Characters / MCU: Red Room

Main Character Index > Villainous Organizations > Red Room

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Spoilers for all works set prior to Spider-Man: No Way Home are unmarked.

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The Red Room

In General

The Red Room

Appearances: Agent Carter | Avengers: Age of Ultron ^note  In an illusion made by Wanda | Black Widow | What If...? | Marvel Zombies

A Soviet program designed to indoctrinate young girls into trained assassins—each agent being granted the title of "Black Widow". It was originally under the control of a Soviet organization called "Leviathan", with its origins dating at least as far back as the late 1930s. In modern times, it came under the leadership of Soviet General Dreykov, and following the fall of the Soviet Union, the program (and its agents) was transformed into his personal system of provocateurs, assassins and intelligence network, devoted to increasing his influence on the global stage.

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• Amazon Brigade: The purpose of the Red Room is to make an army of all-female spies and soldiers. In Black Widow, they provide armies of punchable henchwomen to fight, though in most other incarnations agents act alone.
• Anti-Villain: For the most part, the Widows are brainwashed, conditioned killers who were given no choice in their circumstances. Dreykov's modern Widows, as seen in Black Widow, are under his chemically-induced control and totally incapable of disobeying him, only acting as antagonists until they're freed from Dreykov's control.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Those who go through the program are conditioned into killers. Modern widows are controlled through subjugative chemicals instead of psychological conditioning.
• The Chosen Many: Black Widow reveals the Red Room chooses its Widows by assessing their genetic potential as infants.
• Cold Sniper: Widows are trained snipers capable of killing targets from afar.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Both incarnations beat this mindset into the Widows. For example, the original generation of children were forced to sleep with one hand chained to their bed every night, with at least one adult Widow carrying on this tradition even when out in the field.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Downplayed. Whenever we see an individual Black Widow in action (be it Natasha, Yelena, Melina, or Dottie), we see them as One-Man Army-level fighters, capable of neutralizing/defeating multiple opponents at once. When it's an entire unit of them fighting a lesser number of targets, the results tend to be mixed.
  • When they pursued Natasha and Yelena, the latter two still survive and give them enough trouble.
  • Natasha's fight with the whole unit after Dreykov sicced them on her eventually went south for her, with her only surviving being pummeled because Dreykov ordered them to make Natasha suffer first, and then Yelena managed to de-brainwash the whole lot of them in the nick of time.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Girls from all over the world were kidnapped to fill the ranks of this organization. Dreykov doesn't care about their ethnicity or where they come from because he sees all of them as equally disposable and replaceable.
• Every Scar Has a Story: The first generation of Widows all sport a single scar all the way around their wright wrists, a remnant of their childhoods when they were each forced to sleep with one hand chained to their beds. This practice was evidently discontinued in later generations, as modern Widows do not have these scars.
• Evil Versus Evil: Organizes a mission to steal research from a S.H.I.E.L.D. cell that is actually one of HYDRA's secret cells within S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Former Regime Personnel: Originally the Red Room was part of the Russian KGB, under the banner of the Leviathan group, training girls to be part of the Soviet intelligence network. By the time of Black Widow, however, the Red Room is completely detached from Russia and is not directly in service to any world government, instead being an independent global mercenary operation. Presumably when Dreykov came into power, since he runs it to follow his own agenda rather than for any loyalty to his home country.
• Gun Kata: Seen in Black Widow (image above) where the widows are practicing techniques with guns. The widows are trained in a mix of ballet and martial arts along with gun play.
• Hired Guns/Professional Killer: Judging by Clint Barton's less-than-surprised reaction to learning that a Black Widow was hired to carry out a hit on him, as well as Yelena Belova's own reaction to learning that an ex-Widow's luxurious apartment was paid for by a career as one of these, it is clear that after the fall of the Red Room, mercenary, assassin, and saboteur work is an exceedingly common career path for ex-Widows.
• Mirror Character: To HYDRA. Both are Sinister Spy Agencies that are frequently antagonized by S.H.I.E.L.D. and were created by their respective governments (Nazi Germany for HYDRA in its current form, Soviet Russia for the Red Room) as a means of developing strategic advantages before going rogue. Both worked to create super soldiers (Wanda and the Winter Soldier with HYDRA, Red Guardian, the Black Widows and Taskmaster for the Red Room) who would go on to work against their interests as superheroes. Both have developed an advanced, seemingly unstoppable network of agents used to control the world from the shadows, only to be undone when all of their secrets are leaked and their leadership killed (both ironically by Natasha).
• Protection Racket: The gist of how the post-Soviet Red Room operates; Dreykov gets what he asks for from a given country, or he sends in some Widows to cause some carnage.
• Quality over Quantity: A subversion: when specifically compared to the Winter Soldier program of HYDRA, they seem to take the quantity side. For their part, the Red Room has arguably more success. After all, it was reliance on the Super Soldier Serum that clearly played a part in the instability of their Winter Soldiers (forcing them to be put on ice), whereas save Natasha, the Red Room leadership has managed to keep control of their Widows for the good part of at least three decades.
• The Spartan Way: All girls abducted by the Red Room are subjected to Training from Hell and brainwashing techniques. 19 of every 20 girls do not survive the program. Those that survive are lethal, ruthless assassins.
• Spy School: The Red Room was launched specifically to create the perfect spies on-behalf of the Soviet government, later creating spies for its own agenda after going rogue.
• We Are Everywhere: Dreykov tells Natasha that his network of Widows covers the whole world, and he can have them cause catastrophes anywhere from his tablet.

Leadership

General Dreykov (Unmarked Spoilers)

General Dreykov

"With you, an Avenger under my control, I can finally come out of the shadows using the only natural resource that the world has too much of: Girls."

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Ray Winstone

Appearances: Black Widow

"These world leaders, these great men, they answer to me and my Widows."

An ex-Soviet general who now controls the Red Room to serve his own personal agenda.

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• Abusive Parents: He sees himself as a father figure to all the girls selected for the Black Widow program, whom he orders abused and forced into training The Spartan Way so that only one in every 20 girls survives to be Reforged into a Minion. He controlled Natasha and others of her generation through psychological manipulation, and in later cases uses chemical and surgical means that rob them of their free will. He even has the “widows” subjected to involuntary hysterectomies so they'll have no way to have children of their own, further tightening his control over them. And that's without discussing what he did to his actual daughter...
• Ambition Is Evil: Dreykov's crimes are all motivated by his insatiable desire for more power, because he's such a control freak that he'll settle for nothing less than the total domination of everyone else.
• Arch-Enemy: The closest Natasha has to one. He was responsible for kidnapping her as a child, killing her biological mother when she got too close to her, brainwashed her into becoming an assassin and breaking up her "family" when S.H.I.E.L.D. closed in on them.
• Asshole Victim: Given everything he has done, his "girls" including Taskmaster, his own daughter, don't mourn him the slightest bit.
• Baddie Flattery: He can't help but be impressed when he sees a young Natasha Romanoff grab a gun and threaten to kill his henchmen to protect her "sister".
  General Dreykov: That one, she has fire in her.
• Berserk Button: Don't call him weak. Don't laugh at him. Don't tell him to stop.
• Big Bad: Of Black Widow. He's the past and present handler of the Red Room, which also gives him a personal connection to the heroes.
• Big Bad Wannabe: His personal cowardice and attempts to come off as a threat to the whole world seem pathetic, especially when his stated agenda of ruling it by acts of terror seems small-scale and repetitive in comparison to previous villains. Notably, it's pointed out that all of his plans are doomed because of his lack of foresight; the real problem is the damage he does trying to accomplish them.
• The Bully: His character boiled down to the nuts and bolts is a man who picks on and abuses those he knows can’t fight back against him and when the tables are turned and someone does land a blow on him he’s shown to be a sniveling coward.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: He doesn't remember Natasha's real mother's name. When pressed, all he can recall is the location they buried her, with a makeshift headstone marked "Unknown".
• Canon Foreigner: He's a Composite Character of the many Red Room heads from the comics, and as such doesn't have a direct analogue to any specific character. Subsequently, the "Dreykov" name and identity is a completely original concept from the MCU.
• Composite Character: He shares attributes of various Red Room handlers and other KGB stereotyped characters from the comics. The pheromones that prevents Widows from attacking him notably brings to mind Vassily Ilyich Ulyanov, who led the North Institute that targeted the Widows and utilized a similar tactic in a perfume form.
• Control Freak: In the extreme. For example, everyone he's talked to for the past few decades has been physically incapable of refusing his orders.
• Create Your Own Hero: He is the one who took Natasha from her biological family and turn her into his Black Widow. Eventually, Natasha defected to S.H.I.E.L.D. and fought back against Dreykov. When she finds out he survived, Natasha is bent on finishing the job.
• Creative Sterility: Brainwashing his daughter into being Taskmaster is just a copy of HYDRA's Winter Soldier program, which only just further proves how pathetic he truly is as a schemer.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Dreykov used to work for the USSR, but by the time of Black Widow he seems entirely out for himself, commanding a vast network of stormtroopers and brainwashed assassins that he dreams of using to control the world from the shadows. He even has a Supervillain Lair and fancy office.
• Dirty Coward: He only acts like a big man when he knows those he antagonizes can't fight back. Once the illusion of being untouchable is broken, he's left crawling on the floor holding his hands up trying to protect himself.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Possibly. Alexei says Dreykov may have had him imprisoned just for asking repeatedly to be the Red Guardian again, or wanting to reform the Communist Party, or even for making a snarky comment about Dreykov's hair. Even this is just speculation.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Downplayed if not subverted. He actually seems furious about what the attempt on his life did to Antonia. It's literally his only glimmer of basic empathy in the whole film. Even then, it's completely undercut by the fact that he mind-controlled said daughter into Taskmaster, and even left her to die when the Red Room was exploding.
• Evil Former Friend: He used to be on good terms with Alexei, until he decided to rat him out to Russian authorities for whatever reason.
• Evil Is Hammy: He gloats, he taunts, and overall is very unrestrained to show he wants to make his presence felt and feared.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Dreykov had Alexei imprisoned without ever bothering to tell him why; Alexei remarks that, for all he knows, Dreykov did it because Alexei made an offhand comment about his hairstyle.
  • When Natasha demands to know her mother's name, he strings her along as though he's trying to remember the name before saying her gravestone read "Name Unknown".
• Evil Old Folks: He seems to be at least in his 60s, and he's certainly a nasty piece of work.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has Ray Winstone's gravelly voice and is a truly vile person.
• Faking the Dead: Natasha tells Yelena that she and Clint killed Dreykov in Budapest, but they Never Found the Body. Sure enough, Dreykov survived.
• Fat Bastard: He's noticeably overweight, and definitely a bastard.
• Faux Affably Evil: When he and Natasha come face-to-face, he acts cordial to her, though he drops that facade when he gleefully talks about her biological mother's death at his hands.
• Former Regime Personnel: Following the fall of the Soviet Union, he has made himself an influential figure in world affairs regardless of ideology, thus making deals with powerful figures like Putin, Clinton or Condoleeza Rice.
• For the Evulz: He doesn't really have any clear motivation for his crimes except to change the world the way he sees fit.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He runs an army of brainwashed child assassins and wears a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that prominently fly off when he's killed.
• Hate Sink: He lacks any redeeming qualities whatsoever and is solely portrayed to invite revulsion from the audience. He lacks the charm or sympathetic qualities of previous villains, instead just being a pathetic, despicable man who constantly abuses others so he can feel big.
• Hated by All: No one who knows Dreykov expresses the slightest liking for him; even Alexei, his former friend, hates Dreykov for throwing him in prison for thirty years for some reason. Even his own daughter, for good reason, is relieved to hear that he's dead.
• He-Man Woman Hater: He's a huge misogynist who sees women as disposable objects.
• Hypocrite: He claims to have given the Widows a purpose in life because the world treated them like "trash". This is the same man who shows a willingness to kill Widows if they're too injured to continue their missions or fail to meet his standards in training. And given Natasha's mother tried to find her, it's entirely possible some of those girls were abducted and have family still looking for them.
• Insane Admiral: He's a high-ranking officer in the Russian Military, and he's a cruel and sadistic sociopath who has no remorse about brainwashing countless young girls to turn them into unfeeling weapons, including his own daughter.
• It's All About Me: He only cares about being in control of everything.
• Jerkass: Dreykov is an arrogant, misogynistic, cowardly, sociopathic wretch who only cares about himself and consistently exploits and abuses everyone around him, even those close to him.
• Karmic Death: Years after escaping from the explosion Natasha had previously set for him, which had also permanently disfigured his daughter, Dreykov is Killed Off for Real in another explosion, this time caused by Yelena.
• Kick the Dog: Dreykov is a puppy-kicking machine.
  • He imprisons Alexei for over thirty years, letting him rot in a Hellhole Prison for what could easily be no reason. The fact that Alexei himself has no idea why and Dreykov never even contacted him is what elevates this. Keep in mind, Alexei was a close friend and one of his best agents. Who knows what he'd do to an enemy...
  • He mocks Natasha about her mother's murder (heavily implied by his own hand) and refuses to divulge any information to her, even though it's clear all she really wants is closure. It's unclear if he actually didn't know anything about her or if he's just twisting the knife, but he's still a slimy prick regardless.
  • Despite professing to care about her, his treatment of his daughter is appalling and he ultimately leaves her to die in the Red Room without a second thought.
• Lack of Empathy: He has feelings toward no one but himself, not even his own daughter.
• Last-Name Basis: We never learn his first name. In fact, we only know that Dreykov is his last name thanks to his daughter also having it.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: It bears repeating: when he and his daughter survived an assassination attempt (which left the girl mutilated), the little girl was Reforged into a Minion. Pretty stone-cold pragmatic and utilitarian for the leader of the Red Room, but undeniably disgusting for a father to ever consider doing.
• Monster of the Aesop: In this case representing parental abuse, violence against women (in various forms) and government corruption.
• Mundanger: What puts him apart from the other MCU villains. While the other villains are gods, superpowered people, super soldiers and crapshoot A.Is, all Dreykov is is a misogynistic old man who just so happened to control a training regiment.
• Never Found the Body: Natasha believed that she had killed Dreykov in an explosion, as the final step in her defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. Yelena points out that Natasha never searched for his body, to which Natasha responds that there wouldn't have been a body left behind to search for. As it turns out, Dreykov and his daughter survived.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He's an old man, with no real combat ability. This actually works against the good guys, as a key aspect of the heroes' plan is him hitting Natasha hard enough to disable her olfactory nerve, and he's ultimately too weak to do so.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: It has been pointed out by more than one fan on Twitter that Dreykov bears quite a resemblance to disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, particularly in light of the exploitation and domination of women they have in common.
• Only One Name: Dreykov is his surname. We never learn his first name.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He has loads of mind-controlled female soldiers, dismissing the "girls" he has kidnapped and mind-controlled as just a resource. It's possible he was just twisting the knife, but given the human trafficking and abuse motifs running through the film, it's pretty obvious he actually meant it.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Forgoes any attempt at revenge against Natasha because he knows that the only way to carry out any large scale supervillainy on Earth is to stay away from the Avengers' radar.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Because Natasha did not see his body, she assumed Dreykov has been dead for more than 10 years until Yelene reveals that he is still alive. The fact that he is able to stay under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar that long is impressive.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: Dreykov was first referenced in The Avengers, where Loki mentions an incident involving Natasha and his daughter. In Black Widow, he is the film's Big Bad and his daughter's fate is further fleshed out.
• Smug Snake: Natasha points out that for all his boasting he's ultimately forced to hide in the shadows in fear and he has no real end goal for his ambitions. His fury at her taunts proves they struck home.
• The Sociopath: He treats the Widows like tools to be discarded if they don't live up to his standards or cease to be useful. He outright compares girls to a natural resource. He manipulates people through brainwashing, from mundane methods to outright mind control. He arranged for Alexei, his long time friend and collaborator, to be thrown in prison for reasons only known to Dreykov himself, in spite of everything he'd done for him. He shows explosive anger when mocked. Even his daughter is eventually used as a tool and turned into Taskmaster. Despite seeming to care, he allows her to die when the Red Room is falling. Natasha makes a point of identifying his sociopathy, and even she, who specialises in getting inside the heads of very bad people, seems appalled by the degree to which he just doesn’t care.
• Spot the Imposter: He easily manages to figure out that Melina Vostokoff is in fact Natasha Romanoff wearing a Nano Mask.
• The Spymaster: One of the darkest the MCU has shown so far. He has mind-controlled women placed all over the world, who he has ordered trained from childhood to be assassins, and he makes sure they have no "distractions" from his missions by sterilizing them.
• Straw Misogynist: What else do you call someone who claims the one thing the world has too much of is girls?
• Suddenly Shouting: He's always soft-spoken, but does scream his head off when his Berserk Button gets pushed.
  Dreykov: DON'T! TELL ME! TO STOP!
• Troll: He edges into this when he has the advantage, such as allowing Natasha within shooting distance of him before using his pheromones to stop her, and suggesting she use a knife just so he can block that, too.
• Unexplained Recovery: It's never made clear how he managed to survive the explosion of his building in Budapest.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He had Alexei Shoskatov, his friend and a longtime collaborator, imprisoned for life after everything he'd done for him. Alexei doesn't even know why!
• Unseen No More: Dreykov was first mentioned in The Avengers by Loki, but he didn't actually appear in the film. He finally makes a full-fledged appearance in 'Black Widow.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's seen as a respected advisor and political figure. The opening montage shows him meeting with various heads of state such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Condoleezza Rice, showing he's had a major influence on world affairs.
• Walking Spoiler: The marketing did a rather solid job hiding the fact that he's the film's main villain.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: The man can barely throw a punch. Luckily for him, he has an army of Widows and the Taskmaster at his disposal, and his brainwashing and pheromones usually protect him from them.
• Would Hit a Girl: Although he is usually a Non-Action Big Bad, he repeatedly punches Natasha when she starts to disrespect him. Even this doesn't make Natasha shut up, however; she just mocks Dreykov for not even being strong enough to break her nose (which is why she provoked him into punching her to begin with).
• You Have Failed Me: Any Widow who fails training, is too injured to continue or is freed from mind control is killed on his orders. Sometimes he even forces Widows to commit suicide through his control system.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After ordering the Widows to kill Natasha, he leaves them behind to die in the exploding Red Room, not intending to come back for them nor his own daughter. He can always "make more".
• You Killed My Mother: He had Natasha's biological mother executed for trying too hard to find her daughter.

Madame B.

Madame B.

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Julie Delpy

Appearances: Avengers: Age of Ultron ^note  As an illusion made by Wanda

A past head of the Red Room, the secret organization who trained Black Widow to become the assassin she is today.

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• Affably Evil: Speaks in a soft, European accent... which makes her scene all the more creepy.
• Bad Boss: Let's just say she isn't going to win any "Children's Caretaker of the Year" awards.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Does not appear nor even get mentioned in Black Widow.
• Evil Mentor: Served in this role to Natasha Romanoff during her training in the Red Room.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: She doesn't appear in any of the advertising with the exception of the second trailer, in which she is the hand slamming Natasha onto the operating table.

Black Widows

1930s recruits

Dottie Underwood

"Dorothy "Dottie" Underwood" / "Ida Emke" / Black Widow

"I used to be so jealous of girls like you. I would have done anything to walk like you, to talk like you. But now I can be anybody I want."

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Bridget Regan, Veronika Bonell (young)

Appearances: Agent Carter

Orphaned at a young age in Russia, "Dottie" was enlisted by Leviathan and trained as part of the secret Black Widow program. The smartest, strongest and most resilient in her class, she's a trained assassin, ballerina and sleeper agent stationed in New York. She becomes Dr. Ivchenko's most trusted weapon and Agent Carter's most deadly adversary.

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• Ambiguously Bi: While she doesn't have an explicit romance with anyone, she does get flirty with her enemies at times, including Howard Stark, Jack Thompson, Jason Wilkes, Jarvis, and Peggy Carter. She has a romantic night with Howard, but that was probably more for her mission than any romance. Also, she is an assassin with various methods on how to kill or knock a person out without much if any evidence, yet she chooses to kiss Peggy with her knockout lipstick. The way she sneaks around Peggy's room could be described as Stalker without a Crush or even Stalker with a Crush depending on how you look at it. Vernon even points out she clings to Peggy being her only ally at this point when she is captured.
• Archenemy: Peggy's most recurring enemy, and the one she feels most responsible for handling.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Dottie has inadvertently rescued Peggy from unfortunate ends twice. The first time she murdered Krzeminski and Zandow just as they were piecing together that Peggy was a double agent. The second time Dottie killed Mr. Mink before he broke into Peggy's room.
• The Baroness: For Leviathan, especially in flashbacks to World War II, where she's seen in leather gear and happily executing men for her commanding officer.
• Boxed Crook: Her role in the second half of Season 2, when Peggy requires her services to get her hands on some Zero Matter.
• Braids of Action: She sported two when she was a child, during her Black Widow training.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Black Widow training program evidently left her highly unstable.
• Canon Foreigner: While she shares similarities to comic-based Black Widows such as Natalia Romanova - particularly during the Cold War years she was depicted as a Dirty Communist villain - and Yelena Belova, Dottie herself was created specifically for the show.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: The show's creators have stated that, while Dottie is technically a Black Widow, she's never explicitly referred to as such in the show. However, a commercial for the fifth episode calls the organization that created her "the Black Widow program."
• Country Mouse: As part of her cover, she claims to be a small-town girl from Iowa and acts like it when around the other girls.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: She tends to stare straight forward, unblinking and intense. Her eyes get even creepier when she's not putting up an act, frequently staring in ways that don't suggest much sanity behind them.
• Cute and Psycho: In her Dottie persona, she comes across as a sweet, bubbly and over-enthusiastic ditz. Even after her real identity is revealed, she has the air of an excited child about her, albeit in a terrifying way.
• Dark Action Girl: She's revealed to be one when she kills Mr. Mink; she wall-jumps right onto Mink, killing him and taking his gun with great ease. From there on, she frequently proves herself to be a formidable physical threat.
• Deep Cover Agent: She's so effective SSR takes a while to discover her. Given how the training methods worked, shades of Manchurian Agent might be included.
• Devious Daggers: Is shown to wield a small knife both during WWII to slice the throat of a man refusing to cooperate with Leviathan, and when she attempts to kill Peggy after having knocked her out.
• The Dragon: She serves as Doctor Fennhoff's right-hand woman, doing most of the dirty work for Leviathan while the good doctor works behind the scenes.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She dyed her hair into brunette to imitate Peggy's in Season 2, and her skin looks slightly paler than usual.
• Evil Costume Switch: After she ditches the Dottie persona once and for all by making an attempt on Peggy's life, she switches to pinning up her hair and wearing a nice-looking suit. She even gets her own◊ hat to further emphasize her status as Peggy's villainous Foil.
• Evil Counterpart: For Peggy, with both of them being secret agents, as well as skilled fighters. They use other people's underestimations of their skill to their advantage; Peggy does this by using her coworkers' sexist assumptions about her abilities while Dottie does this by Obfuscating Stupidity and acting like a ditzy Country Mouse. They are capable of imitating American Accents when undercover and are Only Known by Their Nickname. However, their fighting styles are radically different, with Dottie relying on She-Fu acrobatics, whereas Peggy relies on her fists, Improvised Weapons, and brute force. Additionally, Peggy chose to become a secret agent, while Dottie was Brainwashed into becoming a Child Soldier at a young age by her Russian trainers.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Overlapped with Evil Costume Switch, she has changed hairstyle once she ditched "Dottie" persona, from feminine-looking long curly hair to pinned up hair.
• Fake American: In-universe - she's actually Russian. More specifically, a Soviet agent.
• Fake Guest Star: Debuts in the third episode and is in every episode from then on (six total, the same number as Angie).
• Fake Pregnancy: At one point, she pretends to be expecting so she can buy a baby carriage to gas a theater with.
• Faux Affably Evil: Dottie's friendliness might have you fooled initially, but the more you see of her, the clearer it becomes that it's really just an act.
• Femme Fatale: Invoked. Black Widows are designed to slip past a target's defenses by appearing to be a harmless child or a sexy lady. Before the show's begun, "Dottie's" already done the act on Howard Stark and does so again later on a perverted dentist.
• Glass Cannon: She can hit hard and fast, but can't take the same level of punishment as Peggy. Justified as she has the thin physique of a ballerina, and was trained for infiltration and assassinations, not to have the stamina of a soldier.
• Hidden Villain: When she kills Kreminski and Zandow in "Time and Tide", the dark night and shadows keep her identity from being revealed.
• Honey Trap: Served as one to lure Howard Stark into revealing his secrets.
• Horrifying the Horror: Dottie is a psychopathic assassin and spy trained since childhood, who murders on a whim and is one of the most dangerous people in the series, if not the world. And she is terrified of Whitney Frost and what she can do with Zero Matter. All it takes is Whitney using her powers on her, and Dottie breaks.
• I Have Many Names: Has two identities that we know of - the one she used as Howard's fling ("Ida Emkey"), and the one she used as Peggy's neighbor ("Dottie Underwood"). Since it's doubtful that either of these is her real name, she probably has at least one more.
• I Just Want to Be You: Dottie displays a disturbing obsession towards Peggy's personal life and appearance, even pretending to be her in front of a mirror. In Season 2, she even dyes her hair and dresses exactly like Peggy.
• Kick the Morality Pet: In the flashback, young Dottie shares some bread with a girl bunking next to her. In the next scene, they're forced to fight, and when Dottie wins she's ordered to snap the poor girl's neck.
• Legacy Character: She's the 40s' Black Widow, and the flashback to her training reveals she's not the first. There may well have been hundreds of undercover Black Widows through the 20th century.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Dotty" is an older slang term for someone who's mentally unbalanced. Dottie Underwood's definitely not playing with a full deck of cards.
  • "Underwood" is likely a reference to the Underwood Typewriter Company. Her associates are seen communicating using special typewriters with transmitters.
• Murderous Thighs: How she kills Otto Mink while he's trying to break into Peggy's apartment.
• Never Found the Body: Knocked through a window onto the wing of a plane, but apparently survived the fall in good enough condition to get up and escape within a matter of minutes.
• Not So Above It All: She seems genuinely offended that Howard doesn't remember her.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Whenever she's in the company of the other residents of The Griffith, she acts like The Ditz, but underneath it all, she’s a lethal assassin.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: To date, she's only known by her alias "Dottie" and her true name has yet to be revealed.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Whitney Frost's danger level is conveyed quite effectively by how Dottie is completely terrified of her.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Dottie’s behavior when she drops her adorable and wide-eyed Country Mouse persona screams of this.
  • When she sees a toy she likes, she'll murder you for it and then play with it like a little kid… while your body rots under her bed. Just ask Mr. Mink.
  Dottie: Is that pistol an automatic? I want that.
  • After successfully acquiring the intel she was looking for in Peggy’s room, she sits in front of Peggy’s mirror and starts playing make-believe.
    Dottie: [in front of the mirror, in an English accent] Hello, I'm Peggy Carter.
  • She can only sleep at night if she handcuffs herself to her bed, having been conditioned to do it ever since her handlers would chain her to sleep as a kid.
  • What she says right before she kills a dentist by putting his own drill through his eye:
    Dottie: I've never used one of these before. Open wide.
• Rogue Agent: She's forced to become one in Season 2 after being burned by Leviathan, and decides to go into the private sector.
• Samus Is a Girl: Her first onscreen assassination hides her appearance. It's not until the 6th episode that Peggy deduces the "Hidden Killer" was a woman.
• Scars Are Forever: Dottie has scars on her right wrist from being handcuffed to a bed since she was 9. Justified, though, as it's something she keeps doing each night.
• She-Fu: Her fighting style is quite acrobatic, in contrast to Peggy's, which sticks to solid punches and kicks.
• Shout-Out: Her name, her country background, and naivety are homages to Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
• Statuesque Stunner: In addition to being very beautiful, she's the tallest woman on the show.
• Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss: She kissed Peggy, though without any romantic feeling whatsoever (probably). Instead, it's just a way to knock her unconscious.
• Tears of Fear: Even she can't keep herself from this when Whitney sends Zero Matter through her body.
• Too Kinky to Torture:
  • Her usual response to someone threatening her with torture is a condescending smile and mockery. She even tells Vernon Masters that she's pulled out her own teeth and burned herself with a blowtorch.
  • Subverted with Whitney. Dottie is in so much pain that she cries. Justified, as exposure to the agony of Zero Matter was something the Red Room could never train her for.
• Tragic Villain: Despite her deceit and bloodthirstiness, Dottie's been brainwashed since childhood to think that way, and was even forced to kill the only person she showed genuine kindness to.
• Training from Hell: Courtesy of her Russian trainers. At the age of maybe nine, she killed a fellow trainee the same age and with whom she shared stolen bread, probably her only friend. It's the same training that Natasha Romanoff, the future Black Widow, received.
• Tyke-Bomb: She's a grown-up child assassin from a program designed to produce child assassins.
• What Does She See in Him?: According to Bridget Regan, this is what Dottie was thinking when she saw a photograph of scrawny Steve Rogers in Peggy's room.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The last we hear of her in Season 2 is when she escapes the back of the car Peggy and Jarvis had put her in while transporting Ana to the hospital. At the end of the series, she's still at large.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: She does one against Carter in "A Sin to Err", pretending to be an innocent bystander while nearly caught by the SSR when she attempted to kill Peggy.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Come Season 2, she's been burned by Leviathan due after the disaster with Dr. Fennhoff. The Soviet Government refuses to confirm her existence when SSR attempts a prisoner trade, and Peggy correctly deduces she can't return to the Soviet Union for fear of being executed.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Towards the end of her fight with Carter, Dottie taunts her in this manner.
  Dottie: I thought you'd be better.

Anya

Anya

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Caitlin Carmichael

Appearances: Agent Carter

One of the girls trained as assassins in the Red Room Academy during the 1930s. She befriended a young "Dottie Underwood".

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• Brainwashed: She and other girls in Red Room are fed subliminal messages with their language training, and are kept malnourished along with being chained to their beds.
• Child Soldier: She was an assassin in-training in Red Room.
• Fighting Your Friend: She sparred against her friend, Dottie, who was ordered to kill her after she lost the sparring match.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Subverted, Dottie at least still has a dream involving her, although it's never explicitly shown whether Dottie still remembers her or not.
• Only Friend: She appeared to be one for young Dottie; or Dottie was this for her.
• Morality Pet: Possibly for Dottie, who shared bread with her. Killing her may also drove Dottie to lose innocence and sense of humanity, caused her to be a ruthless assassin she is in her adulthood.
• Neck Snap: During fighting class, Anya sparred against Dottie. The headmistress watched their battle. During the battle, Dottie got the upper hand and had Anya in a headlock. When the headmistress nodded her head, Dottie snapped her neck, killing Anya instantly.
• Posthumous Character: She already died in 1937, long before the main story.

1940s recruits

Eva

Eva

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Chiara Aurelia

Appearances: Agent Carter

A girl trained as an assassin in the Red Room Academy.

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• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Black Widow training program caused her to be rather unhinged. She wasn't entirely focused while Dum Dum Dugan was trying to talk to her until she suddenly attacked him with a knife.
• Child Soldier: She's trained in Red Room Academy to be an assassin. She even helped adult Leviathan soldiers during the shootout with a sniper rifle that she used to kill Agent Mike Li and injure Happy Sam Sawyer.
• Cold Sniper: She used Mosin-Nagant M91/30 Sniper, a Russian Sniper Rifle, to ambush Peggy's team when they were engaged in a shootout against Leviathan soldiers. With precision, Eva shot two times before escaping, one to kill Mike Li and another one to injure Happy Sam Sawyer in the leg.
• Creepy Child: Even before she's revealed to be a child assassin, she's not entirely stable.
• Dark Action Girl: She's a child who's trained to be an assassin.
• Enfant Terrible: She looks like an adorable little girl, but she also doesn't hesitate to kill people due to the brainwashing.
• The Fake Cutie: SSR and Howling Commandos found her while she was seemingly crying. They thought she was a hostage and offer help. While they're distracted by her rather mentally-unbalanced attitude, she suddenly attacked them and killed one of them, Junior Juniper.
• Hero Killer: She killed one Howling Commando, Junior Juniper, and one SSR operative, Mike Li.
• Little Miss Badass: Not only managed to kill one of the Howling Commandos, but she also managed to escape their capture with a swift movement.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Very subtle, but her eyes look rather empty in a few shots due to the brainwashing. Just look at her picture for an example.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. She shares her first name with another Russian antagonist from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Eva Belyakov.

Modern recruits

Taskmaster (Unmarked Spoilers)

Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster

"Is he gone?"

^{Click here to see her unmasked} 

Species: Human (cybernetically enhanced)

Citizenship: Russian

Portrayed By: Olga Kurylenko, Andy Lister (in suit), Ryan Kiera Armstrong (young)

Appearances: Black Widow | Thunderbolts

General Dreykov's daughter and an elite operative of the Red Room who possesses a photo-reflexive memory, allowing her to mimic any skill or fighting style with pinpoint accuracy after seeing it only once. Serves as her father's ultimate weapon, and is only deployed against very dangerous targets.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: The comics version of Taskmaster suffers from a unique form of amnesia that causes him to forget previous skills and even his own past as his involuntary mimicry grants him new abilities. The film's version doesn't have any issues with her memory, as her abilities come from a completely different source.
• Adaptational Nationality: In the comics, Taskmaster was an American agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.. In the film, Taskmaster is a Russian woman who was brainwashed by her father Dreykov into becoming an obedient spy.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: The film shows Taskmaster's copied skills coming from computer analysis through a HUD-enabled visor and an implanted chip, where in the comics, he received this power from a Super Serum.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Tony Masters, alias Taskmaster, in the comics was a wisecracking mercenary with Photographic Memory, having hired out his skills because he thought doing legitimate things with his powers would be boring—or at least that's what he believed, as in truth, he was an ex-SHIELD agent who has a severe case of Identity Amnesia. In this film, Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of the progenitor of the Black Widow program, was burned to a crisp and had a building dropped on her when Natasha used her as bait to get to her father. Dreykov rebuilt his daughter into Taskmaster and used his mind-controlling nanites to ensure complete and utter loyalty out of her, making her into a ruthless killing machine against her will.
• Adaptational Ugliness: In the comics, Tony Masters' face is unmarred under his mask, whereas Antonia Dreykov is badly scarred and one of her eyes is discolored.
• Adaptational Villainy: The comic version never had anything to do with the Red Room, and though he's run training schools for henchmen, he wouldn't touch the Red Room because of how it treats kids, one of his few moral boundaries. Subverted, however, in the movie, when it's revealed Taskmaster is General Dreykov's brainwashed daughter, making her merely another victim of the Red Room.
• Adaptation Deviation: This incarnation of Taskmaster shares very little with the Taskmaster of the source material. Everything from MCU Taskmaster's name, origin, personality, motivations, and gender has been completely overhauled. Even her infamous ability to copy fighting styles is mechanically different from how it functions in the comics.
• Adaptation Name Change: The Taskmaster of the comics is an American man named Anthony "Tony" Masters. In the MCU, she's a Russian woman named Antonia Dreykov.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Taskmaster in the comics is a brash Deadpan Snarker who likes to chat with his opponents, and holds a strict Just Business view of his missions. Here, she's The Quiet One and is purely mission-focused due to brainwashing.
• All Your Powers Combined: Taskmaster is able to reproduce the abilities of all the Avengers whose abilities don't come from true superpowers or very exotic tech. This means that fighting Taskmaster is like fighting a combination of Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Panther (the Taskmaster suit has a bow, a shield, and claws, though not vibranium).
• Always Someone Better: Her fighting skills surpass even those of Natasha, whom she dominates during each of their fights. She also manages to overpower the Super-Soldier Red Guardian without too much trouble.
• Ambiguous Gender: Ambiguous only in the sense that the fact she's a woman is deliberately held back for most of the movie. Taskmaster's costume covers her whole body without obvious Tertiary Sexual Characteristics and she doesn't speak which both serve to obscure her gender. The promotional material for the film played into this as well, as it deliberately avoided listing whom Taskmaster was played by on posters and trailers.
• Anti-Villain: Taskmaster is just another of Dreykov's programmed puppets; she has no choice but to obey him, Natasha feels immense guilt for her part in what Antonia's life has become, and once she's freed of Dreykov's programming, all antagonism on Taskmaster's part is gone.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Taskmaster's signature "power" is that she's able to use her photographic memory to replicate the fighting style of anyone she's observed, which at the time that Black Widow is set in, appears to be at least everyone present for the airport battle. Moves she copies include:
  • Black Widow's flip.
  • Hawkeye's archery.
  • Captain America's shield-throwing, including his characteristic pick-up.
  • Black Panther's claws and acrobatics.
  • The Winter Soldier's knife skills, including the knife flip he did in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • Spider-Man's acrobatics, kicks, and landing.
  • Iron Man's pose while in the air.
• Bag of Holding: Compared to the comics version, who is a Walking Armory, Taskmaster's weapons are collapsible and are stored in her backpack.
• Beauty Inversion: She's played by Olga Kurylenko with burns and mismatched eyes.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Taskmaster's shield manages to follow Natasha and Yelena down an escalator in a way that's ridiculous even by Captain America's standards, especially since it's not explicitly stated to be made out of Applied Phlebotinum like vibranium.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: After subduing Red Guardian, she deploys a retractable knife blade from her gauntlet to finish him off.
• Blade Brake: She does this at the end of the film to slow down her fall from the Red Room Academy. On a falling debris, no less.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Like the Widows, Antonia is completely under Dreykov's control until she's freed at the end of the climax of Black Widow.
• Canon Character All Along: Antonia Dreykov survived Natasha blowing up the building and grows up to be Taskmaster.
• Chekhov's Gunman: "Dreykov's daughter" was first mentioned by Loki all the way back in the first Avengers movie, but she doesn't appear and the details of Natasha's involvement with her aren't shown until Natasha's solo film (four years later in-universe, nine years in the real world).
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Dreykov does mention the Taskmaster protocol early on, but aside from that, the mysterious enforcer is barely called by any name (not that Taskmaster's giving anyone much to work with in that regard). Natasha does call Antonia by her real name after she finds out, though.
• Composite Character: She has aspects of various characters and ironically, very little of her own comic version:
  • She has the codename and "power" of comics Taskmaster though with a heavy dose of Doing In the Wizard.
  • Her status as the silent, cyborg assassin with personal connection to the heroes immediately bring to mind the Winter Soldier. In-Universe, the mind control tech forced on her was partially derived from the Winter Soldier program.
  • Her other status as the abused child chemically mind-controlled by her own father into being The Dragon is word for word what happened to Jason Stryker from X2: X-Men United. Bonus point for both being unintentional cases of Create Your Own Villain, their fathers abandoned them the moment they outlived their usefulness and their last words express fear towards their fathers.
  • Her "power" itself which is an onboard AI analyzes her opponent's moves before deploying countermeasure was lifted directly from Iron Man's tech from Captain America: Civil War.
  • She also shares a few backstory elements with Recluse, in that she is the daughter of the leader of the Red Room with a personal connection to Natasha since childhood.
• Cool Helmet: A full head helmet that keeps her entire head obscured, along with a scarf obscuring her neck, further disguising her gender.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: She utterly demolishes Red Guardian during their fight.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Subverted. It appears at first that her robotic behavior is because of her cybernetic implants, but it's actually from the mental conditioning and mind control she has undergone.
• Daddy's Little Villain: She is Dreykov's daughter and she acts as his most dangerous assassin, albeit unwillingly.
• Destination Defenestration: She tosses Alexei through a glass wall during their battle.
• Devious Daggers: She brandishes a combat knife for close-quarters combat. Several of the moves she uses with it are copied from the Winter Soldier.
• Distaff Counterpart: To the Winter Soldier. Both are injured humans who were rebuilt using cybernetic components and brainwashed into being the unquestioning and efficient Dragon for a shadowy spymaster. She's revealed to be an In-Universe example, as it's directly stated that the limbic system reprogramming technology used to create Taskmaster was stolen from the Winter Soldier project.
• Ditto Fighter: A rare non-video game example due to her abilities, much like her comics counterpart. She is shown mimicking the fighting styles of Captain America, Black Panther, and Hawkeye, among other people.
• The Dragon: She serves as her father's topmost enforcer, assuming command of the Black Widow army during particularly dangerous missions.
• Dragon Their Feet: Even after her father is incinerated, Taskmaster continues to hunt down Natasha until she's finally freed from her brainwashing.
• Dramatic Unmask: Taskmaster finally gets unmasked in the final act, revealing herself to be the Not Quite Dead daughter of General Dreykov.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite Natasha being responsible for her disfigurement, once Antonia has her own mind back, she doesn't show any resentment or anger, simply being relieved that her father is dead.
• Empty Shell: After Antonia ended up being in a building blown up by Natasha, her father used the fact she had physical and mental damage to erase her personality to turn her into an ultimate soldier, someone both heavily skilled and fully compliant to orders.
• The Faceless: In promotional material for Black Widow like the trailers, Taskmaster's real face is never shown. Then again, that would ruin the story.
• Facial Horror: The explosion in Budapest severely disfigured her face, so much so that even her own father finds it difficult to look at her.
• Final Boss: Since her father is a Non-Action Big Bad, Taskmaster is Natasha's opponent for the climax as she and Yelena escape the crashing Red Room.
• Gender Flip: Taskmaster is a man named Tony Masters in the comics, while this version of the character is Dreykov's daughter, Antonia.
• The Heavy: Since her father, General Dreykov, is a Non-Action Big Bad due to his advanced age and lack of combat prowess, Taskmaster serves as his enforcer in the field who provides a direct physical threat to the heroes.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Her skull helm is kept on her for most of the movie, making her more sinister than Natasha and her allies. She briefly takes the helmet off for The Reveal of her identity, then puts it back on when sent to work; it only comes off for good right at the end when Natasha takes it off so she can blast her with the red gas.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Inverted. Taskmaster's sword is the only tool in her arsenal that isn't directly lifted from an existing hero. (In the comics, it was copied from a hero called Swordsman.)
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Antonia is locked in a Red Room cell, Natasha tries to reach out to her. It doesn't work, but a fresh dose of Deprogramming gas does the trick.
  Natasha Romanoff: It's okay, it's okay. I know you're still in there. And I'm not gonna leave you, okay?
• Improbable Aiming Skills: By studying Hawkeye, Taskmaster can fire an arrow as well as him.
• In the Hood: It just wouldn't be Taskmaster without the signature hood.
• Invincible Villain: Taskmaster never actually loses a fight, or even takes significant damage. Throughout the entirety of Black Widow, the only thing the protagonists can really do is run from her or slow her down. She's eventually 'defeated' by removing the brainwashing, but this in itself only convinces her to stand down.
• Lightning Bruiser: Due to her cybernetic enhancements, Antonia is fast, strong, and tough enough to keep on fighting dangerous adversaries such as Natasha and Alexei without becoming exhausted.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Taskmaster uses a bulletproof metal targe to block incoming gunfire, even using it as a projectile to attack at a distance. It's obvious she copied this from Captain America, even using a lot of his motions and movements.
• Malevolent Masked Man: She wears a mask during most of the film and she's a deadly assassin. Though, to be fair, she's not willingly malevolent.
• Masking the Deformity: Taskmaster wears a metal, skull-like helmet that fully covers the face. This hides the fact that Samus Is a Girl, specifically Antonia Dreykov, who still bears the scars from Natasha's assassination attempt on her father, leaving half her face with burns and her eye discolored.
• Master Swordsman: She's very proficient with a sword, as shown during both her first fight and her last fight against Natasha.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Her suit is mostly dark blue, contrasting with the white cloak that Taskmaster wears in the comics, and the skull iconography in her helmet is downplayed.
• Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: For most of the movie, we know virtually nothing about Taskmaster other than being an assassin sent by Dreykov after Yelena and Natasha. Her past, motives, name, face, voice and even gender are all shrouded in mystery until finally being revealed late in the film.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: She doesn't play around during her missions, not even wasting time gloating or talking to the opponents she fights.
• Not So Stoic: For most of the film she is quiet, calm and collected, fighting her enemies with precision and discipline. When locked in a cell aboard her father's base, however, she becomes violently angry and starts banging on the glass trying to break out. When her mask is taken off during Natasha's final fight with her, her face is twisted with rage.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Taskmaster is treated as a general utility villain in the comics — he debuted in the Avengers, and has menaced a great number of heroes for a paycheck. Not only has he gone against the Avengers numerous times, but individually he's fought prominent members like Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, as well as other heroes such as Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Daredevil, Deadpool and various members of the X-Men like Wolverine, X-23, Daken, etc. One of the notable characters he hasn't really fought against is Natasha Romanoff, whom she is The Heavy to in Black Widow. Ironically, the Taskmaster comic book launched at the end of 2020 depicts Natasha as a Hero Antagonist hunting him down, where it's established that Tasky is scared shitless of her and deliberately avoids situations that would put him in her crosshairs, as he considers her one of the most dangerous people in the world.
• Samus Is a Girl: Taskmaster's Ambiguous Gender armor masks the fact that this version of the character is Antonia Dreykov.
• Shield Bash: Just like Captain America, she often uses her shield to strike her opponents. She notably does this to Red Guardian during their fight.
• Silent Antagonist: She spends most of the movie chasing the protagonists to kill them and she never says a single word, at least not before being freed from her brainwashing.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Her mask looks like a stylized skull.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: While chasing Natasha and Yelena in Budapest, she brandishes a high-tech longbow and launches an explosive Trick Arrows at them, which hones in on their car and detonates underneath. This move was obviously lifted directly from Hawkeye.
• Superior Successor: She seems to be a next level take on the Black Widows, possessing physical and mental abilities that surpass them (and most humans in general), all the while having less personal autonomy than his other brainwashed operatives.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Antonia bears many similarities to Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier: both are long thought to be dead figures from the heroes' past, who now serve as Brainwashed and Crazy Dragons before getting freed by the end of the movie.
• Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: The poor Antonia was forced by her own father to become his "greatest weapon" against her will.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: When unmasked, Antonia is always sporting a blank, distant stare, signifying how she's an Empty Shell who's totally under Dreykov's control.
• Three-Point Landing: She does this during her fight against Red Guardian, mimicking Natasha's habit of doing it.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Taskmaster has Captain America's fighting skills and a similar shield, which she is able to throw just as well.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After her life effectively ended following the explosion that almost killed her and her father subsequently turning her into his minion, she is finally freed of Dreykov's control, with the chance to start anew and even help other girls like her who are still under the control of the Red Room.
• Trick Arrow: Much like Hawkeye, she occasionally uses explosive arrows.
• Tyke-Bomb: Raised as a killing machine by her father after Natasha's failed attempt to kill them both.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Justified. She still tries to kill Natasha even after she released her from the cell she was locked in, but that's only because she was brainwashed and thus not in total control of her action. Once Natasha frees her from the brainwashing, she no longer wants to hurt her and is very much grateful.
• Unseen No More: "Dreykov's daughter" was mentioned by Loki in The Avengers as one of Black Widow's victims, but she didn't actually appear in the film. However, she finally makes a full-fledged appearance in Black Widow.
• Used to Be a Sweet Child: From what little is shown during Natasha's flashback, Antonia appeared to have been a normal girl when she was a child, in sharp contrast to the ruthless assassin she would eventually become.
• The Voiceless: She doesn't talk until the very end of the movie, and has a body language seldom betraying major emotions (except when temporarily locked into a cell in the Red Room complex, showing anger and desperation to get out). Even when she takes her helmet off, her face is fixed into a blank, traumatized stare. It's heavily implied this is a consequence of her father, Dreykov's, brainwashing. The one time she does talk after her brainwashing is undone is asking Natasha, "Is he gone?", before passing out.
• Walking Spoiler: Her identity is kept secret for most of the film and is only revealed towards the end. The promotion even hid who was portraying Taskmaster up until release.
• Weapon Twirling: Similar to the Winter Soldier, she twirls her knife after drawing it during her fight against Red Guardian.
• Wolverine Claws: She has a set of sharp claws in her gauntlets, which can be popped out and retracted at will. The motions she uses to activate them are clearly lifted from Black Panther.
• You Killed My Father: Averted. At first, Antonia seemingly wants to hunt Natasha down for being indirectly responsible for her father's death. But after she is liberated from her brainwashing, she is incredibly relieved that her father is gone for good.

Natasha Romanoff

See her page.

Yelena Belova

See her page.

Melina Vostokoff

See Natasha Romanoff's Family

Lerato

Lerato

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Liani Samuel

Appearances: Black Widow

One of Dreykov's Widows, and Taskmaster's caretaker.

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• The Caretaker: She is seen uploading orders and encouraging the Taskmaster to smile. At the end of the movie, she goes straight to Antonia and holds her hand.

Oksana

Oksana

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Michelle Lee

Appearances: Black Widow

A Widow from Melina's generation, working to free those under Dreykov's control.

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• Deprogramming: She possessed an antidote serum that Widows from Dreykov's control. She uses it on Yelena to free her, and gives her a few more to free the others.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Despite being lethally wounded by Yelena, she manages to free Yelena from the effects of the subjugation chemicals with the potion before she bleeds out.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: After being stabbed by Yelena, Oksana frees her from the Black Widow conditioning; with her dying words, she pleads for Yelena to do the same for the remaining Widows.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Despite dying in the very scene we see her in (as well as mostly being present to establish Yelena's skill set), she was the one responsible for freeing her of her brainwashing. This sets the stage for Yelena to team up with Natasha and their adoptive parents to bring down the Red Room once and for all.
• Take Up My Sword: Persuades Yelena to do this with her last breath.
  Oksana: Free the others.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She dies in her first scene.

Ingrid

Ingrid

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Nanna Blondell

Appearances: Black Widow

A Widow from Melina's generation. She makes the call to release the Taskmaster when Yelena is broken free.

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• And I Must Scream: The Red Room's brainwashing left her fully conscious but subservient to General Dreykov. She is terrified of the fact that he has activated her termination program, forcing her to kill herself.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Though she's clinging to Natasha's hand during the ride on the chimney, she tries to use her knife to cut Natasha, leading to her fall.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Dreykov forces her to shoot herself in the head.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Is forced to commit suicide after injuring herself (a broken leg) during a chase after Natasha and Yelena.

Helen

Helen

Species: Human

Citizenship: Chinese

Portrayed By: Jade Xu

Appearances: Black Widow | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

One of Dreykov's Widows.

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• Fight Clubbing: Years after being freed of the Red Room's mind control, she becomes a fighter in the Golden Daggers Club.
• No Name Given: Like most of the Widows Natasha rescues. However, she gets a name in Shang-Chi.

Ana

Ana

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Annie Hamilton

Appearances: Hawkeye

A former Widow who was believed to be still under the influence of Dreykov in 2018 when Yelena reached her.

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• Genocide Survivor: She survived the Snap as seen when Yelena gets brought back to life and sees her having been married and adopted a child prior to the Blip.
• Happily Married: She got married at some point during the five-year period between the Snap and the Blip. When Yelena returns, Ana tells her how happy she is in her new life.
• Not Brainwashed: Yelena breaks into her house to free her from the chemical control but Ana had not been under the influence for some time prior.
• Professional Killer: She made her living this way for years. It's how she was able to afford her house and a $20,000 rug.
• Unwanted Assistance: Yelena douses her with the red powder antidote, not knowing she's no longer under the influence of Dreykov, so she's just annoyed that they've stained the rug.

Sonya

Sonya

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Yssa Mei Panganiban

Appearances: Hawkeye

A former Widow who assisted Yelena with freeing field Black Widows from the Dreykov chemical influencing agent.

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• Boyish Short Hair: She has short black hair.
• Genocide Survivor: She survived the Snap, as revealed by Ana during her conversation with the newly-resurrected Yelena.

Variants

Captain Carter's Melina Vostokoff

Melina Vostokoff

Species: Human

Citizenship: Soviet Russian, Russian

Affiliation(s): Red Room

Voiced By: Rachel Weisz

Appearances: What If...?

The head of the Red Room and former maternal figure of Natasha Romanoff

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• Adaptational Villainy: An interesting case, as Melina is the villain Iron Maiden in the mainstream comic books continuity, but a supporting hero in the mainstream MCU timeline. Captain Carter Timeline's Melina is closer to the mainstream comic books Melina.
• Disney Villain Death: She falls to her death during the destruction of the Red Room headquarters' destruction

Captain Carter's Black Widows

Ingrid

Helen

Agnesa

---