Black Widow showed the power of female operatives in the MCU, and how Natasha Romanoff became the powerhouse she was. She is far from alone though. Throughout the universe, some of the best spies are women. SHIELD, Hydra, and beyond, these ladies get the job done.
Fans are familiar with a lot of these agents and operatives, having followed some of their stories for years. As the Marvel Multiverse spreads and grows, more and more of these powerful spies will show up or come back to canon in the MCU, and when it comes to agents like these, the more the merrier.
10 Melinda May kicks butts & takes names
While Agents of SHIELD is in a strange corner of the multiverse, between canon and non-canon, Melinda May is a perfect example of how skilled SHIELD agents are supposed to be. Melinda’s skills were originally mostly tied to her flight and fight experience, but throughout the series, more and more of her abilities as a spy became clear.
She repeatedly went undercover in extremely different situations and held her cover in place even after things got violent.
9 Valentina Allegra de Fontaine knows all
Val hasn’t been in the MCU very long, but in her few appearances in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow, she’s proven to be formidable and very well informed. In the comics, she has heavy ties to Nick Fury and is one of the few people who can play the game as well, if not better, than he can. The MCU version is showing that she’s definitely on that level too.
With her team shaping up, Val could be the power behind the throne for a lot of Phase 4, or she could make a play for the throne herself.
8 Victoria Hand will not tolerate nonsense
Another Agents of SHIELD holdover, Victoria Hand was one of the Level 8 agents that searched for the Clairvoyant in Season 1. She made no bones about questioning Coulson and any other agents that she didn’t agree with, and she stood strong against Hydra when SHIELD fell.
Her death at the hands of John Garrett and Grant Ward cut her story short, but in her time on screen, Victoria Hand was a force to be reckoned with.
7 Daisy Johnson: SHIELD’s finest & future Avenger?
Her comic book counterpart was the head of SHIELD by the time she hit her 20s, but Agents of SHIELD's Daisy Johnson has had a longer climb to the top of the game. She learned from some of the best and applied both her computer skills and her superpowers to the fight against world-ending evil.
There has been some fan push to have Daisy cross over to the MCU proper in the Avengers franchise but so far, she’s remaining in her Agents of SHIELD branch timeline.
6 Peggy Carter ran the game before any of the others were born
Founding SHIELD and leading the intelligence community for decades, Peggy Carter is a role model for the other spies on this list, including her niece. In the MCU tie-in comic Captain America: First Vengeance, Peggy infiltrated Johann Schmidt’s labs and rescued Dr. Erskine.
Even before she met Steve Rogers and was tied into the Captain America mythos, Peggy Carter was a capable and dangerous spy for the Allies in World War II, and well beyond that as the head of SHIELD.
5 Maria Hill knows how to run things
Nick Fury’s second in command at SHIELD, and after the fall of SHIELD, Maria Hill has kept things moving in the right direction in the background throughout the MCU. By setting herself up with Stark and the Avengers after SHIELD fell to Hydra, she was able to keep Nick Fury in the loop when he needed to be.
While we haven’t seen her in a while—her last appearance was actually the Skrull, Soren—Maria Hill is still a threat to anyone who gets in the way of the good guys.
4 Sharon Carter builds her own legacy
Sharon Carter was trusted by Nick Fury and stood for what SHIELD was supposed to be in the face of Hydra. She rebuilt her career in the CIA, and again, stood up for what was right, helping Captain America and Falcon get their gear back to fight against a bigger threat during Captain America: Civil War.
For all this, she was cast out and sent on the run on her own, but she wasn't done. From there, she used her skills to once again build herself back up, this time not in the service of good or a government, but for herself. She is an example of what happens when talented spies are done dirty too many times.
3 Yelena Belova: the world’s best child assassin
Yelena’s story mirrors Natasha Romanoff’s, but with a far more tragic twist. Her time under mind-control as a Black Widow was far more brutal and absolute than Natasha’s was. But once she was free of that, she went back for her fellow Widows, and ultimately killed the man who had put them under his control in the first place.
Her recruitment by Valentina de Fontaine shows she’s still very valuable to organizations that value her skill set, and still more than capable of taking down a target as high profile as Clint Barton.
2 Sylvie Laufeydottir plays the system & wins
While Sylvie’s life is a nightmare of growing up in Apocalyptic timelines to avoid the Time Variance Authority, the skills she gained in those timelines and in her quest to take down the TVA make her an excellent spy. Being able to hide in places no one would look, and gain information, albeit through magic rather than other methods, gives her an edge that let her survive.
Though she’s clearly only working toward her own ends and her own goals, the skillset is the same, and she’s mastered all the necessary abilities to be a master spy and will be trouble for Loki's agents of order in the future.
1 Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow set the bar
When she showed up in Iron Man 2, Natasha proved her skill, not only by infiltrating Stark Industries, but clearing out a hallway full of bad guys. Since then, she has repeatedly saved the lives of her teammates—most notably Steve Rogers—and ultimately saved the world with her sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame.
Natasha’s impact, not only on the intelligence community through the Red Room and SHIELD—but on the lives of those she worked with is undeniable.