Black Widow’s post-credits scene, explained

Black Widow sent Natasha Romanoff on her long-awaited solo mission when the Marvel Cinematic Universe the movie and its delightful post-credits scene hit theaters and Premier Disney Plus Access Friday. Director Cate shortlandthe movie sees the superspy (Scarlett johansson) revisiting his dark past.

This former life includes other spy agents Yelena Belova, Melina Vostokoff and Alexei Shostakov (Florence pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbor), with whom she finds.

The main adventure – see our separate ending explanation for this – returns to the period just after Captain America: Civil War, but the post-credits scene takes place at a later point in the timeline. Let’s take a look at some SPOILERS.

Revenge mission

Some time after Natasha gave her life to obtain the Soul Stone and help thwart Thanos’ vile plans in Avengers: Endgame, Yelena takes her dog Fanny to visit her grave. It’s probably in Ohio (their shared childhood home) and the grave appears to be under a cherry blossom tree, just like the tree next to which Dreykov said Natasha’s biological mother was buried.

The words “Daughter, Sister, Avenger” are inscribed in the gravestone.

This moment of calm is interrupted by Countess Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who blows his nose and says he’s allergic to the Midwest. Val has Yelena’s next target: Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye.

“Maybe you’d like to shoot the man responsible for your sister’s death,” Val said, before handing him a tablet with Clint’s picture on it. “Kind of cute, don’t you think?” “

It seems that the next Disney Plus Hawkeye series just got his villain (or one of his villains, at least). We don’t know why Val wants Clint dead, but he could be the first target in a plot to replace the Avengers with his own pawns.

Between the events of Black Widow and the post-Avengers: Endgame period, Yelena started working for Val — she bemoans Val showing up on her “vacation.” We have already seen Val in the latest of them Disney Plus episodes show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when she recruited deposed Captain America John Walker and named him the American Agent.

Val is still a big old question mark. In the comics, Val worked for SHIELD but turned out to be a Russian sleeper agent. She also infiltrated Hydra for SHIELD and assumed Madame Hydra’s identity, but her true allegiance lay with the Russians (maybe).

We don’t yet know who MCU Val is working for and what his plan is, but his comic book history offers plenty of options. She could help restore Hydra or work for an underground extra-government group.

Considering her recruiting of highly skilled people who have gone through a rough patch – Yelena spent years as a brainwashed killer and Walker lost the shield for publicly kill a guy – it is possible that Val is trying to create an MCU equivalent of the Thunderbolts or the Dark Avengers from the comics. These two super-teams were made up of bad guys, unbeknownst to the world at large.

It’s likely that Yelena will only attempt to kill Clint briefly during her streak, in a classic “hero fight over misunderstanding, then team up” storyline, since he fought with Natasha. as he tried to die in her place – he and Yelena will likely end up mourning her loss together. The show (which will also be Presents Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop) should arrive on Disney Plus end of 2021.