Black Widow #3 - Marvel Comics

BLACK WIDOW No. 3, January 2021

It must have been hard for the vast majority of this comic’s audience not to side with the Weeping Lion when he angrily points out to the rest of his criminal co-conspirators that their plan to permanently side-line Natasha Romanoff by making her “permanently happy… in her own personal paradise” is an anathema of a plot. Indeed, the notion that such notorious super-villains as Madame Hydra, Arcade and the Red Guardian would invest such “considerable trouble and expense” for such an outlandish method of ‘removing’ the titular character from interfering with their future immoral machinations is arguably preposterous.

However, that is precisely what Kelly Thompson would have this twenty-page periodical’s readers believe when the Eisner Award-nominee reveals mid-way through the book that the “architect named Natalie in San Francisco with a fiancé and a beautiful baby boy” is nothing more than a brain-washed Black Widow, who has been duped by the Viper simply so the ex-Soviet spy won’t interfere with the unlawful operations of her biggest arch-nemesis; “I’m not an idiot. I have big things coming and I want her off the board. She’s been so damn happy that she’s been out of the game for months.”

Fortunately, the Weeping Lion quickly makes it clear that he has taken matters into his own hands to ensure that such a surreal scheme doesn’t last much longer, by covertly ordering Romanoff’s immediate death courtesy of some knife-wielding hitmen. Such decisive action by the balaclava-wearing Yugoslavian kingpin instantly restores some sensibility to the publication’s narrative, and transforms Natasha’s night-time arrival at her disconcertingly deserted home into a thrill-a-minute experience packed full of pulse-pounding pugilism and acrobatic mayhem.

Helping this sudden and quite considerable change of pace along is artist Elena Casagrande, whose pencilling of the Black Widow somersaulting her way through a goon-packed kitchen is an absolute joy to behold. Deadly with both a handy coat-hanger, everyday carving knife and energy-efficient kettle, the double-splash illustration is undoubtedly the highlight of the book and once again demonstrates just how formidable a fighter the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent can be when confronting non-powered combatants like Platch Liev’s henchmen.

The regular cover art of "BLACK WIDOW" #3 by Adam Hughes