Remember that scene in Avengers: Age Of Ultron where Natasha was riding her motorbike out of the Quinjet, ready to go help Captain America kick Ultron’s shiny metal ro-butt? Apparently, this toy doesn’t. According to this cover, it was Hawkeye was chasing Ultron in a Quinjet, and then Captain America dropped out of the bottom of the jet on a motorcycle and zoomed off to save the day like a total badass? So the history of Marvel Merchandise’s long, confusing and mostly terrible history with Black Widow’s presence on toy shelves somehow got even worse!
That’s right, Black Widow has been swapped out in favour of being replaced by Captain America. You know, the dude who she’s going to help out in the scene from the movie.
And so does this Lego Avengers toy:
The Lego set shows Black Widow flying the jet, but otherwise they both clearly depict Captain America dropping out on a motorcycle. It’s so weird that both of these toys not only got that wrong, but that they also forgot to include Black Widow in their pictures of the Avengers team on the boxes. To be fair, the boxes also left out Hawkeye, but his exclusion isn’t emblematic of decades of toy-based sexism—which this most certainly is.
Also, even Mark Ruffalo has noticed that there is a distinct lack of Black Widow toys:
.@Marvel we need more #BlackWidow merchandise for my daughters and nieces. Pretty please.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) April 29, 2015
It’s one thing to have Black Widow virtually absent from Age of Ultron’s merchandise extravaganza. It’s a whole other level to actively go about not including her in toys she actually should be part of.