Alanna Gillis 

Opinion editor

amg7393@psu.edu

Marvel announced last week that the current “Black Widow” comic series will no longer continue. The announcement forces an unexpected and untimely end for the fan-acclaimed series. 

The new series came out in 2020 and was written by Kelly Thompson, illustrated by Elena Casagrande, and edited by Sarah Brunstad. After 15 issues, Marvel is pulling the plug on the series. Thompson released the following statement, “So, this IS the final issue…for now. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk about it, a lot of you have been asking, and it has deeply pained me to take a pass on those questions, especially since this is a book I love so much (maybe my favorite book I’ve ever done at Marvel), but there’s a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes and it’s not always something you can talk about publicly. To be honest, I still can’t talk about as much as I’d like, but what I can say is… there ARE plans for a bit more story from this creative team. Things are still being wrangled, but I am optimistic it will work out AND be worth the wait.”

It is as of yet unclear why Marvel decided to cancel this all female-led comic series, especially in a way that is so unceremonious. Whether it has anything to do with Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney surrounding the release of the “Black Widow” movie has not been confirmed. However, it would not be difficult to believe that this is the case, as Disney had announced they cut ties with the actress. 

The fact that the team working behind the “Black Widow” comic series is almost entirely all female is rare in comics, and it is disheartening to see that teamwork be forced to an end. Especially since the story of Black Widow is one about a woman gaining her autonomy, this comes a hard blow to Black Widow fans around the world.