Favorite Characters: Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (The Avengers)

That’s right, I’m one of those fans clamoring for a Black Widow movie – I would watch the crap out of that.  I was almost entirely indifferent to this character in her first appearance to the Avengers movie-verse, but her more recently outings display how incredible she is.

When Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2, she did hardly anything for me.  The film basically casts her as another hot redhead to put in Tony’s sphere, but with a quarter of Pepper’s personality, and then whips out her hand-to-hand combat skills for the final act.  She’s either a sexy vessel or a sexy killing machine, depending on what’s needed at the time.  Not exactly riveting.

Thank goodness for Joss Whedon, who showed me in the first Avengers movie how truly awesome Black Widow can be.  Her initial scene in that film wipes the floor with the entirety of Iron Man 2.  Captured and menaced by a group of Russian mobsters, she makes it clear that she’s exactly where she wants to be, as well as wholly in control of the situation.  Her brutal takedown of the mobsters – all while tied to a chair – is one of my favorite fight scenes in recent years, and throughout, she just radiates the cool capability that is so essential to her character.

Between The Avengers and the most recent Captain America venture, Black Widow kicks serious butt, has massive amounts of agency, and always keeps me guessing.  For those unfamiliar, she’s a former Russian agent, recruited as a child and trained as a shrewd spy and a ruthless assassin.  Those days, however, are past, and though her actions from back then still haunt her, she fights for the good guys now.  S.H.I.E.L.D., the government’s intelligence agency that takes on superhuman threats, puts her skills to better use.

I love that.  All too often in comic book films, the toughest, most capable female characters are baddies, while the female leads tend to play love interests/damsels for the male heroes.  Black Widow used to be an enemy, before we knew her, and there’s more than a little gray to her character, but she’s firmly on our side.  It’s great to see her fight alongside Captain America or perform a little sly spy-fu for Nick Fury. 

It’s obvious that she’s a boss.  Her fighting skills are off-the-charts – quick, efficient, and endlessly impressive.  She’s also an intelligent woman who can think on her feet.  In the latest Captain America, she’s often the one calling the shots when she and Cap go on the run, because she has a talent for improvising disguises, misdirection, and contingency plans.  She can work alone, leading a gaggle of nameless agents, or as half of a team, like with Hawkeye or Cap.  She’s a hard person to get to know – experience has caused her to play everything close to the chest – but she’s brave, loyal, and determined to make up for the evils of her past.

Probably the most amazing thing about Black Widow is her lack of superpowers.  Like Hawkeye, she’s not technically one of the Avengers.  She’s not an alien, a science experiment gone wrong or right, or someone augmented by incredible technology.  She’s just a supremely capable human being with the skills to hold her own alongside Captain America and the nerve to try to defuse the Hulk.  Awesome, kickass human with tactical knowhow and a dark past?  I mean, seriously – how does she not have her own movie yet?