Hawkeye: Series Writers Had To Beg MCU to Use the Marvel’s New Black Widow
Yelena Belova was destined to appear in Hawkeye, keeping in mind how the events of Black Widow ended. However, this decision of including her wasn’t there in the executives’ minds initially, but executive and writer Jonathan Igla convinced everyone.
Writers Had to Beg Marvel to Use Yelena Belova
As revealed to Variety by Iga while talking about the post-credits scene in Hawkeye, he said, “it came in response to [us] begging for and making a good case for why Yelena had a place in our story.” Revealing his logic behind the crossover idea, the former Mad Men writer continued, “I think what I can safely say about it right now is that there is an obvious connection between Clint’s guilt over the loss of his best friend and the other person in the world who cared the most about her.”
Black Widow ended with Yelena, played by Florence Pugh visiting Natasha’s grave where she is tipped by Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who debuted a few months earlier in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This scene also revealed that there has been a professional relationship between the two earlier, with Contessa tasking her to kill Hawkeye aka Clint Barton, as she blames her for Natasha’s death. While the previous trailers of the series didn’t reveal Yelena, the latest teaser titled, “Hit the Mark”, featured a glimpse of a masked someone whose night vision goggles remind one of Yelena’s equipment from the comics.
Echo Will Also Be A Central Character in Hawkeye
Alongside the character of Yelena, Iga also admitted that he was trying to push Maya Lopez aka Echo to make a central character in Hawkeye. While this very decision wasn’t due to their past history as Ronin, but their disabilities as well, hinting that, “you know from the first episode that Clint also is suffering from hearing loss as a result of all of his blows to the head and explosions. That also felt like a natural reason to bring in one of, if not the most, prominent deaf characters in Marvel comics. There was a connection there between those characters that was worth exploring.”
Unlike the comics where Echo becomes Ronin first, the third episode of Hawkeye revealed that Barton had killed her father as Ronin, which prompted the tracksuit mafia to come after Kate Bishop after she puts on the costume. This also reveals that Barton kept his identity as Ronin as a secret from the world, as he tells Echo that Black Widow killed her father instead. We also have Echo’s unseen uncle which many are speculating as Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, given the duo’s history in the comics.
Hawkeye is now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes being released every week on Wednesday.
