<P> First hints to Natasha Romanova's childhood come by Ivan Petrovich, who is introduced as her middle - aged chauffeur and confidant in the Black Widow's 1970s Amazing Adventures . The man tells Matt Murdock how he had been given custody of little Natasha by a woman just before her death during the Battle of Stalingrad in autumn 1942 . He had consequently felt committed to raise the orphan as a surrogate father and she had eventually trained as a Soviet spy, being eager to help her homeland . In another flashback, set in the fictional island of Madripoor in 1941, Petrovich helps Captain America and the mutant Logan, who would later become the Canadian super-agent and costumed hero Wolverine, to rescue Natasha from Nazis . </P> <P> A revised, retconned origin establishes her as being raised from very early childhood by the U.S.S.R.'s "Black Widow Ops" program, rather than solely by Ivan Petrovitch . Petrovitch had taken her to Department X, with other young female orphans, where she was brainwashed, and trained in combat and espionage at the covert "Red Room" facility . There, she is biotechnologically and psycho - technologically enhanced--an accounting that provides a rationale for her unusually long and youthful lifespan . During that time she had some training under Winter Soldier, and the pair even had a short romance . Each Black Widow is deployed with false memories to help ensure her loyalty . Romanova eventually discovers this, including the fact that she had never, as she had believed, been a ballerina . She further discovers that the Red Room is still active as "2R". </P> <P> Natasha was arranged by the KGB to marry the renowned Soviet test pilot Alexei Shostakov . However, when the Soviet government decided to make Alexei into their new operative, the Red Guardian, he is told that he can have no further contact with his wife . Natasha is told that he had died and is trained as a secret agent separately . </P> <P> Romanova grew up to serve as a femme fatale . She was assigned to assist Boris Turgenov in the assassination of Professor Anton Vanko for defecting from the Soviet Union, which served as her first mission in the United States . Natasha and Turgenov infiltrated Stark Industries as part of the plan . She attempted to manipulate information from American defense contractor Tony Stark, and inevitably confronted his superhero alter ego, Iron Man . The pair then battled Iron Man, and Turgenov steals and wears the Crimson Dynamo suit . Vanko sacrificed himself to save Iron Man, killing Turgenov in the process, using an unstable experimental laser light pistol . Romanova later meets the criminal archer Hawkeye and sets him against Iron Man, and later helped Hawkeye battle Iron Man . </P>

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