Marvel has quietly done something it avoided for seven years. The new Black Widow is Yelena Belova, and she was finally called that on screen in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is in cinemas now. Not implied, not hinted at in a Disney+ epilogue. Said out loud, in a Spider-Man film, four months before Avengers: Doomsday.
Light spoilers for Brand New Day below. Nothing about the ending.
What actually happened
Florence Pugh’s Yelena turns up in Brand New Day in an official capacity, holding a leadership position and stepping in when the Department of Damage Control moves on Spider-Man. In the course of it, the film identifies her as the new Black Widow.
That is the whole news, and it sounds small until you remember that Natasha Romanoff died on Vormir in Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Marvel has had seven years to hand the name to someone and has pointedly refused, letting Yelena carry the skill set, the history and the grief without ever giving her the title.
Who Yelena Belova is, if you have lost the thread
Her arc has been running quietly in the background for five years.
Black Widow (2021). Introduced as Natasha’s adopted sister, raised alongside her in the Red Room. Yelena is freed from chemical mind control, and the two of them tear the Red Room down and kill Dreykov together. Crucially they are family by circumstance rather than blood, which the comics do differently.
Hawkeye (2021). This is the important one. Yelena comes back from the Blip to find her sister already dead, is manipulated into hunting Clint Barton, and only stands down when he tells her the truth about how Natasha died. It is the MCU’s most underrated grief story, and it is the reason the title means something to her.
Thunderbolts (2025). Yelena leads a group of discarded contract killers against the Sentry and the Void, gets out from under Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and the team is rebranded as the New Avengers.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). Official position, official title.
Why this is a handover, not a replacement
The word being used in headlines is “replacing,” and it is the wrong word.
Natasha is not being written over. The whole reason the new Black Widow lands emotionally is that Yelena spent an entire Disney+ series refusing to accept how her sister died. She did not want the name. She wanted Natasha back.
That is the difference between a recast and a succession. Sam Wilson picking up the shield worked because the show spent six episodes on whether he should. Yelena taking the title works for the same reason, except Marvel did it across five years and three projects, and never once made an announcement out of it.
Why Marvel made it official now
The timing is not an accident. Brand New Day came out on July 31 and is already one of the biggest films of the year. Doomsday lands December 18. Putting the moment in the Spider-Man film means the largest possible audience is told before the Avengers film asks them to care.
There is also a roster problem to solve. Doomsday is juggling an enormous cast, and it does not have the runtime to explain who the woman in the black suit is. Establishing the new Black Widow in a separate film four months earlier is exactly the kind of setup Marvel used to be good at and stopped doing for a while.
What it means for Avengers: Doomsday
Yelena is not a cameo in this one. Kevin Feige has said that if you are a fan of the character, wait until Doomsday, and that she plays a big part in it. Footage so far puts her up against Mystique, which is a genuinely fun matchup: two people whose entire skill set is being someone else.
The wider point is what her promotion says about the shape of the film. The New Avengers exist. Yelena leads them. Doomsday is not the old team reassembling, it is several teams colliding, and the new Black Widow is on the field as a team leader rather than as somebody’s little sister.
If you want the rest of the picture, we have everything confirmed about Doomsday, every leak clearly flagged as rumour, and our SDCC Hall H recap.
Is Florence Pugh the new Black Widow permanently?
Everything points that way. She is signed across multiple projects, the New Avengers are established as an ongoing team, and Marvel does not hand over a name this carefully to walk it back.
The honest caveat: Scarlett Johansson is not in Doomsday as far as anyone has confirmed, but this is a multiverse film with a Doctor Doom in it, and nothing involving dead Avengers is ever completely settled. Treat any Natasha return you read about as rumour until Marvel says otherwise.
What is settled is the title. For the first time since 2019, somebody is Black Widow again.
More Marvel: the Peggy Carter theory, why Doom has Tony Stark’s face, and our Brand New Day breakdown.
Has Yelena earned the name, or should it have stayed retired with Natasha? Comments are open.
Sources: Forbes, TheWrap, Marvel, Wikipedia. Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day are Marvel Studios productions; all rights belong to Marvel Studios, Disney and Sony Pictures.
Discover more from Lazybatman
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
