LOS ANGELES—Parody maestro Axel Braun on Thursday released the first images of reigning Penthouse Pet of the Year Lacy Lennon in full costume from his newest Wicked Comix directorial effort, the upcoming Black Widow XXX: An Axel Braun Parody.
“It really does look awesome,” Braun said. “I designed the costume specifically to be modern and cinematic, but still rooted in the classic comic depictions of the character. It was, as usual, an extremely long process, and my hat goes off to Lacy for being a real trooper and enduring dozens of fittings, but I have to admit the result is pretty remarkable, and I say that not as the costume designer but just as a huge Black Widow fan.”
While the two images, one released exclusively on Twitter and one on Instagram, garnered over 12,000 combined likes, the Marvel movie's star and producer Scarlett Johansson has encountered a fair amount of social media backlash due to her controversial statements about her character’s sexualization in previous movies. It is not the first time that the Oscar-nominated actress has ruffled some feathers, most recently in 2018 when she was forced to withdraw from starring in the movie Rub and Tug as a transgender woman, and the year before that, when she took on the lead role of Ghost in the Shell, who was specifically Asian in the original manga comics.
“I saw Scarlett Johansson on Broadway a few years ago, in the play A View From the Bridge with Liev Schreiber, and she was phenomenal,” said Braun. “That said, as a kid who grew up on Bronze Age comics, I always found her grossly miscast as Black Widow. The Gene Colan-drawn Natasha Romanoff I dreamed of one day seeing in the flesh was aristocratic, conflicted, badass and most of all she was an unapologetically sexual woman who loved with passion and plenty of drama, all characteristics that were completely lost in the MCU. All I can say is that my parody will, at the very least, rectify the unapologetically sexual part."
Black Widow XXX continues Braun's legacy as a parody guru, following his last Wicked Comix epic, the big-budget Marvel spoof Captain Marvel XXX: An Axel Braun Parody, which was a massive commercial success that topped the sales charts and took home five major trophies at the 2019 AVN Awards, including a 10th consecutive Best Parody win for Braun. The new production is his first parody after a self-imposed one-year pandemic hiatus, and his first Marvel AxelVerse project since being named Head of Production for Wicked Pictures, following the company’s acquisition by Gamma Entertainment last December.
Black Widow XXX: An Axel Braun Parody is scheduled to release July 9, 2021.
To learn more, visit www.wicked.com.
