After avoiding anything Marvel for 16 years, and the films aren’t what I would call good, but the character of Black Widow is just a blatantly flawed. First, her name: Natsha Romanoff. It should be Romanovna. Second, she war born in 1984. She was in the KGB. The USSR dissolved in 1991. ????
The first appearance of Black Widow in comics was in '64, so she would likely have been born in the 40s. Shes a good example of enforced status quo in comic books. The character's origin just flat out stopped existing over a generation ago but she's still trucking along. For the movies they changed the kgb origin to some evil secret crime genius.
She literally mentions the KGB in some scene. Maybe that part is retconned later, but I literally cringed back from the dissonance.
maybe the MCU takes place in a universe where the USSR was never dissolved