Five Times Black Widow Was Clearly the Most Badass Avenger

Give Natasha Her Due

“Concentrate fire on the weak ones.” — Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Avengers: Age of Ultron

The weak ones. Any casual Marvel fan knows immediately that Strucker was talking about Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), the two non-enhanced members of the Avengers. And any true fan knows that Strucker was a moron, especially with regard to Black Widow.

Before getting into why Strucker (and by extension Disney) is so completely wrong, let me say that this semi-rambling piece was inspired by a non-rambling, superb analysis by Eric Pierce of how poorly Black Widow was treated as a character throughout the Marvel films. You can read it below, and should even if you stop reading mine. (Seriously, go there now and come back; I’ll wait).

It was worth the detour, right? My take on the situation won’t be as detailed as Eric’s. Rather, I will show you five times Natasha was the most badass Avenger, and why the missed opportunities with her character are so frustrating. I could have listed 50, but you would have bailed at the title.

1. Crushing a hallway full of goons (Iron Man II). After 23 films it can be hard to remember that at the time of Iron Man II we had not yet met Thor or Captain America (debate still rages about whether the 2008 Hulk film counts). We had Tony Stark, who was super-powerful in the Iron Man suit, and a glimpse of War Machine (also in a suit). So when undercover secretary Natasha went full Jason Bourne on a small army of thugs as Happy struggled to defeat just one, it was the most impressive hand-to-hand fight we had seen, and still one of the best not involving a suit, a god, a super-soldier, or a big green meanie.

2. Tricking the great trickster (The Avengers). Sheer brawn and amazing tech are the Avengers’ typical go-to methods for dealing with problems. In opening herself up to Loki in order to get him to reveal that the Hulk was his target, she shows the intelligence (call it tradecraft, if you will) that served her so well as a Russian spy. There was only one way to get Loki to spill his plan, and she played him like a cheap fiddle. Sometimes brains really do trump brawn.

3. Having a moral compass that wasn’t frozen in one spot (Captain America: Civil War). Natasha somewhat surprisingly sided with Tony over the Sokovia Accords, which pitted her against her natural allies (Cap, Wanda, and of course Clint). She did everything in her power to sway them to her side and fought them right up to the end…almost. In the ultimate showdown at the airport, she chose to have Cap’s back against Black Panther, allowing him and Bucky to escape because she knew it was the right thing to do even though there would be a price to pay. She knew better than any of them that the answers aren’t always black and white.

4. Holding the team together (Avengers: Endgame). After the snap, while Thor was busy getting drunk and fat, Tony was retreating to married life, and Clint was exacting vengeance as Ronin, it was Natasha who held what was left of the Avengers together. For someone who had operated solo almost her entire life, the tenacity with which she held on to the only family she ever had was inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time. Being a badass doesn’t always mean fighting the bad guys; sometimes it’s as simple (though never easy) as doing the right thing when no one else will.

5. The ultimate sacrifice (Avengers: Endgame). This is the most badass moment in a decade of them, and the hardest one to actually write about (I am still angry at Marvel over this). We knew when she and Clint got to Vormir to retrieve the soul stone that only one of them would return. Given what each had done during the first hour of the film, it made sense that Clint would die to atone for his Ronin period. Yet once again, Nat saw the situation differently.

If the Avengers had become her family, then the Bartons had even more so. Remember that she was the only one of the team who even knew Clint had a family before Age of Ultron, and she was close enough to them that the kids called her Aunt Nat. They even named the baby after her. Her sacrifice on Vormir gave her other family, the normal one she never had, the chance to be whole again. Yes, she wanted to save everybody, but them most of all. It was the most epic fight of her life, because it was against both her best friend and herself.

There are plenty of other moments I could include, from exposing Hydra (and herself) to the world at the end of Winter Soldier to the chair fight at the start of The Avengers to her takedown of Happy in Iron Man II. Her showing up at Peggy’s funeral because she didn’t want Steve to be alone showed her to be the type of friend we all wish we had. Time and again, Black Widow showed herself the equal of the more celebrated Avengers, and often much more. She was many things, but never, ever, the weak one.