As Yelena Belova’s White Widow heads back to the MCU for 2025’s Thunderbolts, Marvel is giving the assassin-turned-hero a new trademark weapon. While the new ‘Widow’s Fangs’ aren’t quite as powerful as when Yelena was upgraded with Super-Adaptoid technology, they do give her the type of unique ability she’ll need to stand alongside Marvel’s superpowered set.
In a preview of White Widow #3, Yelena goes after the evil corporation Armament, which keeps messing with her new life in the town of Idylhaven. To complete the mission, she suits up with a set of knives referred to as the Widow’s Fangs. Each knife has a different ability – ‘the Sting’ delivers a serious electric shock described as like being “tased from the inside,” while ‘the Bite’ delivers a dangerous toxin. Yelena is able to adjust the dosage, allowing her to either incapacitate or kill her target (she remains a lethal hero, after all.) Gyroscopic motion correction helps stabilize the blades, which added to Yelena’s Red Room training makes them one of Marvel’s most unerring weapons.
With earlier entries in the series retconning Yelena to be more similar to her MCU depiction – showcasing her love of hot sauce and friendship with Kate Bishop’s Hawekeye – it’s increasingly likely that the White Widow will be wielding the Widow’s Fangs when MCU fans see her in Thunderbolts.
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Yelena Belova Gets Electric/Poison Knives – The Sting and the Bite
Will the White Widow’s New Weapons Make the Jump to MCU’s Thunderbolts?
A graduate of the Red Room program – Russia’s horrific answer to Weapon X – Yelena Belova was raised as an equal to the turncoat spy the Black Widow. Long an enemy of Natasha and the Avengers, Yelena has recently rethought her life, first working with Black Widow in LA before striking out on her own as a consultant assassin, passing on her skills and training. However, spies are common in the Marvel Universe, and it tends to take a notable power or gadget (like Winter Soldier’s arm or Black Widow’s electro-shock gauntlets) to really help them stand out. Now, the White Widow has exactly that.
The Widow’s Fangs also emphasize Yelena’s ties to Black Widow, who has long used attack gauntlets which pack weapons including the Widow’s Line grappling hook, the Widow’s Kiss knock-out gas, and the Widow’s Bite electro-shock blast. Yelena unavoidably lives somewhat in Natasha Romanova’s shadow, but since the two of them made peace and began acting like family (another change which mirrors their closer MCU relationship), she seems far more comfortable with that fact – as the Widow’s Fangs seem to suggest.
Hopefully, the new Widow’s Fangs knives will make it to 2025’s Thunderbolts, giving the White Widow her own gimmick while working alongside antiheroes like the intangible Ghost, cybernetically enhanced Winter Soldier, and Super Soldier Serum-enhanced U.S.Agent
White Widow #3 is coming January 17 from Marvel Comics.
