[quote=@role model]
This is mainly aimed at [@CaptainManbeard] I've been thinking about Black Widow (Natasha Romanova) being born an American and doing well in martial arts and getting hooked up in the Russian mafia and knows things like murder and extortion before she's 21? She would be an avid MMA practitioner and an antihero.

Everyone comment at will!
[/quote]

Having her actively engaged in murder and extortion may still make her at odds with her teenage peers. As mentioned before, the point is for them to be rookie superheroes figuring out how the whole life/crimefighting balance and all. What I would suggest instead is to have Natasha be a child of a Russian mafia boss and maybe she witnessed HIM killing, extorting, and interrogating people, and perhaps she has some lingering untreated PTSD or something. Maybe her father was pretty harsh in her youth and forced her to go through torturous training, but then after he was killed by a rival mobster, she was sent to live with her grandmother in New York or something. I would say to not make that recent, though -- Maybe it's been a few years since she came to live with her Grams and she has been seeing a therapist to work out her PTSD, but because of the subliminal programming her father beat into her, she can't deny the obsessive urge to continue training in martial arts. Maybe DOWN THE ROAD, after they've all gotten to know each other, maybe we can say her father also put her under secret hypnotic training to make her essentially an obedient robot assassin, but since he has been dead for a few years, he hasn't been around to say the trigger phrase, which could be "Красная комната" or "Krasnaya Komnata," which is "Red Room" according to Google Translate. 

Each time the phrase is uttered, Natasha falls under a hypnotic trance and follows all orders flawlessly and efficiently without conscience or doubt or empathy. No one saw her coming because they didn't expect a little girl to be an assassin. Once the mission was done, she would return to her father, who would then utter "Запечатанный" or "Zapechatannyy," which is "Sealed Shut." This would cause her to fall into a deep sleep for a few hours, and she'd have no memory of the mission upon waking. This would preserve her capability as a perfect assassin without robbing her of the teenage inexperience that is vital to the early posts in the RP. She basically would have no memory of her missions or her suppressed assassin capabilities, for quite some time, until we get to a point in the story where we can begin to bring that side of her in. 

Once that point arrives, we can work into the story a reason for her to go look at some of her father's belongings in storage, where she learns of the trigger phrases. Maybe the group is looking through the stuff together and David says the trigger phrase out loud and everyone freaks out as Natasha suddenly pulls a knife on him. Then they can start a very slow process of her regaining all her memories. What does everyone think?