistake. Natasha Romanoff died bringing the original Avengers together. One last time. And I think Yelena Belova might be heading into Avengers: Doomsday as the person capable of bringing the next generation together. Not because she's replacing Natasha, because she's learned from losing her. And that's why I think Yelena Belova will be the heart of the Avengers. Let me know what you think. [email protected]. Join our Discord, it's in the show notes. Love to get a conversation going about any and all of this. Do you see Yelena becoming one of the most important players in Doomsday? Do you think she's the new Black Widow? And most importantly, when the Avengers, New Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and whoever else are all staring down Doctor Doom, who do you think is going to hold all these people together? Thank you so much for listening. These kind of conversations about, you know, characters like Yelena definitely get me more excited for Doomsday and What doomsday will even be, which we still don't know. There's also a tip jar in the notes. Never expected, always appreciated. And we start our next episode with the premiere of Vision Quest one week from today. The time release of my podcast might vary differently depending on when those episodes release, like if it's at night on Wednesday or Wednesday morning. Uh, I'll do my best to get the after shows out as quick as possible without rushing. Thank you again so much for listening, and until next time, Avengers, disassemble.