#1065 Marvel vs Capcom Infinite (STEAM) DLC Characters (4/6): Black Widow playthrough.
0A playthrough of the DLC character Black Widow in the PC/Steam version of Capcom’s Marvel vs Capcom Infinite.
A huge thanks to user GodShin for the values for this game.
“She’s a slut” – Jeremy Renner on Black Widow
“Complete whore” – Chris Evans on Black Widow.
Oh boy, it’s Black Widow. A character the MCU has never quite known what to do with, and usually consigns her to being shipping fodder for nearly every film she’s in. Despite having a really interesting background story, and being one of the more ambiguous and grounded characters in the entire universe, I always felt her portrayal was let down by the fact that Scarlett Johansson is, at best, a mediocre actress who simply can’t hold a performance on her own and nearly always needs to be propped up by other cast members in the films she’s in, whether that’s Ghost World, Lost in Translation, The Prestige, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and god knows how many other films.
Widow has come to be seen as, effectively, the general “female representation” for the MCU films, namely because she tends to be the only female main character in them, or at least the only female lead to actually kick any ass in most of the films, until phase 2 and 3 brought in many more female characters. This meant that when something vaguely controversial happened in regards to her, people got particularly upset for whatever reason, such as the interview referenced above where Renner and Evans outright called her a whore and laugh their arses off in the process. The other big one, because lord knows Age of Ultron was better known for its controversy than its lacklustre plot, was that one scene in the film where Natasha is attempting to humanise with Bruce, and they both share that they’re infertile. Now, Age of Ultron was directed by Joss Whedon, best known for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series as well as the cult classic Firefly; both great shows with strong female leads, but ones which often dealt with very dark themes and didn’t shy away from them either, particularly in Firefly. As a result, he pretty much got it in the neck when this film came out and people (idiotically, as usual) interpreted that Natasha was implying that she was a monster because she couldn’t have children. Instead of, you know, the idea that they had attempted to dehumanise her by making her unable to have children, and the idea that the lack of maternal instincts would probably cause her to be emotional-less and disconnected to the abhorrent realities of her killings, thereby turning her into a more effective weapon. Not that being able to have children made her a monster, but that it was done to keep her as a monster, given the idea that maternal instincts may make her awaken to a sense of humanity she lacked otherwise. However, nobody who uses twitter has an IQ above 80, and so this got taken the worst way possible, because of course it did.
If that seems like a weird thing to focus on, well, the MCU is so ingrained into the fabric of this game that I think it’s important to contextualise its characters both in-universe and in the public consciousness, in order to explain their inclusion. Black Widow being absent from the initial roster was both baffling and ridiculous, but it’s made all the worse by the fact that her moveset here utterly sucks. Nothing seems to link into anything else, so you’ve got these really good, speedy normals which hit hard, but she’s just not able to link it into any of her special moves. Hell, her air specials barely work either, and her command grabs can’t be comboed into, making them nearly worthless. Her regular specials are difficult or impossible to combo into either, making it feel like two different teams worked on her and then just fitted her together without checking whether it all functioned properly or not. Which, knowing Capcom, was probably what happened. She’s not terrible to any extent, but I really do feel like I’m fighting against myself when I’m playing as her.
The only redeeming part of Widow here is that her VA puts more emotion into her lines than Scar Jo ever does in the films, so that’s one saving grace. I guess.
Next up, another character who only really works in the MCU.
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