Warning: This article contains spoilers for Black Widow.
Black Widow is the third prequel film in the MCU. Compared to the other prequels, Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain Marvel, their latest installment uniquely fits into the established MCU timeline in 2016.
The events of the movie seemingly take place between Natasha Romanoff's last appearance in Captain America: Civil War and the final scene in the movie when Steve Rogers is breaking his friends out of the Raft.
With this understanding, Black Widow technically doesn't take place after Civil War but during the events of Chris Evans' threequel. In some ways, all of Black Widow (besides the post-credits scene) is somewhat of a side-story away from the main Civil War confrontation.
As Natasha is on the run from General Thunderbolt Ross, the story of Black Widow is directly impacted by what many call Avengers 2.5. However, that is not the only similarity between these two summer hits.
BLACK WIDOW USED THE SAME LOCATION CARDS AS CIVIL WAR
Here's a look at the cards from Black Widow locating Cube, Morrocco, and the Red Room.
These are the location cards used in Captain America: Civil War. They introduce Lagos, Vienna, and Queens.
Both large, white, sans serif, letters represent an interesting creative choice for Black Widow. As previously mentioned, Scarlett Johansson's solo adventure takes place within the time of Civil War.
Whether purposefully or not, these location cards bring these two films even closer in relation to one another. While this movie was released in 2021, it takes place in 2016, and in some ways, using this style of location card puts the audience back in May 2016 theaters watching Tony and Steve duke it out.
The Black Widow font does seem to take up slightly less screen space when compared to Civil War. Specifically the four-letter "CUBA" card specifically clearly isn't the same size as the five-letter "LAGOS" from Civil War.
Another important note is that each of these movies used location cards to introduce never-before-seen places/people in the MCU. The combination of "Left Hand Free" by alt-J and "QUEENS" filling up the screen in Civil War is an iconic part of Peter Parker's introduction in the MCU.
In Black Widow, when "RED ROOM" hits the screen, it becomes clear that this location is floating in the sky amongst the clouds. The location card is useful in this scenario because not many would have suspected that the Red Room was essentially an idle, renovated Helicarrier.
These title cards are unique and memorable in the MCU, but that doesn't mean they're the only fonts of note.
OTHER MCU LOCATION CARD EXAMPLES
Instead of being directly in the middle of the screen, Avengers: Infinity War's serif font was a bit more subtle than Civil War. These location cards are along the bottom of the screen and introduced the audience to Scotland, Space, and Knowhere.
The next set of cards from Avengers: Endgame is unique because they introduce audiences to a location and time. Black lettering for the location, white for the year in time. These location cards were probably the most crucial to their movie because knowing where and when our heroes were was critical for understanding.
These location cards also told the audience that these movies officially took place in the year they were released. The Spider-Man: Homecoming "8 YEARS LATER" card is still hard to understand how it made the final cut.
Nonetheless, Marvel Studios has no problems taking risks and being bold with its location cards. The Civil War cards set a certain standard for the MCU and it's cool to see Black Widow keep that tradition alive.
Black Widow is now playing in theaters across the globe and streaming via Disney+ Premier Access.
