Black Widow #15 - Marvel Comics

BLACK WIDOW No. 15, May 2022

Sadly bringing this ongoing series’ “legendary run” to an end, Kelly Thompson’s narrative for Issue Fifteen of “Black Widow” certainly seems to do a job good in both wrapping up the comic’s latest sense-shattering shenanigan, as well as leaving the book’s audience asking for more stories about Natasha Romanoff’s increasingly close super-heroic family. Indeed, towards the end of this twenty-page periodical’s plot, the “Eisner-winning” writer makes a remarkable habit of penning some the Soviet agent’s ongoing adversaries conducting a successful break for freedom so they can live to fight another day; “Your honour spared my life once before, and I do the same for you now.”

Foremost of these intriguing ‘open-ends’ is arguably the defeat of the Living Blade, after the mysterious swordsman is stopped short of slicing up a clearly battle-weary Yelena Belova. Perhaps somewhat disappointingly, the pair’s apparently epic confrontation isn’t actually covered by this publication due to the action following the titular Avenger first and foremost. However, considering that it is made somewhat clear that the injured “exemplar trainee in the Red Room Academy” wouldn’t have survived her duel for much longer if not for Natalia’s swashbuckling intervention, it doesn’t bode well for Romanoff’s future when she later grants the cold-blooded killer clemency.

Likewise, there’s the suggestion that the selfish Twins, Liv and Lars, plus Aldrich Lux Voss, will surely crop back up like a bad penny once the New York City-based publisher decides to produce another comic based upon the Black Widow’s exploits. The sudden departure of the odious platinum-blonde doppelgangers just as Spider-Girl needs their physical help to fend off a flurry of the Host’s pistol-toting henchmen is particularly perturbing, as their unappreciative abandonment comes just as Lucy Nguyen has literally brought one of them back from the brink of death with her “volatile electric” abilities.

Of course, alongside this book’s enthralling authorship are its eye-catching layouts by Elena Casagrande, Rafael T. Pimentel, Elisabetta D’Amico and Jordie Bellaire. The mix of pencilers, inkers and colour artist do an excellent job in conveying the rising tension of the superspy’s swansong by providing some genuinely pulse-poundings panels, such as those depicting the Winter Soldier single-handedly stopping a heavily-guarded Host from escaping aboard a helicopter, and Natasha’s awesomely-acrobatic final clash of swords against the Living Blade.

The regular cover art of "BLACK WIDOW" #15 by Adam Hughes