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Well, Facebook was down for a bit and I was wandering through my favorite sites on the net. I checked out The Mary Sue, where they posted a story about Robert Downey Jr. and his feelings on a Black Widow solo movie. Um, wasn’t that Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Just saying. Anyway, it appears that RDJ is totally on board with it, according to an interview that he did with USA Today.

He said, “Doesn’t Scarlett deserve a break?” Yes, yes she does. He continued, “Look, I think that the interesting thing particularly after Guardians with Zoe [Saldana], [or] even from the first Iron Man where Pepper was kind of this really – to me the Iron Man franchise would never have taken off without [Gwyneth] Paltrow. There’s something about her that grounded the story. She’s not your typical lady in a superhero movie, and then by Iron Man 3 she’s swallowing serums and putting on suits and kicking (butt) and all that stuff.”

Though he thinks highly of the women in the Marvel Universe, he said a solo film, “would be kind of more appropriate for a character that already was like a Black Widow. It just seems like whatever Scarlett does people want to go see it.” I would. Anyone else?

It’s interesting, what he said about Pepper not being “your typical lady in a superhero movie,” I think. One of the things we talk about a lot over here at Legion of Leia is what strong female characters are. Sometimes they’re not the ones who kick ass. (Though we certainly love those.) Sometimes it’s the brains or the business woman like Pepper Potts. And we’re just talking about the good guys here.

What I think they’ve done well with Black Widow, particularly in the second Cap movie is that she has a back story and she kicks ass, she has a possible attraction/love interest (not necessary, but not bad) and she’s not just on a suicide mission. This career was her choice. Often what we see with really physically tough female characters who kill is that we must motivate them by killing a child or something horrible (it’s never their own choice to take on a career like this) and we have to damage them so much that there is no coming back. How could you possibly give them a love interest, when they’re tougher than whatever guy is out there? Oh, I do so wish there was a sarcasm font.

RDJ is right about Scarlett Johansson as well. I mean, Lucy may not have been the best movie of the year, but it beat out Hercules. What was that about female-lead movies not doing well at the box office?

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Jenna Busch

Jenna Busch is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Legion of Leia and has hosted and written for sites like Nerdist, ComingSoon.net, Metro, Birth. Movies. Death., IGN, AOL, Huffington Post and more. She co-hosted Cocktails With Stan with the legendary Stan Lee and has appeared on Attack of the Show, Fresh Ink, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton, in the documentary She Makes Comics, on NPR and Al Jazeera America, and has covered film/TV/gaming/comics for years. She's currently a co-host on Most Craved. She's been published in the comics anthology Womanthology, is a chapter author for Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind, Game of Thrones Psychology and Star Trek Psychology and more, and owns a terrifying amount of swords and 20-sided dice. There are also those My Little Pony trailer voice overs that give one nightmares.