Why Black Widow Is More Powerful Than You Thought

you know normally when we do these videos talking about a hero's powers or whatnot we're talking about some super powerful being capable of feats beyond the scope of mere mortals for this video though we're taking a look at one of those mere mortals as we're talking about Natasha Romanov aka Black Widow a character with literally no powers who even still has managed to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the most powerful heroes in the marvel cinematic universe including literal gods so with all that being said let's get right down to it starting things off we're gonna take a look at the characters origins in the film's we've gotten some little bits and pieces in regards to her backstory but not a ton luckily the MCU tie-in comics have filled in the gaps in regards to her early years quite a bit so let's take a look at what we know note that once we get the Black Widow solo film this origin is subject to change as the film's take precedence over the comics and we've seen examples in the past of tie-in comics being ignored or retconned so if you're watching this after that movie has come out take what we talked about here with a grain of salt Natalia alia Nova Romanoff was born in 1984 in the Russian city of Stalingrad not much is really known about her early life or even really anything about her family but at a young age she was recruited into a KGB project that aimed to turn her and other young girls like her into specialized spies and assassins training in the red-room facility under the watchful eye of Madame B the girls chosen for the program were put through a strenuous and often cruel training regimen that covered skills such as hand-to-hand combat acrobatics weapons training and espionage tactics often the girls were forced into fights to the death in order to weed out the weak and during firearms training their targets were occasionally replaced with live prisoners encouraging them to dehumanize their enemies all of this and a serious amount of brainwashing via subliminal messaging in the quote-unquote graduation ceremony that involved the sterilization members of the program really left romanoff in not a great way mentally but did provide her with the skills that turned her into the fighter we know today Romanov served the KGB and later the Russian government loyally for years becoming so effective as an assassin that she quickly popped up on shields radar as a genuine threat to global security director Nick Fury dispatched Clint Barton to eliminate her however Barton recognizing her potential directly disobeyed Fury's order and instead flagged her for recruitment with fury eventually on board Romanov successfully defected from Russia and became a SHIELD agent in earnest with the codename Black Widow Romanov joined up with Barton aka Hawkeye and became shield Strike Team Delta serving in operations across the globe from the Ivory Coast to Budapest Romanovs friendship with Barton would grow to the point that they would become best friends so much so that Barton introduced her to his family which he kept secret from everyone except fury himself Romanoff and Barton would spend the next few years completing numerous missions for shield including one that tasked Romanoff with protecting a nuclear scientist that put her in the literal crosshairs of the Winter Soldier after a particularly intense encounter with the Hydra agent the Winter Soldier managed to gun down the scientist by shooting him through Romanoff which just had to hurt talk about adding insult to injury Romanoff attempted to track him down for a good long while but was forced to give up the chase when the trail went cold probably literally for the Winter Soldier since he was y'know frozen and all that in 2010 under the guise of Natalie rushman a simple notary Romanoff worked her way up the ladder at Stark Industries in order to get close to Tony Stark aka Iron Man on the orders of Nick Fury which is where she made her debut within the MCU in 2010's Iron Man 2 you know the rest of the story from there it's all on screen now normally in these videos this would be the part where we would talk about a character's powers and weaknesses with ro we can't really do that she can't fly she isn't super fast she can't get shot and just shrug it off she is by all accounts a completely normal human she doesn't have superpowers but what she does have is a very particular set of skills and my particular set of skills I mean basically any skill that you could possibly need in a combat situation because holy crap this lady can turn butt-kicking into an art form her time in the red-room facility left her not just with a less than sunny disposition for a few years but also some of the best training known to man she is a master spy meaning that she is highly trained in espionage infiltration stealth disguise and demolitions she is so good at what she does that Nick Fury once tried to create a specialized lie detector just to try to see if he could develop one that she couldn't beat guess how that went for him she also often resorts to seduction in order to achieve her goals such as when she employed it to get close to Tony Stark so she could better evaluate him for the Avengers initiative she is also a master martial artist as you would expect from someone who literally trained in unarmed combat from childhood don't let the jokes about her scissor kicking everything fool you she can do a lot more than just that she is proficient in numerous forms of martial arts including kung-fu Taekwondo [ __ ] Hapkido Krav Maga and Kali she used these techniques to take down everyone from Pirates Hydra agents Ultron BOTS and even members of Thanos is black order that is one mean scissor kick and her combat training extends to melee weapons as well which includes her combat batons their combined staff form and Chitauri Spears will go a bit more into detail about these when we talk about her equipment but just know that she is good with them really good actually wrapping up the combat skills portion of this section is her skill as a marksman which is second only to Barton you know the guy whose whole shtick is being a good shot she's not as good as him but she's still a heck of a sharpshooter Romanoff is fluent in English Russian French German Chinese Italian and even Latin for some reason not sure why anyone needs to be able to speak Latin outside of the Vatican but she can I guess so there's that for you she is hyper intelligent able to process multiple information streams at once and is even capable of outsmarting at outmaneuvering some of the marvel cinematic universes smartest minds such as when she was interrogating Loki during the first Avengers film she's also an expert hacker for example when she accessed the ship's log at the beginning of Captain America the Winter Soldier and to top things off she is even a trained pilot able to fly the Quinn jet with ease all in all she's really good at basically anything that she tries to do helping her with her mastery of everything is pretty much all of the tech that she could possibly want since her escapades have been funded by shield and then Tony Stark himself when she became an Avenger full-time some highlights though include her aptly named widow's bite a pair of wrist mounted weapons that are capable of discharging electrical blasts basically their wrist mounted tasers that she can use to shock people or in the case of the battle in New York alien foot soldiers she later on received an upgraded version of the weapons from Tony Stark that not only up to the voltage that they could put out but also allowed her to fire off electrically charged discs to stun enemies from a distance like she did against Black Panther in civil war she also has a pair of shock batons that can combine together to make a shock staff that's some pretty sweet stuff right there the batons function quite similarly to her widow's bite discharging a large amount of electricity to stun her opponents she's used them against Ultron sentries in age of Ultron and of course against Proxima midnight in infinity war she's also utilized an assortment of different handguns and firearms throughout her adventures including Glock 19's Walther PPK s's and a Chitauri staff gun thing how would you classify that as a gun or a spear slash staff let me know in the comments below and of course we got to talk about the coolest piece of tech that she has only ever used once the photostatic veil this fancy bit of kit also known as a nano mask is a thin mesh like veil made up of tea tiny holographic cells that allow the wearer to impersonate basically anyone romanoff used it during Winter Soldier to disguise herself as a member of the World Security Council in order to stop Alexander Pierce from executing hydras master plan the device is easily the coolest and most dangerous thing ever it's basically deep fakes but in real life imagine the kind of trouble that someone could get into with tech like that scary stuff all of that being said despite her skills in her tech the thing that makes Black Widow such an effective hero largely comes down to the company that she keeps whether it is fighting Hydra agents alongside Captain America hunting the Winter Soldier with Hawkeye or banding together with her Super Friends to stop an army of rampaging aliens or murder bots natalia alia nova natasha romanoff stands tall as an extremely valuable member of the Avengers now that we've taken a look at one half of strike team delta do you think that we should do a video on Clint Hawkeye Barton let us know down in the comments below and while you're down there don't forget to like this video and subscribe to Screen Rant for even more great content about your favorite big-screen heroes and villains thanks for watching and I hope to see you at the movies [Music]

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 2,296,935

Rating: 4.8864784 out of 5

Keywords: Marvel, MCU, Black Widow, Scarlett Johansson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Nick Fury, Avengers, Avengers: Endgame, Infinity Wars, Powers Explained, Screen Rant, ScreenRant

Id: -Bz8BlQFAiE

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2019