As a prequel, the majority of the Black Widow cast are pigeonholed in terms of where they stand in Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity, with Scarlett Johansson’s title hero obviously having died in Avengers: Endgame before her long-awaited solo movie had even released.
The movie was set in the immediate aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, which means there’s almost a decade between Natasha Romanoff finally liberating the Red Room and the events of the current feature films and Disney Plus shows, with Endgame placing the modern-day MCU in 2023.
Of course, the return of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova in Hawkeye revealed that she’d been blipped for five years, but we’ve got no idea what happened to the likes of David Harbor’s Red Guardian, Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff, or O-T Fagbenle’s Rick Mason.
Speaking of the latter, the Primetime Emmy-nominated star of The Handmaid’s Tale teased in an interview with SlashFilm that the door remains very much open for his eventual comeback somewhere down the line.
“I mean, you know what, with Marvel, I’m never sure how much they can say about stuff, but I’ll just say that it wasn’t a one-and-done conversation.”
After repeatedly trolling fans by claiming he’d be revealed as Taskmaster, Mason turned out to be little more than tech support in Black Widow. Given that the only notable figure he interacted with is dead and he doesn’t have any direct ties to any other MCU favorites, one potential drawback is that it might be difficult to write him back into the MCU and make it feel organic.