In my opinion slightly rushed story-line. There is no tension here because it is more than obvious that Black Widow will defeat all of her enemies.

Where this volume delivers is personal history of Black Widow - how she became super-spy and assassin. Everything else seems to be just a background story to keep the page-count at regular level. I think that they could have done much better - for example imagine story in the likes of Wolverine Origins or X-Weapon, that would be awesome :) - but I guess that Black Widow was always on the margins and not class-A Marvel hero.

Nevertheless interesting story (character background) and therefore 3.5 stars (3 stars in goodreads since I cannot find half-star rating :))

Recommended for fans of Marvel's hero stories and Black Widow in particular. ( )

1416 ( )

The Black Widow has long been one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. Before the world at large was introduced to her in Iron Man 2, I was reading her adventures. I was thrilled to have her introduced into the cinematic canon because she's a strong female character, a hero of tragic origin with a darkness that brings an enormous amount of depth to her stories. Natasha Romanoff has been involved in many adventures within Marvel comics through the decades, playing an important part in various continuities. I hadn't read the Deadly Origin issues, though, and I was looking forward, as I always do, to reading anything Black Widow when I picked this collection up at my local bookstore.

How disappointing.

This story alternates between a plot called the "Icepick Protocol" to kill everyone that Romanoff loves and hinging around the man who was a father figure to her, Ivan...and flashbacks to her past, from her origins as part of the Red Room through her involvement in the Civil War story arc. This is the retconned history for the Black Widow, in which biotechnological enhancements prolong her life substantially, and thus she has lived through a great deal. We see her husband, the Red Guardian, and other interesting glimpses into the Widow's past that has crafted her into the strong and fractured character that she is. The flashbacks seemed to be well-paced within the context of the rest of the story to me, but the dialogue seemed out of character in both present and past on many occasions. The sweep of the story is too broad for so confined a collection...we're simply covering too much of Romanoff's life because we have to see how it collides with present events. The present events are then reduced to a cacophony of violent confrontations that don't leave room for the sort of character evolution that I would hope to see in an origin story.

Then, there's the art.

Two different artists draw this collection: one the modern events, another the flashbacks. The flashback art by Leon is brilliant. The emotions of the characters carry far past the dialogue, and there are moments where I feel I know the Black Widow's character better based only on her facial expression or posture in tableau from these flashback sequences. Comparing this to the majority of the collection...the current events...is striking enough to be painful. In modern day, Romanoff looks as though she's seventeen rather than the woman she is, her apparent age completely incongruous with the skills she evidences in the fighting sequences. Which is sort of noticeable, as fighting sequences are really all we see in the present events.

Overall, I also find the events of the story a bit too steeped in the "off-camera" sex. Yes, the Widow is a product of the Red Room, but she has become so much more as a hero, and this just doesn't do her justice. I think the motivation of the writer was to paint Romanoff as the woman she's become, but this missed the mark entirely.

Deadly Origin's writing is, unfortunately, a lot of failing to do the character of the Black Widow justice. Combined with profoundly disappointing artwork for more than half of the collection, and this is a book that will likely gather dust on my shelf without ever being re-read. If you love the Black Widow, you'll want better. ( )

I could not read this graphic novel without the "Black Widow" song running through my head.

She's a redhead! That alone gives her 3 stars.

I knew nothing about this superhero when I picked up this book, other than the name.

It wasn't bad. I was a bit confused until I read the end notes about the history of Black Widow. That helped explain the comic to me. Apparently, she got around - she seems to have had a relationship with most of the other superheroes in the Marvel universe - Daredevil, Hawkeye, Ironman, Hercules. . . .I kept wondering - is she good, is she bad? Apparently, she used to work for the Russians. (She IS Russian.) But now she's on our side and one of the Avengers.

My husband picks this up and glances at it. His comment - "She apparently likes the girls, too. She's kissing this girl."

Then me - "Well, it had to do with the antidote to the nanobots implanted in her lips. It was the only way she could save her from dying. Okay, so some comic writer thought that would be kinda cool."

This story line had flashbacks to her origins, plus a current story line about the death of Ivan and how she needs to save all of those she's ever loved.



I'm gonna love you
Until you hate me
And I'm gonna show you
What's really crazy

( )

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Paul Cornell's Black Widow: Deadly Origin is one of those comics that takes the tangled history of a superhero character that's been jerked from status quo to status quo over the years, and tries to retroactively impose some kind of characterization on it all. Natalia Romanova was a super-agent of the U.S.S.R., a Russian superhero's wife, a spy in the West, a member of umpteen superhero teams, and a lover of umpteen male superheroes.

I don't think he really succeeds, unfortunately. If Natasha has her own core identity, I'm not sure what it is. Cornell's story alternates between the present day (where there's a plot to kill all those who she's ever loved) and the past (where we get snippets of her history). But there's either too many flashbacks or not enough of them. We never spend more than a page or two in any one time period, making it hard to get an emotional bead on Natasha at any given point. If they were expanded, they might work better. Alternatively, focusing on the present-day story might make Natasha's emotional throughline more clear. But as it is, it still feels more like a jumble of comic book continuity than actual story. I don't think I know Natasha any better as a person than I did before reading.

The art doesn't help. John Paul Leon's art for the flashbacks is nice and stylistic, but sometimes cold and hard to follow. Tom Raney's art for the present-day narrative, on the other hand, is often awkward, and his Natasha looks younger and more girly than Leon's in the flashbacks, which seems... misjudged.

My favorite part was when Natasha breaks into a Russian bunker to acquire some secret information, and all the young guys in the bunker are so excited to be defeated by her they just tell her everything she needs to know, and toast her with champagne as she leaves. The inclusion of Cornell's original pitch, including his editor's comments, is a nice bonus too.

P.S. While writing this review, I came across this really nice review of the story from a feminist perspective on Fuck Yeah, Black Widow! A worthwhile read, and it helped clarify to this Black Widow novice what was preexisting continuity, and what was Paul Cornell's interpolation.