Marvel’s Black Widow Emoji For Natasha Romanoff Has Quietly Been Changing

Marvel Studios has been having fun with marketing Black Widow. Marvel has been tweaking the Natasha Romanoff emoji on social media each week, changing the emoji version Black Widow to reflect the many different looks that actress Scarlett Johansson has used onscreen in her 11 years playing the character. It’s a small but cool promotional campaign – one that has started to go viral, as keen-eyed Marvel fans have noticed and compiled the various Black Widow emojis in order to help illustrate the changes. All your favorites are in there: from Natasha Romanoff’s first salon-level hairstyle to the blonde shortcut that set the world on fire in Avengers: Infinity War!

While these changing emojis are a cool novelty for marketing Black Widow, they don’t capture the full glory and splendor of the looks Johansson has served up in the various Marvel films she’s appeared in. Luckily, we have this tweet:

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow has become one of the major icons of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. She’s finally getting her own solo film release this week, as Black Widow hits theaters and IMAX, as well as the Disney+ Premium Service, after more than a year-long delay, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been a long time coming, and with this release, the industry as a whole is hoping that Marvel Studios really does rekindle the same box office magic it used to have before the pandemic, in order to help movie theaters truly get back into full-fledged business.

Of course, there’s still the “controversy” about the view some Marvel fans have that Johansson’s Black Widow hasn’t been treated right by the franchise. The argument goes that Black Widow was introduced as a honey pot character in Iron Man 2, and used in much the same way at the beginning of Avengers, and in Avengers 2, before being relegated to being a supporting character in films like Captain America 2 & 3. When Natasha finally got to show more depth in Avengers: Endgame, she ended up being killed off – once again in support of her other Avengers teammates.

So, while Black Widow will fill theaters, it remains to be seen if it will fill the hole in a lot of fans’ hearts when it comes to Natasha Romanoff’s legacy.

Black Widow opens in theaters on July 9th.