This may have been asked before, if so I apologize and humbly request a link that I could not find for myself.
Having watched bits and pieces of various MU movies on TV, I was always struck by Black Widow, who did not seem to have any actual “super” powers – she was canny and a very good fighter and tactician, but she was (if I may so put it) apparently fully human.
There are others that seem still human or mostly so: Iron Man who uses technology developed by his brilliant mind with which to fight (and I guess that thing on his chest keeps him alive); Don Cheadle’s character (IMDB frustratingly does not show their “super character” names) who seems to use some other kind of flying armored suit, I don’t know where he got it; I’m not sure about the guy who shoots arrows; Black Panther also apparently uses technology; and I can’t think of any others. Some were born super (“gods” and aliens), some had super-ness thrust upon them (Captain America, Spiderman and The Hulk for example, or the Fantastic Four). But Black Widow doesn’t seem to use gadgets or enhancements, she doesn’t seem to have any innate super powers, just guts and smarts. Have I got this wrong?
(There’s also Nick Fury, who doesn’t seem to have super powers either, but he doesn’t actually do much most of the time either.)
Yes, there are lots of “highly trained normal” superheroes (Batman, for another one). Of course, they usually also have the hidden action movie superpower of being able to get beaten to a pulp and recover almost instantly with no serious lasting damage.
I believe Black Widow is suppose to be slightly super powered but mainly is a top notch spy/assassin. She has some regenerative or fast heal powers and is basically trained to human max.
Hawkeye has a greater than human Max accuracy but I think is otherwise just very well trained and conditioned. And of course in Hawkeye it is shown the years of abuse on his body are getting to him.
She does, just not to the extent of an armored suit. But she has various tasers and similar devices to help disable people. You’re broadly right though in that she’s largely “normal”. Her MCU best friend Hawkeye is similar – gadgety arrows but basically a normal dude when compared to superpowered behemoths. I assumed that was supposed to be a strong part of their bond; a couple of regular people in an army of superpowers.
Rhodey wears the War Machine armor, which is a variant of what Tony wears. Barton’s main skill is that he doesn’t miss. Ever. Nat went through The Red Room training, which puts her at “peak human” levels. She does use some technology (Widow’s Sting bracelets, for example, which she uses without explanation in “The Avengers.”) Nick Fury doesn’t have powers, but he is dosed with an anti-aging serum.
She’s the team’s “infiltrator”. The others get into the enemy base by kicking down the door; she gets in by sneaking in through the air ducts, or sweet-talking the guard. You don’t needs superpowers for that.
In the seventies, I remember she was kind of a Russian female version of James Bond, a reformed femme fatale, sometimes. She hooked up with Daredevil occasionally and had a chauffeur named Ivan who made her gadgets. She also tended to have past lovers who went on to become major supervillains bent on destroying America. I’m sure she got reinvented after the Cold War era faded.
I think in the movies she also used a baton once or twice. But most of her fighting is done by hitting people with her (ostensibly) normal human strength.
[paraphrased from whichever movie this was, from back when it came out]
I loved that one of the Avengers movies starts with Natasha (BW) tied to a chair, being tortured for information by Scary Ruskies and a Scary General. One of their phones rings, he says to the general “Eet ees for her…” It’s Fury, and she replies “Now? Oh, come on. He’s given me almost all the information we need, I just need a few more… Oh, all right.”
And she does a flip, breaking the chair, and beats up everyone. No powers needed, just top-notch training. Maybe from watching Alias.
Oh, and Don Cheadle/Rhodey/War Machine’s suit was made by Stark/Iron Man. He’s Stark’s best friend, and while Stark’s ego won’t let him just give someone the suit, he sort of accidentally deliberately looked the other way long enough for Rhodey to take it and not give it back.
Rhodey’s suit is only the second one that Stark ever made, though, and his own suits have gone through several dozen iterations of improvements since then. Rhodey’s does have several bits of tech added by the US military (he’s an active duty colonel), but of course that’s inferior to what Stark’s got.
There’s also Falcon (can’t remember his civilian name or the actor) who has a suit (built by the US military) that just flies. He generally fights using an ordinary pistol, and aside from the wingsuit, is another one who’s just a top-notch but normal soldier. I think that he has now also inherited Captain America’s shield, but I didn’t watch that show.
I’m not sire it’s canon, but about a decade ago Marvel made a very cool show about the origin of Shield, called Agent Carter. She was Caps love interest in the 40s-set Captain America movies. Howard Stark, Tony’s father, was the inventor who made what would be Shield’s gadgets possible. (Those would be found later in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, which is also non-canon today.)
Anyway, some of the bad guys were bad girls who had undergone training in Russia’s Red Room, which was the origin of the Black Widow program of super spies. I think it was suggested that the actual Black Widow was one of them and that something something something made her ageless so she was still around in the 21st century the way Cap was. I may be misrembering or they just decided to dump the idea when the series wasn’t renewed for a third season.
Black Panther is not a normal human. Like the previous Black Panthers before him he was enhanced during the ceremony when he ate the heart shaped herb (a plant infused with vibranium). His modern Black Panther suit gives him a technological advantage over the previous BPs. Without the suit he’s naturally about Captain America level of strength and agility.
Drop what you’re doing and watch that. Hayley Atwell was perfect (better than she was in the latest Mission Improbable movie). Another excellent non-powered hero.
I’ve been giving up on current Marvel series on Diz+, and re-watching stuff like Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, and Agent Carter (and the first episode of What If? that was animated Agent Carter as Cap).
And which might also be, at least in part, magical, since the ceremony to eat it involves meeting (and in at least one case, getting secret information from) one’s dead ancestors.
And even without the herb, he’s also an extremely well-trained combatant, since the succession ceremony involves his panther-powers being temporarily removed, at which point other nobles can challenge and fight him.
I think there was a little girl character referred to as “Natasha” who was in the program so the implication was there…but also in American media theres only like 3 Russian names so ::shrug:: In the comics, I believe they have retconned Natasha to be “Winter Soldier”-ed and be from the 40s/50s and been frozen and thawed out as needed until she defected.