co-written by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid
illustrated by Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson
In issue #2, Natasha's daring heist of sensitive data from a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier is explained with a flashback. Most of the story takes place at a secret cemetery for fallen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, where Director Hill and Agent Elder attend a funeral for a young agent when several men try to attack them, only to be killed off, one by one, by Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. the Black Widow. She believes Hill and Elder have fallen into a trap, only to find out too late who the real target of the trap was. She is eventually forced to pull off the Helicarrier heist using one of the oldest tricks in the book: good old fashioned blackmail.
In issue #3, Natasha's new "principal" the Weeping Lion, directs her to travel to Russia, to her old training facility the Red Room to find something. As she arrives at the dilapidated facility, memories come flooding back, even as she finds and neutralizes scavengers, and manages to discover something even more terrifying than her.
As much as I am still enjoying this series, the fact that Samnee's doing the plotting is becoming a bit more evident here as the story's starting to seem a little thin to be stretched over three issues. The first issue, which was basically one long chase and fight sequence, was a real show-stopper, but when Samnee and Waid explain in a second-issue flashback that Natasha was basically blackmailed with secrets from her past, I couldn't help but think: "THAT old chestnut?" I realize that as a former Soviet spy (and in the comic books, through some Russian version of the Super Soldier Serum or Infinity Formula, she's really been around since World War II), she has a checkered past, but how much does that even matter anymore? Sure, they're clearly still playing the whole antihero card for her in having her do something bad to avoid her dirty little secrets being exposed, but by screwing over S.H.I.E.L.D. to serve a bad guy in order to save her own ass it strikes me that she's made herself some powerful enemies anyway, so it doesn't seem all that logical. The action sequences, of which there are several throughout this issue, were great, though, and it seems to me that Samnee has raised his game quite a bit as an artist and as a visual storyteller.
Issue #3, while it still has me wondering just how damning the documents the Weeping Lion has on Natasha are, at least it doesn't involve her taking on an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier full of agents and doesn't feel like an affront to storytelling logic. It's nice and low key, and it offers us a glimpse into her past in the Red Room, though I don't know how much of that is left to tell short of wandering into retcon territory. In any event, this was a more enjoyable issue.
Don't get me wrong; I remain a huge fan of these creators, and I definitely want to see what comes next, but considering the lofty standard of storytelling the pair of them had established during their lengthy run on Daredevil I was a little bit disappointed to see them coming down to earth a little bit. One aspect of the storytelling I appreciate though is the way they're keeping things mysterious. This really appears to be Samnee's show, with Waid basically just lending the dialogue, but even though Samnee isn't quite the scribe Waid is, I still appreciate his sense of pacing and how to build the sense of peril and menace our heroine faces.
Black Widow has never been a best-selling book so I don't see them lasting on it as long as they did on DD, but I am still looking forward to what these guys have to offer.
7.5/10 for issue #2
8/10 for issue #3
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