Dec 21st 2020 Advent Calendar

Look out! There's a guy with a gun-- and there's another--

But wait-- someone's onto these guys-- he's downed one... two... Who can he be?

What? It's a woman! But who is she? Who is she???

Black Widow, clad entirely in a black catsuit, really came into her own in 1970 when she adopted a sexy new look. The character represents a very different type of male fantasy figure to Wonder Woman, who as we saw in my previous Advent calendar post, was regularly depicted in extremely submissive situations, often involving her being bound or chained. Black Widow, as can be seen on the cover of AMAZING ADVENTURES #2, is the antithesis of Wonder Woman-- a dominant female character, whose outfit is almost featureless, who is assertive to the point of kicking male characters in the face. 

A month earlier the character had appeared in SPIDER-MAN #86 and was introduced with a silhouette twice the size of Spidey himself. It's the same idea as was used on the front cover of DC's CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #69 a year earlier, when the all-male team had been gatecrashed by a strong female character, Corinna Stark. As with that cover, immediately the suggestion here for SPIDERMAN readers is that a clearly female character has turned up who is going to put this male firmly in his place--

And, when a little over a year later, the character was brought into Daredevil's world, again she was depicted with the upper hand -quite literally- karate-chopping the cord holding him to the building--

And this dynamic cover for DAREDEVIL #188 suggests that despite his obvious masculine strength, nothing will prevent him from being held like an insect in the Widow's irresistible web--

But Black Widow wasn't the by no means the only female protagonist in comics to dress this way while dishing out harsh discipline to the male characters. In fact the idea can be traced back almost 30 years earlier, as this 1940s cover from MISS FURY #7 shows--

And Miss Fury herself seems to be in part based on a much earlier figure-- Irma Vep from French serial LES VAMPIRES, as played by Musidora in 1915.

But it was in the 1960s that the figure of the black cat-suited martial arts trained female really took off, entering the zeitgeist and leading to the change in Black Widow's appearance. The most obvious influence is Emma Peel from British TV series THE AVENGERS. The character, played by Diana Rigg, regularly appeared in catsuits, sometimes made from black leather, and proved more than a match for the series' hapless male wrongdoers, systematically disposing of them with throws and high kicks--

Mrs Peel's predecessor in the series, was Cathy Gale played by Honor Blackman, whose black leather outfit did in fact serve a practical purpose, they were her motorcycle-wear. But the visual impact of a strong, physically dominant woman clad entirely in black leather proved as popular with audiences then as it would now.

It was a look that was exemplified perhaps most famously by Marianne Faithful in the movie GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE seen here on a Japanese publicity poster--

This cover for WEB OF BLACK WIDOW presents the character with the same degree of dangerous, raw sexual energy as symbolised by the shimmering black leather outfit. And the head slightly tilted forward coupled with the oversize zip-pull and the large buckled belt as seen on the movie poster are all present and correct on the comic cover too--

Through the late 60s several movies featured women dressed entirely in tight-fitting black to emphasise their assertiveness and strength as opposed to submissiveness and dependence on men. Here's a publicity shot of the incomparable Ann-Margret as she appeared in THE SWINGER. The low angle and her confident stance tell you so much about the character--

The movie version of British comic strip MODESTY BLAISE starred Monica Vitti in a range of outfits that included this black catsuit--

And Georges Franju's 1963 movie JUDEX featured a female catburglar, played by Francine Berge, whose style of dress was reminiscent of the character of Irma Vep. This would have been quite deliberate, since Musidora who had played Irma Vep in 1915 also appeared in the original version of Judex back in 1916, and Franju's movie was his tribute to both serials.

In comics Black Widow wasn't the only female character around 1970 whose sense of superiority over her male counterparts was tied up with the way they dressed. This mesmerising Jack Kirby portrait of The Inhumans' Medusa exudes the same sense of erotic danger as the picture of Ann-Margret above--

And, as mentioned previously, when the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN met Corinna Stark, she immediately assumed a role within their team. In fact she asserted herself in no uncertain terms over the males, not only dressing in an Emma Peel catsuit herself, but making them change their own costumes to the same. This cover from #70 makes clear which character is dominant here--

In the future world of JUDGE DREDD in the UK's 2000AD, the Judges have always been depicted in tight black bodysuits. This of course extends to the authoritative female Judges as seen in this portrait of Judge Anderson--

But the Marvel Black Widow look also has an antecedent in a DC character-- the TV version of Catwoman, played most frequently by Julie Newmar. Veering away from how the character had usually been portrayed in the comics version, this Catwoman was clad in a skin tight black bodysuit.

The Catwoman look, like Marianne Faithful's, was completed by a belt worn across the hips rather than the waist, a style which accentuates her curves. And it's a style emulated by Black Widow so much that her whole appearance recalls the TV Catwoman far more than the comic version did during this period, as this cover shows--

Although on TV Catwoman's outfit became an instantly recognisable iconographic look, in the comics her outfit went through a period of regular changes. And it took some time before DC's own artists started depicting their feline femme fatale in anything close to the TV version of the character-- For instance, while the TV version was all black, this cover for BATMAN 197 suggests her catsuit is  curiously green and the belt position is much higher.

Even more curiously, BATMAN #300 teased its readers with the prospect that either a) Julie Newmar's Catwoman had finally made it into the pages of the comic, or b) Black Widow herself had crossed over from Marvel to the Distinguished Competition and ensnared the Dark Knight himself in her web of sexual energy. In the event the catsuited lady turned out to be neither--

It wasn't until the 90s that, following a brief catsuited late 80s mini-series and the success of Michelle Pfeiffer's portrayal of Catwoman in BATMAN RETURNS, that the DC character started appearing consistently in a way which suggested very much the same sort of male fantasy figure as offered by Black Widow or Miss Fury or Emma Peel, clad head to toe in figure hugging black and dishing out the violence to deserving men--

Of course the presentation of Black Widow in the Marvel movies has to make concessions to reality, Scarlett Johansson being dressed in an outfit that is more an approximation of the comics version than an attempt to replicate it, clearly owing more to the close-fitting but durable biker leathers of Marianne Faithful or Honor Blackman than the skin-tight fabrics of Musidora or Julie Newmar. The belt and holsters seem more the kind of thing Han Solo might wear and the visible piping and pads give the whole ensemble a more functional look.

Within the comics universe however, artists have chosen instead to render the character in a style more closely matching the cleaner lines of the original depiction going back to the 70s. And again bringing to mind the sleek contours of TV's Catwoman--

And others have gone a step further again, this outfit as seen on WEB OF BLACK WIDOW certainly having more in common with Musidora's Irma Vep than anything Scarlett Johansson might be dressed in--

For Day 20 of this Advent calendar, please click here--

For day 19 of this Advent calendar please click here--

Follow @top_notch_tosh

Tweets by top_notch_tosh