The Avengers Prelude: Black Widow Strikes

The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes is a three part comic published by Marvel and released in 2012. It is chronologically set beween the events of Iron Man 2 and The Avengers.

Volume 1
Disguised as Tatiana Sokolova, Black Widow works at a night club in Moscow, pursuing the trail of missing Starktech. While she tries to interrogate Mikhail Fjodorov, one of the world's most successful illegal arms dealers, Fjodorov is killed by an unknown woman and Black Widow is forced to leave the club via the roof, fighting several security men. After she gets to a hotel and is waiting for extraction, she is attacked by masked people working for Eaglestar, but overwhelms them and receives a SIM card to reach the mysterious woman she has seen in the night club. Later, Black Widow talks to the woman, who calls herself "Sofia", and learns that she is a "fan" and wants to take over the name "Black Widow".

Volume 2
A few days later, Black Widow confronts Sofia in a sport hall, where she almost drowned in cold water, but she was saved at the last moment by Phil Coulson, who was following a pair of goons working for the arms dealer General Starodoub. Coulson gives Natasha the necessary equipment to infiltrate the yacht belonging to one of General Starodoub's business partners, where she meets Sofia again, an encounter which cost them the life of one more S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

Volume 3
When Coulson discovers that Sofia's employer is the billionaire Richard Frampton, Black Widow infiltrates his headquarters in Vladivostok. She discovers that Frampton works for the Ten Rings terrorist organization and that he has made a Jericho missile that would explode near the border between Russia and North Korea, greatly destabilizing the world peace. Black Widow infiltrates the launching area and destroyed the missile. Both Frampton and Sofia die in the explosion, and the surviving terrorists are arrested by Coulson and his team. Later, Nick Fury arrives and says to Widow that Sofia was beyond saving. Widow replies that a lot of people would say the same about her only a few years ago.

Characters

 * Black Widow
 * Phil Coulson
 * Nick Fury
 * Agent Perez
 * Agent Gerber
 * Agent Gennady Markov
 * Sofia
 * Nikolay Baskov
 * Mikhail Fjodorov
 * General Starodoub
 * Yuri Klementiev
 * Mohammed Yavari
 * Richard Frampton
 * Rogusskii
 * Chuzhoi
 * Vera Brezneva
 * Justin Hammer (mentioned)
 * Tony Stark (mentioned)
 * Iron Man (computer screen)
 * Hulk (computer screen)
 * Thor (computer screen)
 * Captain America (computer screen)
 * Hawkeye (computer screen)

Locations

 * Moscow, Russia
 * Sochi, Russia
 * Vladivostok, Russia
 * Tambov, Russia (mentioned)
 * Saint Petersburg, Russia (mentioned)
 * Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (mentioned)
 * North Korea (mentioned)
 * Sofia, Bulgaria (mentioned)
 * Cannes, France (mentioned)

Items

 * Black Widow's Bite
 * Glider Harness
 * Taser Disk
 * Miniaturized Smoke Grenade
 * Grappling Hook Gun
 * Jericho Missile

Vehicles

 * Helicarrier
 * Railbike

Organizations

 * S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Ten Rings
 * Sojourn Enterprises
 * Eaglestar