Black Widow’s Scarlett Johansson on Why Her MCU Character Is Never Coming Back

Scarlett Johansson has a good reason as to why Black Widow can never return to the MCU.

Johansson made her MCU debut as Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in 2010’s Iron Man 2. She reprised the role in a number of other Marvel Studios projects; however, Natasha met her demise in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

While Johansson still returned as Natasha one last time in the 2021 Black Widow movie, she’s said a number of times that she won’t be returning to the MCU at any point in the near future. Johansson just recently told Vanity Fair, for example, “It would be very hard for me to understand in what capacity [returning] would make sense for me, for the character that I play. I miss my buddies and really would love to be with them forever, but what works about the character is that her story is complete. I don’t want to mess with that. For fans, too—it’s important for them.”

Now, however, Johansson has offered up a good plot-related reason as to why Black Widow can’t return.

What did Scarlett Johansson say about Black Widow?

Marvel’s Red Guardian/Alexei Shostakov star David Harbour jokingly said that Johansson is the “secret character” of Avengers: Doomsday when speaking to her for Interview Magazine. Johansson responded, “If I come back from the dead, then half the world’s population dies. Didn’t you see Endgame for Christ’s sake?”

Natasha sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame so that Clint Barton/Hawkeye could get the Soul Stone in order to defeat Thanos. If Natasha were to come back, it would mean that anything they used for the Soul Stone would be undone, meaning Thanos would no longer be defeated and half the universe would still be snapped out of existence.

While Johansson may not be in Avengers: Doomsday, Harbour will be reprising his Red Guardian role in that movie, which releases in December 2026.

Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.