Sunday Splash Page #91

"Good Crop of Moloids This Year," in Black Widow and the Marvel Girl #4, by Paul Tobin (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Veronica Gandini (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

A 4-issue mini-series that came out in 2009-2010, so roughly the same timeframe as the Marjorie Liu/Daniel Acuna ongoing series. You know how Marvel is about saturating the market with stuff. This was more continuity free, standalone issues of the Black Widow teaming with up various other characters.

We get the Enchantress in issue 1, and Carol Danvers (when she was still Ms. Marvel) in issue 3, both drawn by Salva Espin. The Wasp in issue 2 (drawn by Jacopo Camagni), and Storm in issue 4. Most of the issues showcase the Black Widow being calm and resourceful under fire, always prepared ahead of time, almost always having the leg up on the guest star of the issue. (The Enchantress would be an exception, but she showed up when Natasha was still training in the Red Room, and not actually the Black Widow yet). It's a pretty entertaining series, as Tobin makes good use of a variety of parts of the Marvel Universe, and the art teams are solid at the worst, with bright, easy to follow and expressive styles

The Black Widow comes off as very cool, but I think the series kind of highlights the reason I can't quite warm up to the character, and since it's the last Black Widow series I have, we might as well deal with that here. 

Basically, Black Widow's Late 90s-Early 2000s Batman. She always has plans. She knows all your weaknesses. Any time you think you have the upper hand, you're wrong (Carol thinks she was watching Natasha from above, but actually Natasha was letting her do that while using drones to spy on Carol from above). 

The second issue makes this big deal that the Wasp doesn't trust the Black Widow, but by the end of the issue, she totally does and tells Iron Man this. The last panel is Natasha, seemingly sitting by herself far away from the conversation (but not far enough she can't hear it), smiling when she hears that. But we only see her smile, we don't see her eyes to know if she's actually happy like, "Yay, I have a friend," or "Good, I've gained her trust, that will make whatever complicated plans I have easier."

And that just feels like the Batman of that time running up to Infinite Crisis. He spies on his allies, manipulates them, makes plans to kill them, refuses to apologize when those plans get stolen and used, gets allies killed (let Ted Kord go off to his death alone, when he knew something was wrong), and yet the story somehow always validates the actions. Natasha is, at least, far more competent in how she handles things than the Bat (it's very rare that other heroes or innocent people are hurt by Natasha's information-gathering and manipulation), but that doesn't make it behavior I find any less off-putting.

I get it for her character, it's just not a trait I really like, when you get down to it.