- Uniform: Black Widow's costume is made of a version of the Nomex fire-resistant, triple-weave Kevlar-lined material. Her costume protects against damage, but it is also light sensitive and darkens when there is more light in the area, providing the following:
- Excellent Body Armor vs. physical attacks; Good vs. energy attacks.
- Blending: The suit is light-adaptive providing Remarkable Blending abilities and +1CS on Stealth
- Widow's Bite, bracelets with various devices:
- Electro Blaster: Remarkable energy, 4 areas
- Cable-Launcher: Incredible strength, 3 areas cable grapnel + line, which she has used for climbing and swinging
Talents
Acrobatics, Tumbling, Martial Arts A, B, E, Detective/Espionage, Military, Multi-Lingual, Leadership, Marksman, Weaponsmaster, Language: English and Russian, Pilot: Land vehicles
Contacts
None
History
Yelena Belova was 15 when it became obvious that the legendary Black Widow II, Natalia Romanova (aka Natasha Romanoff), had deserted the Soviet Union to become an adventurer in the US. She was recruited in the Red Room for her exceptional physical condition, IQ tests and talent for gymnastics.
Belova trained for years in a very heavy regimen ; her main instructor, especially in hand-to-hand combat, was a veteran sub-colonel from the GRU, Vasilievich Pyotr Starkovsky. She eventually became skilled enough to outfight the grizzled fighter, whom she pretty much considered to be a father figure.
While Starkovsky considered Yelena to be pretty much his daughter, he started developing a strong sexual attraction toward her, which became an obsession. The sexual tension during hand-to-hand combat training became unbearable for the sub-colonel - although this flew right over his young charge's head. Since he considered her his daughter, she was still a minor and she was his charge, Starkovsky found a substitute in the high-class SM brothel Fabrika in Moscow. The madame had one dominatrix, Petra, develop a Black Widow style, dye job and generally become somewhat similar to Yelena Belova ; Starkovsky thus found a way to relieve the sexual tension and be punished for his inappropriate lust.
Or maybe he never did develop such a sexual fixation. The fetish club was a GRU front allowing the military intelligence organization to keep an eye on the decadent Moscovite elite, and Starkowsky was found dead, apparently killed by Petra, who had gone psychotic and convinced she was the actual Black Widow. How much of this narrative is actual fact, and how much was GRU fabrication, is unknown.
Belova, predictably, was shattered by the loss of her father figure when a terse, abrasive general broke the news to her - and told her the sub-colonel had been stealing secret State documents about the Black Widow. Investigating the loss of the documents, she told the Moscow police off the case and started investigating the Fabrika club. However, while she was investigating and the madame was telling her about what had happened at the club, Petra, clad in full Black Widow uniform, murdered the Moscow CID detective and schemed to kill Belova so she could finally be her. Petra caught up with Yelena and shot her, but the Widow's kevlar uniform held and Petra was no match for Yelena, who killed her.
Belova then started stalking the Black Widow, wanting to prove that she was better than she was. Romanova, who was at that time investigating a highly dangerous artificial virus, kept outmaneuvering her and brushing her aside, but was apparently shot dead by SHIELD agents in Belova's arms. Answering Romanova's communicator and still in shock over seeing the Widow's corpse, she unthinkingly took over the Widow's mission, continuing her work since she now *was* the Black Widow. While attempting to steal the virus, she was captured - only to run into Romanova again, who had tricked her. Romanova had outmaneuvered her again, knowing her ambition would lead Belova to take the mantle of the Black Widow - and that it would keep her out of Romanova's hair long enough to complete the mission. Using a trick she learned from watching Romanova, Belova escaped from the scene after a weak attempt at killing Romanova - but the Black Widow told the would-be Black Widow she would never pull the trigger, as she needed to match herself against her elder.
After this clash Romanov, pitying the mind-conditioned young woman whom the GRU had turned into a weapon, ran some mind games on her own. She had Belova captured and surgically altered to be a duplicated of her, and a similar operation performed on herself to look like Belova. She then let Belova wake up in her apartment, and briefly encounter Daredevil. Belova managed to mentally hold together and play along, reasoning she must be on some deep-cover infiltration mission or a similar assignment. She then received orders from a fake Russian courrier - to kill Yelena Belova.
She tracked "Belova" down and confronted her, but Romanov-as-Belova kept role-playing Belova, then went on to accuse Belova-as-Romanov of replacing her because she was jealous she was too old to be the "real" Black Widow. Belova-as-Romanov shot Romanov-as-Belova dead, thus killing herself, and started to unravel, running away in New York City.
Meanwhile Romanov, who had faked her shooting again, infiltrated the Russian underworld as Belova, telling how she had faked her death at the hands of Romanov to make Romanov a wanted woman and destroy her. She uncovered a Russian general, one of Belova's superiors, who was recovering nukes in the American south - but the general made her for a fake. As he was about to execute Romanov-as-Belova, he told her how he had used Belova and would have killed her to further his plan and ambitions - a speech which the real Belova, who had been rescued in New York City by Daredevil and taken south, overheard.
The two Widows then confronted each other, and Romanov told Belova that the whole point of the machination was to save her - to make her understand she was but a tool, not a hero, and that her naivete would kill her - unless she was to receive a painful lesson in the realities of espionage, as Romanov just inflicted. Both women's appearances were switched back, and Belova walked away distraught but wiser.
