Atoning for the past means sometimes repeating some of the same mistakes.
Creative Staff:
Story: Nathan Edmondson
Art: Phil Noto
What They Say:
Can Black Widow make up for her time spent as a KBG assassin? Or will the darkness of her past consume her?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While the opening installment of Black Widow didn’t blow me away, it was certainly something more of what I had hoped for. The ease with which they could throw her into dealing with all sorts of superhero oriented work is certainly there, and I do expect it to come at some point, I definitely liked the idea of working more within the espionage side and having her trying to make amends for things from the past, but still working the darker side of the world. She’s been exposed to it for so long that there is that simple understanding of how the world works. And once understood, it’s hard to back away from because doing anything else feels like you’re putting a false face on it instead of dealing with it honestly. And Natasha is definitely trying to deal with things from her point of view in an honest way.
This installment starts to tug at bigger things a little bit, but is still mostly focused just on Natasha taking the jobs to pay the bills, but ensuring that the bad guys are being taken out. It’s an uncomfortable position for Isaiah in some ways, because she’s picking the lesser of two evils to work with in taking the job. The job itself is kind of inconsequential in a way, The job has her going to Shanghai to find a man’s son that’s been kidnapped by their enemy, which is the really evil group, but what makes the story engaging is not the story itself, but Natasha’s narration as she talks about how she has to work the job, the mistakes that can be made and the way she criticizes herself for making pretty much all of them along the way. There’s a sense of deja vu for her when it comes to the job itself and that is the biggest red flag, one she does manage to survive of course, but not without really being displeased by how she did.
Though that’s interesting, the more interesting aspect for me is seeing Isaiah, who is someone that is brand new to me. With him working as her lawyer, he’s also a bit of a conscience for her that she doesn’t care for because she knows what the deal is and what she has to do. With him back in the states, we see how someone is looking for her to make amends for the past and views Isaiah as leverage to use to get what they want. He’s got a kind of bland approach so far, but we see that he’s definitely smart and watching how he keeps an eye on those questioning about Natasha reinforces it. But it’s the material that shows what he does to them, after the fact, that has you reappraise him completely and wonder what more there is to him. It’s small reveals like that which I find exciting, since there is a certain understanding of who Natasha is at this point.
In Summary:
With some small hints of something larger to come, Black Widow mostly plays it safe here and gives us a story that lets Natasha do her work, but show that she’s not infallible. She has a solid effort put in here, but there’s a kind of weariness to her in a way that makes her susceptible to a lot of mistakes being made, which just turns the whole job into a disaster that doesn’t pay out quite as it should. Her narration is solid and the result of it all is what paints her back into that lonely corner, but there’s only so far that you can give us a morose and lonely character before it becomes completely uninteresting. Though she’s great at what she does, there’s no spark to her here that really makes you connect with her, which is what I’m curious to see if it gets developed. The intriguing part is Isaiah, and a lot of that is simply because he’s an unknown to me at the moment and the chance to learn new twisty things is enticing.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 22nd, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
