I know this isn't really a battle. But seeing how the Battles Board is practically the most popular, I figured if I post it here that more people would check it out.
A couple of weeks ago, I was reading some Marvel NOW: Punisher: War Zone, specifically where Black Widow and Punisher fought. And while I was reading said issue, it dawned on me that Black Widow doesn't get the respect she deserves. So many street-levelers-without-powers are adored by fans: Batman, Boba Fett, Punisher, etc.
Why? Because they have no powers, yet they can give superhumans a run for their money. That in itself says that such characters have cunning, skill, and guts.
So why is it that Black Widow gets no respect? There is not one Black Widow respect thread in existence. Black Widow: The super-agile Russian spy with a bite (or more specifically, a Widow's Bite) and a pretty face. And most notably, played by Scarlett Johannsson(!!!!!!)!
I ask you: What is there not to love about this character? I may not be the most well-versed guy on Natasha, but I know Black Widow has been a respectful member of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers for years, and has faced many threats with them.
So, without a further ado: I call for a Black Widow respect thread! Place feats and scans below, and give some love for the Black Widow!
These constant interruptions are very discouraging, you know.
Another thing I like about Black Widow is that even though she's the badass femme fatale super spy, she's also a delicate flower who can't lead the Avengers.
So many layers! How can one character contain them all?
This is just kind of eye-rolling & gross. Here are some real feats.
In Black Widow #3, Natasha fights Elektra to a standstill despite undergoing major surgery a few days before:
Black Widow: Homecoming #1— Natasha cripples some dude for fun, I guess, you can see how fast she's moving by the cup dropping from her hand.
Marvel Two-in-One #10— Natasha fights off 100 armed men, alone.
Punisher/Black Widow OGN: Natasha accurately judges & deflects Frank's bullet, then uses the distraction to sneak up on him.
Wolverine #125: Natasha knocks out the Phoenix with one kick, easily handles Psylocke, Viper, Jessica Drew and such.
Daredevil #368-369: Natasha shoots Daredevil. This isn't so much about beating Daredevil, but Natasha's aim is good enough that she can deliberately ricochet a bullet off his rib cage, causing him minimal harm despite shooting him in the chest.
One time she singlehandedly defeated X-Force, I guess:
There's also various feats that show Natasha's perception and her cunning. Two that come to mind are that Natasha was the one Avenger to suspect something was wrong with Jessica Drew before Secret Invasion:
And Natasha was also the first (and only) person to discover the Thunderbolts were really the Masters of Evil.
I don't have a huge number of Widow scans, but here they are:
In the first one (please read right-to-left, they're in backwards order), DD points out that BW has control over her heartbeat so that he's unable to tell when she's lying. Which says a lot about her physical self-control.
After that, there's a fight with a guy who as I recall is an ex-SHIELD agent. For some reason I don't have all the pages so it's missing a few parts, but this is most of it. When I first read this, I thought she dodged the shot in the beginning. But really what happens is that she runs towards him, from point blank range when he's fully ready to shoot, and dodges so that he doesn't kill her, but she let's him hit her in the shoulder so that she can kick him. The way I read it, she intentionally tanks the bullet. Then she garotes the guy. Then she falls off the multi-story building and gets up and is basically fine. After that she throws a pipe across a street and jumps across.
I think the first part is a pretty decent speed feat--I know all kinds of people dodge bullets in comics, but the way this is drawn and written, it really points out just how fast she has to be to outrun the bullet while it's being fired in order to kick him. It turns an everyday comics occurrence into an actual feat. Then, taking the bullet and falling like that are pretty decent endurance feats. And the jumping across the street while shot and otherwise hurt is also not bad.
And here (also in backward order), these are mostly just to provide some more basic bullet dodging and agility stuff. Clearly she's very agile and graceful.
I'm not arguing that these are at the very top of the line in terms of feats, but they're decent, and it's what I've got. I'm going to see if I can make a few more later today.
Prep: Natasha randomly happens to wear armored gloves, even as a civilian:
Pain tolerance/body control/durability: Natasha was drugged so she can't talk, but is conscious. Some doctors try to operate on her, doing major abdominal surgery, and she manages to hold still during the whole thing so they don't accidentally cause any damage.
I will no longer update this post, and like I said, the formatting renders it kind of unreadable. Thanks to Fetts for hosting this on his thread for many years. But this post got too long and confusing and I thought it would be better to start off from scratch.
Black Widow and Spider-Man vs Silver Samurai. First, Samurai vs Spidey. Then Black Widow joins in to help. Note Samurai's clear strength and speed in beating Spider-Man, and his claim to beating Daredevil. Since her Bite is not enough to penetrate his armor, Natasha spends what must be about a quarter of an hour dodging Samurai's katana while Spider-Man is wedging up the building--very impressive dodging.
Vs Weeping Lion
Black Widow vs the Weeping Lion. The Lion was presented as a pretty tough guy, although more through reputation than feats. Here she beats him fairly easily. In particular note the use of a touch-based Widow’s Bite (clearly influenced by the movies) and again, incap via Widow’s Line. She also gets up with no problem after being smashed against a wall hard enough for it to crack.
Vs Captain America
Takes out Captain America with a Widow's Bite to the head. This is a heavy-context fight, with Captain American on drugs that increase his rage, so he's essentially in a bloodlusted state where he's thinking less strategically, but is more aggressive and morals off. This same Cap beats the crap out of Daredevil (who in more context is somewhat off his game) to the degree that Daredevil is lying on the ground and too weak to stop Crossbones from looking under his mask. Anyway as you can see, Diamondback and Black Widow are both fighting him with no major damage to anyone until Natasha blasts him full in the face to KO him.
Way back in the day when the Hand was just being introduced, she fights well against several of them, dodging throwing stars and swords, and getting in 5 unanswered strikes before being caught by poisoned caltrops.
Vs Iron Scorpion
She attacks Iron Scorpion (this is interspersed with flashbacks about sniping a guy way earlier), breaks his leg, throws him into an oncoming truck. Iron Scorpion seems to be enhanced—he easily cuts through pistols (twice), a thick log, and other hard objects with his sword, and has uncanny accuracy as well, throwing a dart into her pistol barrel earlier:
Fights Elektra after major surgery. Dodges Elektra’s strike after Elektra has shown her speed by cutting a bullet. Kicks Elektra and strikes her in the head with the pistol. Ends with weapons at each other’s heads. After Elektra leaves we see how hurt Natasha still is from the surgery.
Vs Imus Champion
Fights Imus Champion. His strength is unclear; in the past he had an exoskeleton and could lift planes and fight whole teams of Avengers. Now he seems to be strong and fast but not as much, with no exoskeleton. Dodges, kicks in groin, kicks in head, uses Widow’s Line to garrote. He punches back at her, she shoots at him in h head, she dodges multiple times before being grabbed. Takes out his eyes with her thumbs, slashes his gut, kicks in face, has him at gunpoint. Then chops throat, and basically curb stomps him.
Beats "Hydra Punisher" in Secret Empire: dodges his shots, hits him twice and jumps off him, he shoots her, she misses with touch-Bite, he hits her with butt of gun, he kicks and misses, she kicks him, she disarms him, he grabs her by the neck and kicks her, she blocks his knives and kicks him, disarming him again, he grabs her foot and pushes her back, knocking her to the ground. He goes to get his gun and she picks up his knives and disables him by stabbing him in both legs (somehow getting in front of him in the process). In all, she strikes him 5 times, and he hits her 4 times, BEFORE she incaps him.
Vs Recluse
Natasha and Bucky fight Recluse, who was trained in an updated Red Room. Recluse is tough enough to have captured Bucky in the first place, and then to fight both Nat and Bucky to a draw. Some nice acrobatics and unusual weapons use from Nat, also noted under Bite below.
Natasha has a rematch against Recluse, who notes again that it took her and Bucky to fight her to a draw before. This time, Black Widow beats her. (She comes back from the waterfall later, but Nat clearly has her at a disadvantage here.) Also note impressive strength feat holding back against the waterfall, also noted under Strength below.
Vs Red Room Girls
Fights off six highly trained Red Room girls. Looking at the panels, she seems to defeat them without ever getting hit. However, she must have been hit to be hazy at the end. Various weapon uses also seen below.
Vs Snapdragon
Sometimes I see assertions that Snapdragon could beat Black Widow, or beat her a majority of times. Looking at their full set of fights makes it clear that in a straight fight, Black Widow wins.
First fight: Widow is ambushed in the dark by Snapdragon when Natasha’s Bite isn’t working. Snapdragon, who has IR goggles, only beats Natasha because Natasha can’t see to fight back.
Second “Fight”: Black Widow kicks a guy while tied, but is subdued by Snapdragon with a pole. Not exactly a real fight.
Third fight: Black Widow is disarmed by surprise, while Snapdragon has multiple weapons. Natasha dodges and strikes, but is hit back. Then Natasha gets in four unanswered strikes, ultimately knocking Snapdragon through a hole in the walkway for a conclusive win in their only straight fight.
Fights group of “world’s deadliest assassins.” Is tied up, but kicks one lady, then another. Kicks a pot at guy to KO him, kicks another guy (basically one-shorting four people in a row), then has a longer fight with a sumo guy. Does more tied-up fighting, dodges a bullet so it hits the sumo guy, dodges even more while rolling on the ground toward the shooter and takes him out. Is freed by Iron Maiden, whose armor tanks her blast and almost beats her before being stopped by James Woo from SHIELD (and later Atlas). All together, even given that these gimmicky assassins are mostly featless, an impressive set of moves for someone tied up almost the whole time.
Vs Alexi/Red Guardian/Ronin
She beats Alexi, the former Red Guardian, now Ronin:
Vs Bucky
Fighting Bucky: granted that he is not fighting to kill and it’s broken off quickly, but she fights well against him, getting in two kicks to one tackle. He says: “What I didn’t know is how much she’s been holding back when we spar, how strong she really is.” “She’s gonna take my head off if I’m not careful.” This makes clear three things: one, when she has sparred with Bucky in the past, she’s so good she felt the need to hold back so as to not hurt him (what other reason would she have for holding back during sparring?). Two, he’s impressed by her strength, making it clear she’s not just normal. Three, even if he’s not fighting with the intent to hurt her right now, she’s good enough that she could kill him anyway—thus it doesn’t matter what his fighting intent is.
Vs Bucky (and tangentially Hawkeye):
Natasha beats on Bucky pretty much at will as Hawkeye watches. There's context here: Nat has been resurrected in a cloned body after Secret Empire, and Bucky and Clint are shocked to see her alive. She is annoyed that they are unknowingly messing up a plan of hers. She attacks Bucky to stop them from interfering, and he fights back defensively. She basically runs all over him: she hits him, he disarms her, then she gets in every hit after that: 3 hits to his face, pulls his hair, grabs him with her legs and kicks him into Clint. Then she takes off. Even with the context, this is all in her favor: she is more serious in her intent, but doesn't want to hurt them; they are stunned and don't want to hurt her, but clearly they don't want to be hurt themselves either, and Bucky is fighting defensively as hard as he can, as shown by the fact that he needs to ask Clint for help: "She's gonna kill me in a second if you don't stop her!" I added the final page for Bucky's line about how she had the drop on them.
Vs Bucky Again
They fight on a boat. Neither of them gets any major hits in on the other. What's notable is that they fight pretty much as equals, and her signature balletic fighting style, where she looks like she's dancing as much as she's fighting.
In the continuation, Kraven is about to throw Daredevil off a cliff. Black Widow is still affected by the poison, as noted in the captions. She jumps at Kraven, who throws Matt off the cliff. A bunch of cops attack, and distract Kraven while Natasha comes from behind and one-shots him with a kick, knocking him out. Even as she does this, she notes that she is still “weak as a kitten” from the poison. Kraven is pretty durable, even in this era, and hadn’t taken too much damage in the first part of the fight, so taking him down with one kick, even by surprise, is pretty impressive.
Fights against Lady Bullseye. Overall, they basically tie:
In the first fight, Lady Bullseye gets in the majority of the hits and is about to stab Natasha when the fight is interrupted.
In the second fight, Black Widow jumps into a train with some kind of protective energy net and gets Lady Bullseye on the ground, more or less at her mercy, when the train goes into another dimension.
In that dimension, after an unknown amount of time (maybe immediately, maybe much later), Natasha has Lady Bullseye at her mercy at sword point before being interrupted by a monster.
Vs Spider-man. The first time they meet. This fight is full of context; Spider-man was feeling beaten up and tired, and almost like he was losing his powers. Even with that, she gets in some decent shots, but runs off. This is honestly not her best showing but I figured it was worth seeing.
Vs a Crocodile: Nat is dragged under water for a significant amount of time, and kills the croc by hand. Also a nice feat of strength when she throws it in front of Danvers and Strange.
Takes out at least 15 guards. She starts off with 2 swords and was just poisoned and tortured, they have guns. Notable for its brutality and targeted, skilled strikes.
Vs Jean Grey, Psylocke, Viper
Smacks down Jean Grey, Psylocke, and Viper at once:
FIGHTING SKILLS/TECHNIQUES
Her fighting style is naturally very gymnastic. She does all kinds of flips and jumps as an innate part of her fighting, in an extremely balletic manner that combines her H2H and weapons:
After throwing a chair at Punisher and punching him in the face, she does a kick-back-flip off him:
Blocks a point-blank shot:
Takes out two people at once while handcuffed, and disrupts point blank gunfire:
Takes out a bunch of guards, including throwing one over her back for a pretty good strength feat. She shoots a gun out of guy’s hand, uses a flash bomb, and shoots guy’s hand:
She and Sharon Carter kick each other’s ropes off, which is presented as effortless and looks silly, but honestly would be really difficult to do:
In a fairly common one-shot move for her, she chops two guys in the neck at once. A very effective move:
While literally disintegrating due to poison, she neck strikes a guy. (Again, a bit of a signature move for her.):
Throat-strikes one guy while taking out two others with one kick:
Chops a guy's neck while teleporting:
In a slight variation, but still showing her tendency to strike vulnerable areas, she hits another guy on the back of the neck:
And does another of her "hit multiple people at once" attacks, following it up with a crazy acrobatic spin-kick:
In an older issue, Spidey sneaks up on her, but she is able to react, grab, and throw him without him being to react back, even given his spider-sense. (Compare this example of his speed and reactions in the same issue.):
Spider-man and Widow are surrounded by armed henchmen. Spidey runs off to defeat the Owl, and is gone only a very short time. Then he runs back, clearly believing there are a dangerously high number of guys to fight, since he says she "has her hands full." However, she has easily beaten them all, saying Spidey took too long coming back. I count at least 12 guys. These guys aren't particularly tough, what's impressive is the speed with which she beats them, and that Spidey considers them to be enough to be a challenge:
While in the process of killing a bunch of mercs, she uses a nice, graceful move to kill one: swinging her body up and around him while holding on to his head, thus breaking his neck in the process:
She repeats this move later in the issue, where she jumps up and swings her body around a guy, breaking his neck as she swings around:
Shoots a thin string or rope three times. First, while riding a motorcycle, she shoots two strings that come out of a trick arrow from Hawkeye. Second, she shoots a thin rope that Hawkeye is walking on, from a fair distance. Third, she shoots Hawkeye's bow string, from a decent distance away again. Each is a very small target, under difficult circumstances.
In both these examples, shoots a gun out of a guy's hand while doing a complicated gymnastic activity (jumping in through a skylight and shooting in midair in one, flipping upside-down while dodging gunshots in the other).
Here she uses her Widow’s Line in two directions at once, disrupting the aim of an assassin and tying up her hand, and connecting the other end to a sign, pulling her off the car:
Widow’s Bite
Note in the various scans the different ways her blast is shown—sometimes with a big energy ray, sometimes more like a bullet/more targeted blast. Note that she uses it up close (melee distance) and from long range. Also note in the last entry that they have just started making it so she can electrify someone by touching them with it, not just by blasting with it.
Shoots guy behind her without looking (here she has gone through surgery to look like Yelena Belova) (good example of a more bullet-like blast):
Blasts two guys right next to her:
Another point-blank blast:
And three more point-blank blasts to the face (in one, she notes how she helped write the SHIELD handbook on fighting). The point of all these point-blank scans is to show that the Widow's Bite is a good ranged weapon, but is also a good bonus to her H2H combat:
Bite described as enough to melt a handgun, then does just that:
She again destroys a handgun. Spidey notes, "that Widow's Bite of yours is something else!" :)
Two examples of her touch-based Widow's Bite:
Some more examples of her touch-based Bite
Another touch-Bite:
Uses it sort of like a taser:
In an unusual move, her Bite acts more like a classic taser, shooting out a line running electric current along it. It's sort of like a mix of her Line and her Bite:
Gauntlet Spikes
Her gauntlets now also shoot spikes. See two uses below.
A variant explanation: it's "electro-molecular adhesers!"
AGILITY/DODGING/STEALTH
Natasha is noted for her graceful agility, and is an extremely effective dodger. Also note some examples under FIGHTING SKILLS where she knocks away guns that are shooting at her from point blank range.
Numerous instances of dodging gunfire, often machine gun fire, often from very close range. Note the grace with which she dodges--it's not hard for her to do this. In one example her hair is blonde (this is when she was disguised as Yelena Belova):
She fights Ivan. She dodges his point-blank gatling-style laser blasts:
While she is mind-controlled, she dodges a bunch of close-range shots from Bucky. As it says, he's not trying to hit her, more herd her in a direction, but his comment about "she's too fast" implies that he probably couldn't hit her regardless. Also note the comment about her grace in dodging. And, she's playing him by actually dodging in the direction she wants to go. Slightly after he throws a knife and she dodges that too.
Drives a car on an overpass above the car she is chasing, leaps out of her car, off the bridge, and onto the speeding car below, in a feat of both timing and agility, then manages to stay on the hood of the speeding, swerving car with only her feet—no hands. This is totally beyond human ability.
Gymnastically dodges multiple energy blasts from a robot:
Dodges multiple point blank shots from two pistols:
Natasha often randomly throws in acrobatic flips and leaps that are beyond what is necessary to get from one place to another, as seen in the fifth panel here. She is naturally gymnastic:
Natasha somersaults out a window into the air:
She bounds up a wall and lands on a wire:
She runs along wires with Daredevil, bounds around, and climbs a wall with her suction cups:
Jumps from ridiculous height into water tower:
Casually runs along a wire that is high above the city:
A crazily high flip while fighting (upper right-hand corner):
Jumps out of a Helicarrier. This is interesting to compare with Elektra’s jump out of a helicarrier. Before this, she steals some stuff from SHIELD, and fights past a bunch of agents. Then, as shown here, she blows up the wall with some bombs and jumps out with no path for survival. SHIELD agents follow in a flying car and jetpacks. In the air, she maneuvers herself into the car and ejects the drive. Then she ties one of the jetpack guys to the car, which falls. She pretends that she’s scared so one jetpack guy grabs her, then steal his pack. When the agent blows up her pack, she falls safely on a car and drives away on a stolen motorcycle. As the agent says, “she turns a 40,000 foot fall into a ballet.” It is impressive to have made the jump without knowing for sure what would happen, but more so it is the grace with which she did it—doing something with grace like that makes it clear how easy it is for her.
After Spider-man sneaks up on her in one issue, she later sneaks up on him, and is able to tap him on the shoulder simultaneously with his spider-sense going off, and before he can react (also notable because when he sneaks up on her, she is able to grab and throw him, while when she sneaks up on him, he just flips away):
DURABILITY
As seen below, Natasha has some pretty solid blunt force durability with multiple falls from a great distance, and some excellent pain tolerance.
Similarly, here she takes a punch directly in the face by an enhanced golem-like LMD, whose next punch caves in a wall, and she gets up immediately after with no problems:
Stays awake during major abdominal surgery without anesthesia. She can’t move at all or they’ll nick her organs. This is a crazy display of pain tolerance and body control:
During Elektra’s first attempted resurrection, Natasha fights some Hand, taking an arrow in the shoulder without a peep (she does turn out to be pretty injured later, but in the moment, completely ignores it)
Survives lengthy fall into water:
Falls an enormous height out of building, bounces off sign and hits car, and is basically fine:
Grabs a fat guy and throws him out of a car window.
Stabs a fat guy and lifts him up at the end of a pole and tosses him.
See also Bucky comment about not realizing her strength:
Knees through a door:
Holds a guy off a ledge with one arm:
Chops three thick board in half.
Two examples of hanging off the side of a building--once just using her arm to hold on, once while holding her line and wedging herself against the building. This looks easy but would take decent grip and arm strength.
Jumps off the side of a boat and grabs onto a port-hole ledge, arresting quite a bit of momentum with just small finger-holds in that move. Then she holds herself up with one arm for a while.
In this fight with guards she threw a guy over her back, not really seeming to use martial arts/leverage to do it:
TACTICS/PREP
This are only a few representative examples. Black Widow is noted for long-term strategies and cons, and for breaking into challenging locations.
Outsmarts Tony Stark. Stark is after her for kidnapping the guy who helped him first build the Iron Man suit when she was much younger. She plays on Stark’s weaknesses by using a fake phone call and make up, then KOs him and breaks into his computer system (and steals some of his tech, not shown here).
The entire plot of one miniseries is that she was willing to have painful plastic surgery done on her to look like Yelena Belova, and then have the surgery reversed after finishing the con. This is, just to point out, crazy! Then she does it again, this time using a drug.
Works with Punisher to make complicated plan to fake Frank's death, where she shoots him off the side of a building, where he is caught by Ghost Rider.
STATS
Black Widow has kept her youth due to a longevity potion from the Russian government, which also seems to have increased her physical stats, including strength, speed, and durability.
Stats: Intelligence 3 (learned), Strength 3 (peak human: lift twice body weight), Speed 2 (normal—“the ability to move over land by running or flight—next level, 3, is up to 700mph), Durability 3 (enhanced), energy projection 3 (short range and duration, single energy type), fighting skills 6 (master of several forms of combat)
Willingness to Do Whatever It Takes
Nat fights and kills pretty viciously under the right circumstances.
Kicks through a knee, cuts off a leg below the knee:
While she was working as an assassin for the Soviets, she not only killed a good friend of hers in cold blood because those were her orders, she then proceeded to kill their cat just to tie up loose ends!
She threatens (and means it) to shoot the Punisher unless he does something for her, and she threatens to kneecap a pretty innocent guy for information.
Cuts a guy's arms off as revenge for what he did to a girl:
OTHER
Good at disguise. Tricks Taskmaster, even though he can read movements, plus, knows that by wearing an eyepatch, no one can recognize her ;)
Spits in a guy’s face, manipulating him into reacting in such a way that he drops a needle exactly where she can grab it and unlock the cuffs. Incredible timing, accuracy, and intuition, not to mention needles aren’t great for lock picking.
She was resurrected by the Chaste after being killed by the Hand’s disintegrating poison. Sometimes people resurrected by the Hand in a similar manner have increased physical stats; this, in addition to her Super Soldier Serum, may explain her stats:
Daredevil can't tell if she's lying:
Her heartbeat is under enough control to keep Daredevil from reading it:
REPUTATION
Wolverine thinks it’s a joke that he’s supposed to be her protector; obviously he thinks she can take care of herself better than he can take care of her:
Fighting SHIELD and Nick Fury. She breaks an agent’s neck and disarms him in one move. In fighting Fury, an agent says, “this is the Black Widow we’re talking about. There was never any questions about whether she’d get the upper hand, just how long it’d take her.”
This is more her own self-assessment, and certainly imbued with class Stan Lee hyperbole, but she describes herself as having "powers enough to be a challenge to Iron Man."
@owie: Wow! No by all means add all the feats you want. It's what the respect thread is for. I can't look at this all right now, but it's looking good man! Looking good!
Have people's opinions changed about Black Widow? I personally really would love to see this movie made. I think if it is done as a spy/thriller it would be a fantastic movie. I want the movie to focus on her, but if Bucky/Winter Soldier joins her in her missions I think it would only make it a better movie.
Bump. I've made several big additions to my post above (post 19). Next step will be to clean it up a little, it's getting a little rag-tag as it has expanded.
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