Black Widow vs Black Canary

[Sophicles]

Hand-to-hand combat only.

No weapons/gadgets, or powers allowed.

[Steel Inquisitor]

I'll give Dinah the edge here, her martial arts skills are among the best in the DCU.

[Phoenixx9]

I would give it to Black Widow. Her martial arts and boxing skills are among the best in the MU.

[Sharpandpointies]

Sadly, I know very little about current Canary, though I'm pretty sure that Pre-Nu52 Canary would take this after a hard fight.

[Phoenixx9]

Black Widow also has much greater strength than BC.

[Sharpandpointies]

What kind of feats does she have going for her to show much greater strength? And how's her durability?

[big_adventure]

I'd say Canary probably has the slight edge here. Widow is generally shown as a step below CBPH in skill, speed and strength. She's close, but closer to Hawkeye/Ronin/Bucky level than Captain America level. Dinah seems a slight cut above. I don't think it's a stomp, just 6-4 or 7-3 for Canary.

[Sharpandpointies]

I'd say Canary probably has the slight edge here. Widow is generally shown as a step below CBPH in skill, speed and strength. She's close, but closer to Hawkeye/Ronin/Bucky level than Captain America level. Dinah seems a slight cut above. I don't think it's a stomp, just 6-4 or 7-3 for Canary.

I'm in that range.

Again, not talking about current Canary, don't know enough about her.

But for PreNu52, I'm edging toward a decent majority for Canary barring some stellar feats for the Widow. Canary has some really, really good speedfeats (and precision feats), casually beats up street-level martial artists with stat-enhancing exosuits (like, laughable ease), utterly humiliates Ollie after he explicitly is shown to get better after a year of training, impresses Shiva with her skill (impresses, not 'makes Shiva want to kill her'), etc.

[Phoenixx9]

What kind of feats does she have going for her to show much greater strength? And how's her durability?

Not sure of feats but her Russian Variant of the Super Soldier Serum does grant enhanced strength, speed, endurance and durability---but not as great as Cap. However, one of the last Handbooks produced did state that she could lift/benchpress 500 pounds.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Handbooks don't mean much hereabouts.

Feats do.

[Cruelrain]

Could go either way
Natasha stalemated Elektra once

[Phoenixx9]

Handbooks don't mean much hereabouts.

Feats do.

Oh okay. Fair enough. Being more of a spy, not sure about any BW feats.

[Marveld2]

Could go either way
Natasha stalemated Elektra once

Agree 100%

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Oh okay. Fair enough. Being more of a spy, not sure about any BW feats.

While the handbooks are canon in a way, they're... pretty inaccurate. Though there are gems like the Punch Dimension; and an old handbook listing one of Hulk's powers as 'stupid'. Since he lacked higher brainpower at the time, which allowed him to see ghosts and stuff.

So we tend to defer to high end consistent feats. Just smooths things over... does make it hard to debate things sometimes though.

[Sharpandpointies]

Yeah, it really comes down to feats.

I'm rather iffy on Widow stalemating Elektra, given Elektra's flat-out ridiculous, consistent feats. She's a high-end bullet-timer considered to be one of the most skilled fighters in the world who punches out people's hearts when she's in a bad mood.