Character Spotlight: Red Widow

Red Widow, aka Ava Orlova, is a character created for the novel Black Widow: Forever Red (2015) by Margaret Stohl. We first meet her, however, in the aptly named "Red Widow: First Strike", a backup story in Mockingbird: SHIELD 50th Anniversary #1 (September 2015). This story introduces us to Ava and gives us her backstory: Black Widow saved her from the Russian mob in the Ukraine, and she was brought to the US and raised in Brooklyn under SHIELD custody. She eventually ran away and lived on the streets, where she met a girl named Oksana; when Oksana went missing, Ava created the persona Red Widow to save her. She has a complicated relationship with Black Widow, simultaneously being disappointed in her and inspired by her. The story's main point to compare and contrast the two characters.

Black Widow: Forever Red then forces the two characters to team up, their individual stories intertwining as the investigate the possible resurgence of the Red Room, the Russian spy training program that Black Widow (and possibly Red Widow) went through as children. There's some debate over where this story takes place. Margaret Stohl originally said the MCU, but later said it's "comics canon, but follows the continuity of the MCU"...whatever that means. I have decided to treat this series as its own thing which takes inspiration from both universes but isn't a part of either.

The following year, Red Widow got another appearance in "Red Widow: The Last O.P.U.S.", a backup story in Ms. Marvel #12 (October 2016), which leads into the sequel novel, Black Widow: Red Vengeance (2016).

Two years later, Marvel used Avengers #700 (November 2018) to establish several counterparts/competitors to the Avengers around the world, including the Black Panther's Agents of Wakanda, Namor's Defenders of the Deep, and Thunderbolt Ross's Squadron Supreme of America. The one important for this entry is Russia's Winter Guard, a pre-existing team that was re-established in this issue. And as part of that re-establishment, they get a new team member: Red Widow!

Not much is known about this version of the character yet, except that she's from the Eastern Bloc and was trained by the Red Room. Is she Ava Orlova? Is she someone new? Either way, I don't believe it's a coincidence.