Saturday, August 13, 2011

Black Widow: Deadly Origins HC


Paul Cornell has an interesting take on the Black Widow, taking her name literally. It seems that ol’ Natasha is infected with some form of virus that will cause everyone she has “been with” to go crazy. Even worse, they’ve spread that around to the folks that they have known well (this leads to an interesting fight when Mockingbird goes berserk and Natasha has to cure her).

I’m not sure about the villain that Cornell uses. I never really got a bad-guy vibe from this long-time supporting character, admittedly, I haven’t read that much with him in it. Maybe some old Champions and Daredevil issues at most. In any case, I loved his ridiculous look at the close of the comic, but it does seem to be a sad betrayal for a character who has already lost a lot.

Tom Raney handles the modern elements of the story, and he does it well. The Widow’s white snowsuit is awesome, and it was wonderful seeing her use it (and her charms) on some bored soldiers. John Paul Leon handles the flashbacks, which carry a sense of grandeur of their own. Wolverine’s appearance in those flashbacks makes sense and really shows how similar Wolvie is to the title character. Red Guardian’s appearances were surprisingly poignant too.

Cornell does a good job walking the fine line between emotionally torturing his character and making her enjoy the job too much.

Fair

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