What does a deadly spy do when she’s not a part of the big world ending missions?
Creative Staff:
Story: Nathan Edmondson
Art: Phil Noto
What They Say:
You’ve seen Black Widow as an Avenger and even an Agent of Shield. But on her own time she searches for atonement for her past as a KGB assassin–in ways of which those teams just wouldn’t approve.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
A growing interest in the character of Black Widow after the various film presentations is no surprise, nor was there in Natasha Romanov getting her own book. The character is one of the more well established ones over the years in the comics world and I’ve read her in many stories. But what’s interesting for me is that while recalling many, many years of reading comics, I can’t think of a single prominent storyline for her that I read, something that’s the definitive Black Widow story. Perhaps those came after I got out of comics in the mid 90’s, but it made me very interested in seeing what she’d be doing in her own series in the present day where things can be a lot more involved and interesting for characters in comics. Putting her in the hands of Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto is certainly a very good start.
As is says at the start, Natasha’s known as an Avenger, she’s done things with SHIELD for the longest time and she’s got a lengthy past that can be utilized for her time as an assassin. But it’s those times in the past that are the focus here for her ongoing series debut as part of what her life is about now is making amends in various ways for the darker parts of her past. With a number of properties and facilities that she owns and controls, she’s turned herself from the mindset of making money and exploiting things to essentially making sure they’re carried and break even to do the good that they do for others. But in order to fund it, she takes on various jobs that really utilize her skills as a spy and assassin. Killing seems to be off the table for the moment, but what she does is take these black ops kinds of jobs in order to pay for everything that does good. And through the handler she’s using for it all, it’s designed so that she’s dealing with contracts to take down the bad people of the world so that she’s on the right side, just using starker methods.
The book gives us a decent opening introduction action sequence in Berlin as she goes after a Russian who’s ready to cause a lot of destruction and bloodshed. We get to see the well laid out design of the action and the costume she wears to get into where she wants to be, but also that she’s turning the guy over to the authorities for real justice. It has standard spy movie opening material about it, but it establishes the tone well. A good chunk of the book focuses on her mission to Dubai, which puts her in her more traditional outfit and without a wig, and that plays out in a good expanded way to see the scope of her skills, but also the trick of it all as well in terms of who she’s after. She has some creative methods in going after the target here and it is a little convoluted in a way because it’s all packed into about two thirds of the issue, but it makes it clear her skill level – and that she does go a bit overboard at times with taking down said targets.
In Summary:
The opening issue of Black Widow plays to the spy and espionage genre well, avoiding the superheroics side of it. If that’s setting the tone for the series, that’s definitely a positive for me since we can see Natasha in any number of big superhero series where she can deal with those threats. My hope is that we get things that are a bit more personal, political and full of intrigue as it figures out what kinds of stories it wants to tell. The problem with Natasha for so long is that she’s mostly just known by her skill set or who she’s with. With this series, the potential for giving her a crew of her own for a supporting cast is a big positive as it helps to expand who she is beyond those skills. We know the drill about her dark side, but what I’m hopeful for with this series is that we get to see more of who she is in this modern world and what she does outside of the superhero stuff. And hopefully outside of the spy business as well. It’s a solid looking issue that in some places may take itself a little too seriously, but it certainly has potential.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 8th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
