Red Room Academy (Moscow) (2024)

I've been to hell before, little girl. It was called the Red Room.

—Black Widow^[src]

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Origins
  • 1.2 Black Widow Ops Program
  • 1.3 Enhancements
  • 1.4 Wolf Spider Ops Program
  • 1.5 Yelena Belova
  • 1.6 North Institute
  • 1.7 Omega Red
  • 1.8 Dark Ocean Society
  • 1.9 Nadia Pym
• 2 Residents
  • 2.1 Scientists
  • 2.2 Teachers
  • 2.3 Black Widow Ops Program
  • 2.4 Wolf Spider Ops Program
• 3 Alternate Universe Versions
  • 3.1 Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999)
  • 3.2 Black Widow Ops Program
• 4 Trivia
• 5 See Also
• 6 Links and References
  • 6.1 References

Origins[]

The Red Room (Красная комната) was one of the Department X's espionage training facilities. It which plays a critical role in Natalia Romanova's life. For decades the Red Room been a Cold War program to train the deadliest female spy in the world. It was created due to the success of their previous sleeper agent and assassin, the Winter Soldier.^[2]

Black Widow Ops Program[]

They recruited 28 little orphan girls to make them undetectable deep-cover agents to infiltrate China and the West. The core methodology was designed by Professor Grigor Pchelintsov, a leader in the field of psychotechnics, and allowed for imprinting people with almost completely fabricated memories. ^[2] They were made to believe that they were trained in ballet in the Bolshoi Theatre.^[3] Natasha was placed with a handler, Ivan Petrovitch.

Enhancements[]

Furthermore, the girls all received a special treatment designed by Dr. Lyudmila Kudrin, a biochemist.The Kudrin treatment could make women stay young for many decades, as well as superhumanly healthy and resilient.^[4]

Wolf Spider Ops Program[]

Niko Constantin was the only male trainee of the Red Room's male equivalent dubbed "Wolf Spider", Niko Constantin proved to be an effective killer, but impossible to handle or control, leading to the program to be declared a failure. Years later, he was found to be imprisoned in a Russian gulag, leading a gang of convicts dubbed the Wolf Spiders, and holding a grudge against James "Bucky" Barnes, one of the trainers for the Wolf Spider program.^[5]

Yelena Belova[]

The K.G.B. continued the Red Room still operated in the late 1970s. The new Black Widow program was making a reality out of the disinformation, helping to hide what the real project had been. This Red Room program successfully trained their agent, Yelena Belova, though she soon left their service.^[6]

North Institute[]

Natasha, weary of espionage and adventure, retired to Arizona but was targeted, as were the other Black Widow subjects of the Red Room, by the North Institute on behalf of the corporation Gynacon. Natasha’s investigations led her back to Russia, where she was appalled to learn the previously unimagined extent of her past manipulation, and she discovered the Widows were being hunted because Gynacon, having purchased Russian biotechnology from Red Room’s successor agency 2R, wanted all prior users of the technology dead. After killing Gynacon CEO Ian McMasters, she clashed with operatives of multiple governments to help Sally Anne Carter, a teenage girl Natasha had befriended in her investigations, whom she then attempted to rescue by herself and who Yelena Belova and Matt Murdock then had to rescue Natasha and help her, Sally Anne and a group of captured girls and women get to safety.^[7]

The Red Room was revealed to have been started by the long lived Mutant; Romulus who had ties to Wolverine.^{[citation needed]}

Omega Red[]

The Red Room bought the mutant Super-Soldier Omega Red's freedom with the hopes of using him to their own ends. Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler encountered him after he had freed himself from his masters, however, and they engaged in combat. Omega Red was largely impervious to Wolverine's claws; the Red Room had been experimenting on his body in an effort to enhance his healing factor. After Nightcrawler intervened and knocked Omega Red unconscious, he was returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.^[8]

Dark Ocean Society[]

The Red Room was the site of mass killings of K.G.B recruits. Surveillance video revealed the killings were carried out by the Dark Ocean Society lead by a new Ronin.^[9] However before their investigation was completed the group was attacked by the Supreme Soviets and were forced to split up.^[10] Hawkeye and Black Widow traveled to Sapporo, Japan, the base of operations of the Dark Ocean Society; and Mockingbird and Dominic Fortune headed to the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula following mass Russian troop movements.^[11] The group reunited on the disputed Kuril Islands and discovered the identity of the new Ronin to be Alexi Shostakov, the original Red Guardian and Black Widow's ex-husband. Shostakov revealed he intended to force a war between Russia and Japan to restore Russia's former glory. A battle ensued as the heroes took on a combination of the Dark Ocean Society and the Supreme Soviets. During the battle Hawkeye received a critical blow to the head, but Widow however managed to take down Shostakov with the help of Fantasma.^[12]

Nadia Pym[]

Nadia Pym is the daughter of Hank Pym and his first wife, Maria Trovaya, who was kidnapped during her honeymoon and subsequently killed by foreign agents. Nadia was raised in the Red Room in Russia, where she was being trained to become a Red Room agent herself. When Nadia started to read, she showed great aptitude for science, so her handlers, believing her skills to be genetic, informed her of her famous heritage and began encouraging her to emphasize her studies more. Learning of her parentage only increased Nadia's drive to escape the Red Room, and she was eventually able to obtain a black market Pym Particle sample, which she studied enough to master its size-changing properties and used to escape the facility.^[13]

Scientists[]

• Professor Grigor Pchelintsov (Psychologist)
• Dr. Lyudmila Kudrin (Geneticist)

Teachers[]

• Department X
• K.G.B.
• Winter Soldier
• Ivan Petrovitch

Black Widow Ops Program[]

• Ava Orlova
• Nadia Pym
• Natalia Romanova
• Ninotchka
• Yelena Belova
• Ying Liu

Wolf Spider Ops Program[]

• Niko Constantin

Alternate Universe Versions[]

Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999)[]

The original Red Room Academy in Belarus, USSR was visited on a mission by the SSR and the Howling Commandos. It was the training facility for the Black Widow Ops Program located in Belarus in which orphaned girls, including Dottie Underwood, were selected and trained to become deadly female spies. During the encounter here, one of the students Eva stabbed Dum-Dum Dugan and killed Junior Juniper.^[14]

Under General Dreykov the Red Room constantly changed locations, being a mobile sky fortress.^[15]

Black Widow Ops Program[]

• Natalia Romanoff
• Dottie Underwood

• The Red Room was used as Black Widow's password on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the micro-episode "Beware the Widow's Bite!".
• The Red Room was used in the episode "Nighthawk" of Marvel's Avengers Assemble as a sleeper word to knock Black Widow unconscious.