There has been a subtle but notable change in the Black Widow over the last decade or so, as she's gone from superspy-turned-Avenger back to just superspy. The resulting character isn't terribly suited to the Avengers life, and indeed comes off as more of a supervillain than a superhero, but she's a fascinating solo character, and Richard K. Morgan and Bill Sienkiewicz have put together a story that reads like The Bourne Identity crossed with Elektra: Assassin, with maybe a touch of buddy movie in there as well. Ex-spies on the run from a mysterious foe, pitting their ruthless nature and spy skills to use in trying to solve the mystery and stay alive, all the while dealing with the morality of what they do and did? Sounds good to me, and these creators serve it up with style.
I'm a big fan of the superspy, whether you're talking about Tara Chace, Jack Bauer, James Bond or Sydney Bristow. Morgan's take on Black Widow is on the cinematic side, but with a gritty feel, not quite as pop as Alias but not as detailed and real as Queen & Country, instead sitting somewhere in the middle. Natasha is portrayed as heroic in the right circumstances and certainly human and sympathetic, but also as ruthless as the bad guys in most superhero comics, and she's not donning black tights and wrist blasters here, but using martial arts and intelligence as her weapons. I confess, I have no small fondness for the superhero incarnation, but the badass spy Natasha popularized by Greg Rucka, Devin Grayson and Brian Michael Bendis is pretty damn cool too. And that's the version that Morgan is writing here.
The plot, about female Soviet agents being murdered, plays out slowly, but not "six issue arc from Marvel" slowly. Instead, Morgan teases the reader with a series of scenes early on and then explains them later on, as well as teasing the reader with the identity of the man behind it. Leaving aside a compelling plot, however, the moment-to-moment writing is just fantastic. Natasha's narration shows her calculating and intelligent nature, especially in the scenes with the would-be assassin, and it really sets the mood of the piece.
When the narration sort of fades away in favor of more dialogue between Natasha and her exceptionally likable and interesting partner, the tone changes a little bit, adding a touch of dark comedy to the gritty suspense, but it's just as strong. In addition, there are any number of great scenes in this one, and I could name several favorites, but the one that sticks with me is the way that Natasha deals with a pair of unruly truckers. It's brutal and cold and perhaps a touch mean, but it sticks with me the way some of Jack Bauer's excesses on the second season of 24 did.
Morgan was an unknown factor for me, but going in, I was pretty sure I was going to like this art. Sienkiewicz doesn't always strike a chord with me, but when he's on, as he was in New Mutants or Elektra: Assassin in the '80s or his more recent work on Ultimate Marvel Team Up, he's fantastic. Black Widow is ideally suited to his sensibilities, and he reins in a little of his style to keep the book clear and easy to read while maintaining the loose, scratchy and energetic elements that make his style so compelling. The violence in particular is fast and vicious, with snapshots capturing moments and the sense that we're watching everything flow in staccato bursts of violence in amidst slow motion stops to track what's going on around the characters involved. There's also a lovely sense of place, from the Arizona desert to the cluttered office of Phil Dexter to a train running through the Oklahoma mountains, and Dan Brown deserves a lot of credit on this sense of place in particular and on his work on the issue in general as well.
