Graphic Novel Review: Black Widow: SHIELD’s Most Wanted

They wowed you with Daredevil, now the Eisner Award-winning team of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee take Black Widow to new heights -by forcing her to go on the lam! Natasha has a lifetime of secrets, and when some of the darkest ones are made public , nobody is safe. As S.H.I.E.L.D. turns on its once greatest asset, she seeks out her own answers in a knockdown drag-out tale of action and espionage! But will the Widow’s hunt for the Weeping Lion send her back to the one place she never wanted to go?

(Panini Books)

Fresh from an award-winning run on the Man Without Fear, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee have now turned their attention towards his former lover and partner, the one-time Russian superspy Natasha Romanova.

With the Widow having enjoyed a relatively comfortable few years as an Agent of SHIELD and part-time Avenger, Waid immediately tears away that safety net and catapults her on the run after stealing secret files from a SHIELD helicarrier…

Blackmailed into working for the mysterious Weeping Lion, who possesses information which could ruin her, Natasha finds herself returning to the location of the Soviet Red Room where she was shaped as a killer for Mother Russia, only to uncover a new generation of agents-in-training…

For a character forged at the heart of the Cold War, the espionage and intrigue which comes with that world is her perfect environment, and that comes through in today’s complicated political scene, as she is forced to use all of her skills as a secret agent just to survive.

There’s a Daniel Craig’s Bond feel to many of the sequences here, action pieces grounded in reality but no less explosive as a result, and Samnee’s clean line-work certainly adds to the cinematic feel, with a spectacular use of shadows that works oh so well for the darkened underbelly of society in which Natasha is forced to operate.

The international woman of mystery we know as the Black Widow has really come into her own since Scarlet Johansson gave her life in the Marvel movie universe, and in the hands of this creative team she could very well end up as one of the company’s leading comics characters as well. Shooting from the hip every time, this is one title which cannot be missed.