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Old 10-04-2017, 06:07 PM   #31
Phantasm
 
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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However, Tony Stark had his Vietnamese adventure as a civilian consultant, and didn't have the experience of frontline combat or guerrilla warfare. And he was back from Nam and flying around in an iron suit early enough so that the anti-war protests hadn't really taken off. I think he was there when Kennedy was still in the White House, and buddy buddy with the South Vietnamese Catholic despots, and anticommunism was a widespread American attitude even among liberals.
Indeed. IIRC, the anti-war sentiment didn't take off until late in LBJ's term or early in Nixon's.

And IIRC, Stark became Iron Man in '62, when Kennedy was still active, though I don't think Marvel actually referenced the sitting President in the early stuff until LBJ took office.

Fantastic Four and Hank Pym came in '61 (though Pym didn't take the Ant-Man identity until '62); Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Sgt. Fury started in '62 (though the latter was set in WWII); and I'm pretty sure Daredevil, the X-Men, and Doctor Strange started in '63. The Avengers didn't form until late '63, IIRC. In Iron Man, Ant-Man, and Hulk's titles, communists - either Chinese or Russian - were frequent bad guys. Getting back on topic, Black Widow started as a Soviet KGB operative working against Stark, and maneuvered Hawkeye into conflict with shell-head through her feminine wiles (among other skills in her arsenal).
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Old 10-04-2017, 06:16 PM   #32
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Movie!Widow is not a recipient of any serum.
Although she is apparently a graduate of Leviathan.
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Old 10-04-2017, 06:16 PM   #33
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Fantastic Four and Hank Pym came in '61 (though Pym didn't take the Ant-Man identity until '62); Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Sgt. Fury started in '62 (though the latter was set in WWII); and I'm pretty sure Daredevil, the X-Men, and Doctor Strange started in '63. The Avengers didn't form until late '63, IIRC. In Iron Man, Ant-Man, and Hulk's titles, communists - either Chinese or Russian - were frequent bad guys. Getting back on topic, Black Widow started as a Soviet KGB operative working against Stark, and maneuvered Hawkeye into conflict with shell-head through her feminine wiles (among other skills in her arsenal).
Yes, and there was no suggestion that she had enhancements, either to longevity or to raw physical attributes. Of course there have been a lot of different continuities since then. But I'm inclined to take the MCU as a separate continuity, in which things from any of the comic book continuities are not necessarily true—and the MCU has shown us that Soviet agents were trained under a cruelly harsh regime and were surgically sterilized, but not that they were given super-soldier treatments. There was a separate group of super-soldiers, starting with the Winter Soldier—and Natasha was terrified of him. Nor was there any hint of her being among the World War II trainees on "Agent Carter."

I don't think the MCU continuity supports her being older than she looks.
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Old 10-04-2017, 06:21 PM   #34
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Nor was there any hint of her being among the World War II trainees on "Agent Carter."
There isn't? Her flashbacks look almost exactly like what we see of Leviathan in Agent Carter. I'd be really surprised if that was coincidence.

She isn't that old, but she is the product of an institution that is.
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Old 10-04-2017, 07:07 PM   #35
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There isn't? Her flashbacks look almost exactly like what we see of Leviathan in Agent Carter. I'd be really surprised if that was coincidence.

She isn't that old, but she is the product of an institution that is.
Yes, exactly. She could perfectly well have been through a training program that went back to Stalin's days, without having been alive in that era. Nothing I said was intended to rule that out.
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Old 10-04-2017, 07:08 PM   #36
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Yes, exactly. She could perfectly well have been through a training program that went back to Stalin's days, without having been alive in that era. Nothing I said was intended to rule that out.
Yeah I read "wasn't any hint" as "there was no hint of a connection" which wasn't what you meant.
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Old 10-04-2017, 07:17 PM   #37
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Yes, and there was no suggestion that she had enhancements, either to longevity or to raw physical attributes. Of course there have been a lot of different continuities since then. But I'm inclined to take the MCU as a separate continuity, in which things from any of the comic book continuities are not necessarily true—and the MCU has shown us that Soviet agents were trained under a cruelly harsh regime and were surgically sterilized, but not that they were given super-soldier treatments. There was a separate group of super-soldiers, starting with the Winter Soldier—and Natasha was terrified of him. Nor was there any hint of her being among the World War II trainees on "Agent Carter."

I don't think the MCU continuity supports her being older than she looks.
No, in fact her birth date (or at least the year) is given by computer!Zola in Winter Soldier (some time in the late '80s or early '90s IIRC). Of course, I'm making a distinction between comics continuity (Earth-616) and the MCU (Earth-199999), and mainly discussing 616!Black Widow.

Again, the super-soldier program that comics!Nat is a recipient of was a relatively recent retcon in order to keep her WWII appearances (remembered by both Steve Rogers during the Pacific campaigns prior to his final fateful mission in Europe - itself a retcon from Avengers v1 #4 - and Wolverine, who at the time was apparently Canadian special forces, though Logan's own memory of the era is questionable) viable in the sliding time scale instead of merely topical. Mind, the tales with Wolverine and an infant Natasha Romanoff were written almost two decades ('80s and '90s) before they wrote Wolverine: Origins, so I'm not sure how much survived the Quesada era.

As I recall, Black Widow was pushing 30 in-universe in the mid '80s to early '90s (when she was running around in a gray bodysuit with a spider insignia on her left breast, and close-cropped hair - and occasionally an Avengers-logo leather jacket... yeah, those were a thing in the early '90s) - the super-soldier program retcon occurred in the late '90s or '00s, IIRC. In-universe, I'd probably peg her at 35 without the serum; with it, she's the most active 75 year old character out there. :)
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The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation.
Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting
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Old 10-04-2017, 08:27 PM   #38
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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Again, the super-soldier program that comics!Nat is a recipient of was a relatively recent retcon in order to keep her WWII appearances (remembered by both Steve Rogers during the Pacific campaigns prior to his final fateful mission in Europe - itself a retcon from Avengers v1 #4 - and Wolverine, who at the time was apparently Canadian special forces, though Logan's own memory of the era is questionable) viable in the sliding time scale instead of merely topical. Mind, the tales with Wolverine and an infant Natasha Romanoff were written almost two decades ('80s and '90s) before they wrote Wolverine: Origins, so I'm not sure how much survived the Quesada era.
This kind of thing is what inspired a friend and me to co-GM the DC Realtime campaign a decade or two ago, with DC characters beginning their careers in the years when they were first published (or something displaced form it in a comic-booky way, such as the Legion of Super Heroes starting ca. 2960). He talked about doing a Marvel Realtime, and I rather wish he had.
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Old 10-06-2017, 03:57 AM   #39
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

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I don't want to be "That guy" but figuring out Gurps combat is really hard. I have no idea what the damage is. What's a good Martial art? I want a good attack, and some dodge. Bonus points for telling me the damage for a str 12, dex 14 char.

Thanks.
I think the best way to answer this is find out what your black widow is going to be going up against and what you want those fights to look like.


So for instance take the hallway fight scene in Ironman 2, if you and your GM are looking to emulate that and stat the Security guards as being ST/HP/DX 11, Skill 13

Then yep we can help build character that will look like that fight scene.


If however you want her to also look exactly like that when fighting a bunch opponents with ST/HP/DX 20, skill 25 and whole bunch "of keep em fighting" advantages, then that's different

(but I'm sure people can help you with that as well)
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Old 10-06-2017, 01:26 PM   #40
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Default Re: Trying to make Black Widow

While people often focus on Widow's combat skills, they also tend to forget that she's a master manipulator, infiltrator, and double agent. In the movies (and referenced in Agents of SHIELD), she has a lifetime's training in "becoming the mask", is able to fool a former Soviet general and Loki into divulging critical information by appearing to be in a position of weakness when she was in control the whole time, and is possibly able to defeat SHIELD/Hydra-quality lie detector tests that were designed to beat her (AoS S1 was ambiguous on that last point).

To this end, I highly recommend giving her Acting and Body Language at 16+, bolstered by a high Per score and the other skills from the Smooth Operator talent. She is as much a Face character as she is a Scrapper.

I built her with an eye towards the female Russian agent (played by Barbara Bach) in The Spy Who Loved Me (one of Roger Moore's James Bond films): able to kick ass, look good doing it, plow through mooks, fight those of her own caliber to a standstill, and manipulate everyone around her into giving up crucial information.
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"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991

"But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!"

The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation.
Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting
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