Review: Black Widow Comic Series

Hey fellow bookworms,

Since I got into the Marvel fandom about half a year ago (the MCU to be precise, and shoutout to my lovely online bestie who introduced me to this world) I've been obsessed with all the characters. One of my favorites is Black Widow, and I recently decided I'd like to get into the comic world too. But the Marvel universe is huge, and where does one start without any prior knowledge? Luckily I got some recommendations and today I want to pass one on to you and review the 3-part Black Widow series by Nathan Edmondon!

General Information
Titles: Vol 1: The Finely Woven Thread (ISBN 9780785188193),
Vol 2: The Tightly Tangled Web (9780785188209),
Vol 3: Last Days (9780785192534)
Author: Nathan Edmondson
Artist: Phil Noto
Publisher: Marvel
Year: 2014
My ratings:
Vol 1: ★★★½☆☆
Vol 2: ★★★★☆
Vol 3: ★★★★☆

 

About: This series follows Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow through a series of events that require her skills as both a spy and a fighter. Despite now being an Avenger and with S.H.I.E.L.D, Natasha is also flying solo and trying to atone for the sins of her past when she was an assassin for the KGB in Russia. She soon comes across a mysterious organisation called Chaos that turns her world upside down, but she doesn't know how much of an enemy she's made when she starts to dive deeper into this web of conspiracies and terror. Throught the series we also meet many other well known Marvel characters.

This series was recommended to me as a new reader of Black Widow comics, and from that perspective I'm also writing my review. The focus in this series is clearly on Nat, and lots of it is written in some sort of inner monologue. It was a great way to get to know the character better and find out how she sees herself, and it could get quite depressing at times. Natasha is a loner, a shadow, working better alone and having trouble trusting people and letting them into her life. There still are a couple of people she's sort of close with and she's constantly afraid they might get hurt because of her. In short, she was quite different than the Natasha I knew from the movies. Especially in the 1st volume I missed some of the kickass action; instead, it was more of a spy thriller story. The 2nd volume really picked up the pace though and ended on a real cliffhanger, and I was happy I had the final volume on hand so I could continue right away! The 3rd volume was full af action too, but without forgetting Nat's roots as a spy and assassin.

The storyline was mostly well written, but sometimes I still had trouble following what was going on or how certain chapters fit into the bigger thing. Some of it was confusing. But the way a story is told in comics is quite different from regular novels and it definitely takes some getting used to. I was happy that I was mostly able to follow the plot, and there were a couple of recurring themes throughout the entire series. The cold way Natasha came across made it sometimes difficult to establish a connection to her and I felt a bit detached. There were a couple of really cute and/or emotional scenes too though, especially in the 2nd and 3rd volume.

The artwork has received much praise on goodreads. At first, I wasn't the biggest fan of it but it certainly grew on me. It's drawn in a watercolor style and in the 1st volume the color palette is rather muted, in some scenes only Nat's red hair stands out while the background colors are mostly greens, blues and greys or white. The artwork got clearer and the colors more vivid throughout the series, as you can see on the right. I mostly liked it and thought it was beautiful in an unique way.

There were two things I especially loved. One were the many cameos of other characters, and they were all really well integrated into the main storyline. Nat teams up with the Winter Soldier aka Bucky Barnes whom she shares a history with. She also meets Clint Barton aka Hawkeye. Now this was great because these two are two other favorites of mine in the MCU so I may be a bit biased. Other cameos include (but are not limited to) Maria Hill, Tony Stark and Matt Murdock aka Daredevil. Oh, and a cat. The cat was the cutest :)
The second thing I loved were the flashbacks, especially the ones in volume 3 of Nat's childhood. They were important to her story and were both beautiful and heartbreaking. There are quite a few flashbacks in the entire series that were integrated really cleverly.

All in all I quite enjoyed this series. It didn't leave me totally confused, in fact I understood most of the storyline and I also knew a fair deal of the other characters. So for my first Black Widow comic series this definitely was a success. Even though I had some minor issues and I wasn't immediately blown away by the 1st volume, I'd recommend the series to other fans of the character who'd like to get to know another side of her. Even newbies like myself will have fun with these comics and I think they really are a good starting point for the character.