Writers: Mark Waid, Chris Samnee / Artist: Chris Samnee / Marvel Comics
[quote_simple]”It’s hardball with an oddball, when the shots you throw through do car door like it’s cardboard / I feel like I’m at your mom’s door with a convoy, Full of armed boys from Darfur / My heart core colder than the shoulders on a US soldier on ‘Nam shores”- Loaded Lux[/quote_simple]
On everything in my Google search history, I don’t give a fuck who your favorite action star is. I don’t care who the fuck you think is the face of adventure. I don’t fucking care. If you aren’t talking about Natasha Ramanova than you ain’t talking about a Bast damn thing. Zoom in on my face as I say this shit. Closer. Closer. Muh fucka *Grabs camera* Natasha Romanova is out here bringing the espionage game back to glory. Fuck James Bond. Fuck Jason Bourne. Fuck La Femme Nikita. Fuck Ethan Hunt. This Black Widow series is the mixtape fiction game needs right now. It’s been too quiet, so Natasha, Waid, and Samnee brought them gun bars back.
We discovered that there’s a successor to The Red Room program that created Natasha and made her the god of espionage that we know and love (and want a movie from). That successor program is called The Dark Room and these girls are not here for the fuck shit. Natasha is having to hunt down these numerous nameless assassins hiding in plain sight. That’s no easy feat, we see one preparing for her latest hit. Samnee sets a dark tone from jump so we know that behind the cookie cutter girl scout look, beneath the surface is a killer patiently waiting for a track to explode on. It’s too bad that Natasha is bout to make this killer rewrite whatever verse she thought she was gonna catch a body with.
Can we just appreciate Natasha undercover as a tour guide? It took everything to hold in my laugh, she makes a convincing blonde as well. Waid and Samnee have Natasha making use of Weeping Lion’s telepathic ability brilliantly in the field yet again. I am a huge fan of the dialogue between the two as well. We got such a series action wise but they also know just when to place the humor in to give this the realistic feel. I love when characters get vexed and snarky in the field. The dynamic between these two really makes these scenes unique.
Although he is technically Natasha’s captive, Weeping Lion is coming in hard with the snark and Natasha is firing right back with sarcasm. All this is going on while she is trying to find a killer hiding in plain sight as well as interrogating kids, the wrong kids mind you. This is the shit I’m talking about man, this is the shit I want to see from a series. The fucking Rocky and Bullwinkle reference made me scream laugh. Don’t even get me started when it came to the play by play when it comes to time for the get action to get underway.
Dude if I could just highlight the entire action scenes in this issue right here, I’d John Madden the shit with marking up Natasha’s movements as well has just how good her opposition is. Fam, you know how Steven Segal never gets hit in his movies? (Even Bruce Lee got hit, Segal. Get over yourself.) Yeah, that ain’t the case for Natasha this issue, or anyone in this assassin’s way. Samnee got folks getting crossed over with the And 1 something fierce this issue. What’s truly remarkable is not only how he paces out the action visually but just how fast he’s able to make Natasha seem when you’re reading between the panels. She does a move that was foreshadowed in this small Easter egg of a detail that you’ll find myself searching for like Waldo and saying, “How the fuck did she set that up?”
There’s a lot at play towards in this issue and especially towards the end. Waid and Samnee are a great creative team at turning people around and giving them their own block in Marvel universe to run amok in. They proved it on Daredevil and they’re continuing the work here in Black Widow.
Reading Black Widow? Catch up on previous reviews of the series here.
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