An iconic Avengers hero just gained Marvel’s deadliest power of all time – and they’re a big enough badass to actually use it. Here’s everything you need to know.
Avengers’ Black Widow Has Mastered Hydrokinesis
AVENGERS’ BLACK WIDOW SHOWCASES HYDROKINETIC POWERS 3
In this week’s X-Vengers #1 – from Jason Loo, Sergio Fernández Dávila, Aure Jimenez, Joe Sabino and Rain Beredo – fans learn Black Widow‘s mutant power. Natasha Romanova is now a master of hydrokinesis. Her entire body has been transformed into water, which she can shape and control at will.
AVENGERS’ BLACK WIDOW SHOWCASES HYDROKINETIC POWERS
A victim of the X-Virus, Black Widow’s latent X-gene has been forcibly activated, turning her into a mutant. Trained by New Mutants’ Dani Moonstar, Black Widow now has a shapeshifting body that is functionally intangible and can immediately send electronics haywire.
AVENGERS’ BLACK WIDOW SHOWCASES HYDROKINETIC POWERS 2
Black Widow can charge through bullets, stretch her body into impossible shapes and utilize any escape route. In the hands of a master spy, it’s an incredibly versatile superpower, but is it really as deadly as we’re claiming?
Is Black Widow’s New Superpower Really That Dangerous?
CHILDREN OF THE VAULT KILL MARVEL’S HEROES
Hydrokinesis is an unusual power to be considered Marvel’s deadliest, but X-Men volume 6 #15 (Gerry Duggan and Joshua Cassara) settled the matter beyond all doubt. In the issue, genius mutant Forge creates a pocket reality to see how Earth’s heroes would fare against the villainous Children of the Vault.
Created in a time prison known as the Vault, the Children of the Vault are hyper-evolved humans designed to take over the world. In the pocket reality, the latest iteration of the Children effortlessly murder Earth’s heroes. While fiery Fuego takes down Ghost Rider and technopath Serafina slew the Invisible Woman, it was the hydrokinetic Sangre who killed all of earth’s ‘tanks.’
The biggest and strongest Marvel heroes still need to breathe, and Sangre took full advantage of that fact, drowning heroes like the Thing and the Hulk while remaining immune to their strength because of his watery body. His performance convinced the X-Men that they could never win against the Children, and had to keep them locked up at all costs.
It may seem like an unusual power to treat as so potent, but there’s a long history of Marvel’s heaviest hitters being taken down via suffocation. It’s how Batman beat the Hulk when they clashed in Batman vs The Incredible Hulk, and how Hulk beat Mister Fantastic in Contest of Champions II, literally inhaling the indestructible hero.
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Black Widow’s New Superpower Is the Perfect Choice
Each of the Avengers’ new powers are a statement about who they are – Shang-Chi holds back immense destructive potential, while Iron Man is transformed into a man of literal iron.
It’s perfect that the ultra-skilled Black Widow – a woman who betrayed her native Russia to work with the Avengers – is defined by her fluidity and lethal potential. Natasha spent her childhood being transformed into a weapon. As a creature of water, Black Widow is more lethal than ever before – but thanks to her own creativity and skill, that’s not all her powers can do.
X-Vengers #1 is available now from Marvel Comics.