"Black Widow: Chaos"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Black Widow: Chaos” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow is a superspy. She was trained in the Russian program the Red Room, which prepared young girls to be ruthless and dangerous operatives. She defected to the United States and assisted the government organization S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as serving as a member of the superhero team the Avengers. She has a lot of red in her ledger.

            After suffering from great guilt, she established the Web, a fund to benefit the families and friends of people she felt she wronged from her days traveling the wrong path. She hired a lawyer named Isaiah Ross to manage the transfer of the funds. To earn the money, Natasha went on missions, involving finding information, apprehending dangerous people, and occasionally taking out some bad guys. These missions brought her onto S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar. Director Maria Hill, who had many trust issues, called in Natasha on a case. S.H.I.E.L.D. received a communication about “Chaos,” what they believed to be an organization, entity, or individual, and Hill felt Natasha was the person best suited for the job.

            The search for Chaos first led Natasha to a religious fanatical criminal named Molot. After their first encounter, which ended in Natasha’s defeat, Natasha needed information, so she turned to Tori Raven, an espionage expert. This information helped lead to Molot’s defeat but did not lead Natasha any closer to Chaos.

            Raven then gave Natasha info that led her to the Montenegrin Coast, where she found a moored freighter. Aboard the freighter was a man named Damon Dran. Natasha and S.H.I.E.L.D. were able to apprehend Dran, but Chaos ensured Dran could not provide S.H.I.E.L.D. with the information they were seeking.

            On a mission to rob a train in Prague, Natasha ran into Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier, Captain America’s sidekick turned Russian agent, who was on a mission to prevent the robbery. The two got into conflict, but ultimately realized they were on the same side.

            Natasha then went on a mission to a mobile tanker near Costa Rica, which being used as a satellite communications relay by the mercenary called Crossbones. As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one interested. Frank Castle/the Punisher had infiltrated Crossbones’ operation. But Crossbones wasn’t stupid and was covering his tracks and had set explosives throughout the tanker. The two managed to escape, but Natasha still had no new intel on Chaos. Then Natasha got a phone call from a man named Rashid, a man she had rescued years back, and who now had kidnapped Isaiah. To rescue Isaiah, Natasha teamed up with Laura Kinney/X-23, the clone of the mutant X-Man Wolverine, and went to a casino in Macau. The rescue was successful, but Rashid did not provide the info Natasha was after.

            Natasha’s life then became difficult after her dirty laundry was aired on national television while she was on a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation in Somalia. While at the same time, Isaiah was hospitalized.

            Tori Raven provided Natasha with information on Chaos. She had been working for them, and revealed Chaos was a financial organization. She provided Natasha with a list of their top accountants and told Natasha she had serious doubts Natasha could succeed without help. Natasha gave the list to Isaiah, instructing him to give it to Maria Hill. She then went on a hunt after the names on the list. This hunt reunited her with the Winter Soldier, and Natasha found Prophet, who showed her what could be her future, and Prophet revealed exactly what Chaos was. After finding what she was looking for, Natasha cut all ties, with her home, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Isaiah, and went off to find herself.

            Now, let’s talk about this book. When I purchased it, I wasn’t expecting it to be the greatest, and I was not surprised to find that I felt my assessment was correct and my expectations were met. I just felt like the story was so convoluted. I’ve never been a huge fan of spy novels or espionage movies. I’m not a fan of “James Bond” or “Mission Impossible” or anything else in that genre, so this book really was not going to be my cup of tea. I’m sorry to the writer Nathan Edmondson, I know you worked hard on this series, and I appreciate all the hard work and effort you put into this, but I just knew this wouldn’t appeal to me. You, my readers, may be wondering why, if I felt like I wouldn’t like this book, did I buy it? Honestly, I’m just buying all the Modern Era Epic Collections, so I wouldn’t pass on even a single one. I will say, however, that I was a fan of the art. I thought Phil Noto’s work was genius. The medium he used was watercolor paints, which was incredibly unique for a comic book. Traditionally when you think of comic book colors you think of ink, so this change was brilliant in my opinion, I was incredibly pleased by it. It was rather refreshing, so my hat is off to Mister Noto. I say it in my reviews of graphic novels that story and art are a partnership. A graphic novel is a union. You can have an exceptional story but have awful artwork and it totally ruins the book. Or you could have a horrible story, but the art is pleasant to look at. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but I do feel like that while the story didn’t appeal to me (I’m not saying I HATED the story per se), the artwork made me appreciate the book enough to find some enjoyment in it.

            Now, I always talk about accessibility when I write my reviews. What do I mean by that you may ask if you have never joined me before (and if you’ve graced this page before, bear with me for a few sentences)? Simple. If you’ve never heard of Marvel Comics before, or know nothing about Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, can you still pick up this book and enjoy it? Now, the back of this book credits it as Vol. 3. I have to say to you: IGNORE IT! This could easily be Vol. 1. Marvel doesn’t always release their Modern Era Epic Collections chronologically, as you shall come to know as my reviews on these continue. Right now, the line is relatively new and there are not a lot of options, but the graphic novels are not published in order all the time. (I do have a few Modern Era Epic Collections in my possession I have yet to review, give it time, they will be there eventually). The first volumes of some of the titular series are not actually Vol. 1. “Daredevil: Underboss,” which has been previously reviewed, was the first collection published, yet it was Vol. 2. (We’ll get around to “Venom” around August, that will start with Vol. 4.) But let’s get back to “Black Widow.” This collects a complete twenty-issue series that was published between 2014-2015, plus a lead-in story and an issue of “Punisher.” I feel as if you know absolutely nothing about Mavel Comics, you could still follow this book. This book is completely standalone. It has no tie-ins to any other stories. Some Modern Era Epic Collections coincide with events and storylines that were ongoing at the time  and don’t actually contain any issues of the main event, just the issues focusing on one character/team from around that time period (take “Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider: Edge of Spider-Verse” for example, and I promise you there will be more, I already have a few volumes in my possession that crossover with events). You may have seen it with my reviews of the original Epic Collection formatted books. But again, I digress. This book focuses on just one narrative, and that’s it. I don’t find it to draw on knowledge of any previous Marvel storylines or storylines going on at the time, with the slight exception of the Punisher issue, but even that was a one-and-done. Yes, there are Avengers that pop up over the course of the book, but it doesn’t focus on any of their storylines. This book doesn’t dredge up any old Black Widow storylines either, it just focuses on the current story of Natasha and her mission to discover the truth about Chaos. I feel like it’s a perfect gateway Marvel graphic novel.

            Okay, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, you probably want to know my score of the book. Some of you may have noticed that this book hasn’t evoked as much of a discussion from me as some of my other prior Modern Era Epic Collection reviews. As I said, it has a singular storyline, and Natasha faces a lot of dead ends, so there’s really not a lot to mention, and if I did talk about that it would probably get a little boring. Plus, there is a lot of content that my blog site doesn’t allow me to discuss, so I had to leave that out. On top of that, there is a definite lack of dialogue and a surplus of action in this book, so there’s not a ton of story to discuss. There are several factors that kept this review slightly shorter than others, and I’d just be boring you explaining them, so I’m just going to move on. Now, my score. I score on a very simple scale, one to ten. One is the lowest, that means this book is trash and should be burned from existence and not reprinted, ten is the highest, that means this book is perfection. Now this score is, of course, my opinion. I don’t expect you to agree with me on my opinions. I highly invite you to disagree with me. Please feel free to leave a response in any of the proper formats possible if you’ve read this and have any opinions on this book, I’d love to hear them. I’m also a hard scorer, I don’t just go around handing out tens, but I’m also not an ogre and say everything is a one either. So, let’s balance this out here. So the story really didn’t interest me, there were a lot of false leads, it got confusing, there were points where what you were led to believe weren’t really what was going on, there was convolution, not a lot happened, there was a distinct lack of dialogue, all these factors detract from my score. And yet I really enjoyed the art, so the score is going to come up from there. Now, I’d hate to just throw out a low score, so I’m not going to do that. And I didn’t hate the book, but it just didn’t wow me. It was a little underwhelming, sure, but it was about what I expected. So, all cards on the table, story, and art combined, everything all in, I score this book at… five. Usually, I go on a little bit after about why I scored as I scored, but I think I’ve done enough already, so I don’t feel like I need to give any more reasons why I gave this book the rating I did.

            Next before I begin to wrap this up, I’ll tell you if I recommend the book. Honestly, I don’t. Not generally, anyway. If you’re not a regular reader of Marvel comics or even comic books in general, I’d really tell you not to go out of your way to get this. I really love Black Widow, I think she’s a fantastic character, but I still don’t feel like this was her at her best and I can’t just tell you to go out and buy this book, even if you are a huge Black Widow fan. I mean, if you ARE a HUGE Black Widow fan, then, yeah, you COULD read this book and YOU might like it, you’re entitled to your own opinion, this blog is all just mine. We’re all entitled to think whatever we want, so don’t let me stop you from potentially enjoying what you might think is a phenomenal book just because I didn’t like it. And, if you are into the whole spy/espionage genre, then yeah, I’d say this could potentially be a good read for you. But in general, I don’t recommend this book.

            Okay, I think it’s about time we wrapped this up. I’ve spent a lot of time digressing in this post, and for that I highly apologize, I honestly don’t mean to waste your time. If you’re still reading this review at this point, you are THE BEST! I really appreciate you! I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did, I’ve posted several dozen other book reviews on this site, feel free to check those out. I don’t have any more reviews planned for this month, unfortunately, but I will have one next month, so keep an eye out for it. I’ve also posted original short stories and poetry on this site, so feel free to check those out too if you have some time to kill. If you really want to waste time, I write B’ings, I haven’t done one of those in a long time, I feel like I’m overdue for some new ones. I write editorials, essays, and articles. I write other things, I just write what comes into my mind, as my blog site title implies. I have so much stuff planned, so keep coming back. And so, I say to you until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Spider-Girl: Legacy"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Girl: Legacy” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained adhesive fingertips and toes; the proportionate speed, strength and agility of a spider; and a precognitive awareness of danger he called “spider-sense.” He also created web fluid. He used these powers to fight supervillains as the amazing Spider-Man. He fell in love with Mary Jane Watson and the two eventually married and had a daughter they named May. During a final confrontation with his greatest foe, the Green Goblin, Peter was injured, and hung up his webs for good. Peter got a job in the police lab and he and Mary Jane raised May like a normal child.

May nicknamed “Mayday,” was a straight-A student and a star basketball player as she grew up. Then, one day, during a game, she started to exhibit skills that were slightly beyond those of any normal basketball player. Everyone else just shrugged it off and said, “good game,” put Peter and Mary Jane feared it was something else, something more. While out with her friends Jimmy Yama and Courtney Duran, Mayday was attacked by Normie Osborn, who took up the mantle of the Green Goblin from his deceased grandfather. Normie left a message, inviting Peter to “the bridge.” Mayday had no idea what this meant, so she went home and told her parents. Peter and Mary Jane discussed this, and Mayday overheard the conversation, learning that her father used to be Spider-Man. Mayday started trying to learn her powers. Mary Jane told Mayday her legacy and showed Mayday her father’s and his clone Ben Reilly’s costumes and web shooters. Peter confronted Normie at the bridge. Mary Jane followed. Both were in mortal peril, until Mayday showed up in her Uncle Ben Reilly’s costume and defeated the new Green Goblin. Normie was arrested, and Peter, Mary Jane and Mayday burned the costume and all traces of the mysterious “Spider-Girl.” It was all over. Or was it?

            Mayday wanted to continue to learn her legacy. She did research and experimented with her powers. He talked to her father’s partner and her honorary “Uncle” Phil Urich, the former superhero, the Green Goblin, who was also aware of her father’s past. Mayday snuck out of the house every night to train herself. One night, she stumbled upon a crime in progress, being led by Mr. Nobody, a criminal with the ability to teleport. Mayday confronted him, but Mr. Nobody was able to escape when the police arrived. Mayday inadvertently alerted her Uncle Phil to her activities by leaving behind a calling card: webbing. Taking after her father’s web steps, Mayday fashioned herself a costume, creating the stunning Spider-Girl.

            Spider-Girl first battled Crazy Eight, but he escaped when the police arrived. That’s when Spider-Girl met Darkdevil, a costumed vigilante with demonic powers, who taunted her before teleporting away. Mayday tried to keep the existence of Spider-Girl a secret. Mayday faced off against Crazy Eight again and was able to defeat him and was once again taunted by Darkdevil. Mayday also tried to stop her friend Jimmy Yama, who had a crush on her, from getting into a fight with his bully Moose Mansfield, who was best friends with Mayday’s crush Brad Miller.

            Mayday and her friends Davida Kirby, Courtney and Jimmy went on a stop to the Fantastic Five Museum before Mayday was going to an award ceremony for her father. While there, the Museum was attacked by Spyral, a man who claimed to be from another dimension and was trying to steal an artifact from the museum that would get him back to his home dimension. Spider-Girl teamed up with the Fantastic Five to defeat him, but inadvertently missed her father’s award ceremony, and alerted the world to the existence of Spider-Girl.

            To Mayday’s surprise, Peter and Mary Jane were not supportive of Mayday’s extracurricular activities. While at school, the custodian, Carlton Hackmutter was mystically transformed into the Dragon King at being resentful of the way the students treated him, attacked the student body and the faculty, calling Spider-Girl into action to save the school.

            The Venom symbiote, that had once bonded with Spider-Man, had been in containment for twelve years. It learned of the existence of Spider-Girl and managed to escape. It bonded with Peter once again, becoming Spider-Venom. Spider-Girl turned to her Uncle Phil Urich to defeat the threat and save her father, but Peter forbade her to be Spider-Girl and took her costume, while secretly, Phil Urich decided to train her.
            A new hero arrived on the scene, Ladyhawk. Jimmy Yama arrived at the conclusion that Courtney Duran was Spider-Girl. Mayday got into a battle with Ladyhawk, who turned out to be two women, both of whom were also being trained by Phil Urich.

            Mayday once again battled Darkdevil, but this time seemingly won. However, bereft of her Spider-Girl costume, the superhero Nove mistook her for a cat burglar and the two got into a conflict. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Moose got into a fight, one that almost had fatal consequences for Moose. Mayday then went looking for a backup costume from her parents’ attic, but was caught by Mary Jane, who explained to her why Peter quit being Spider-Man, in the hopes of convincing Mayday to hang up the webs, but Mayday refused to give up.

            Spider-Girl next had to defend the police station from the combined threats of Mr. Nobody and Crazy Eight when Mayday and Courtney came to support Jimmy as he faced the charges filed against him after his fight with Moose. This fight impressed Peter and showed him the need for Spider-Girl, and Peter agreed to train her in the use of her powers.

            Spider-Girl fought a new supervillain called Killer-Watt, who managed to defeat Spider-Girl and was about to unmask her when he was scared off by Darkdevil. Meanwhile, Jimmy started to get a swollen head in school, thinking himself the big man on campus after defeating the school bully Moose Mansfield. Moose now had both a fear for and a crush on Courtney Duran, now believing her to be Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl then had a rematch with Killer-Watt, but this time was successful.

            Next, Spyral escaped from lockup, intent on returning to his home dimension. Spider-Girl followed him as he went through a portal. She thought she had defeated him, but soon discovered she had traveled back in time to when her father was in high school. She then ran into her teenage father in costume. Thinking her attempting to be a defaming imposter, Spider-Man faced off against Spider-Girl, but the conflict ended when Spider-Man had to stop a crime in progress. Spencer Smythe and J. Jonah Jameson sent out the Spider-Slayer robot out to capture Spider-Man, but found Spider-Girl first, who managed to escape from the robot. She then faced off against the Human Torch, who also believed her to be a Spider-Man imposter, but she was able to defeat him. She then ran into her teenaged mother. Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and the Human Torch then teamed up to track down Spyral to return Mayday back to her home time.

            Spider-Girl once again faced off against Darkdevil, who was chasing down Kaine, an evil clone of Peter Parker. During their confrontation, Mayday learned she also had the power to repel items that were stuck to her, a power which her father did not have. Kaine managed to escape. The tabloid newspaper the Daily Bugle began to investigate stories on Spider-Girl, but held off on judgement on characterizing her as hero or villain, unlike they had with the original Spider-Man.

            May, Davida and Courtney went to see Leonard Groote, a teen heartthrob who was shooting a film in town. While there, he was attacked by his ex-girlfriend Melissa Carsdale, now calling herself Misery. Spider-Girl swung to the rescue and defeated Misery. Mayday went back to school, where she found herself facing a plagiarism charge on a paper that convinced Coach Thompson to suspend Mayday from the basketball team. Then, tragedy befell upon her family at the hands of the Green Goblin, who returned to have his revenge. Mayday then discovered she was in the Grief Machine and that these terrible things didn’t actually happen and that she hadn’t yet beaten Misery, a fact she then rectified.

            A mysterious new character called the Buzz arrived on the scene, but Spider-Girl wasn’t sure if he was a hero or a villain, she just knew she had some new competition.

            Mayday had a dream of all her villains challenging her to a basketball game, which got her thinking of how to use her powers in practical ways she never had before.

            Mayday and Mary Jane saw the New Avengers at the mall, and Mayday decided she wanted to join the team. The Avengers declined her application but challenged her to a game of flag football to consider her for reserve status.

            Spider-Girl got caught up in a battle between the mutants Wild Thing (daughter of the legendary X-Man Wolverine) and Sabreclaw and Enthralla, which had to be ended by the Fantastic Five.

            Mayday tried to learn more about Kaine, much to Peter’s horror. Spider-Girl was able to track Kaine down but was badly defeated. On top of that, she was told off by Darkdevil.

            The tabloid newspaper the Daily Bugle continued to investigate Spider-Girl, as Spider-Girl teamed up with the superhero called Speedball to fight Mr. Abnormal, and Moose put the moves on Courtney.

            I do have to say that a lot happened in this book, but almost every issue in this book was one part, as compared to later comics that have storylines that continue on for several issues, and I do have to say that for me, that was a plus. Sometimes if a story goes on for so long it gets boring and convoluted. The short but sweet and self-contained stories in this book really appealed to me. It felt like I got more that way. Now, I’m going to talk about the concept. This was from a Marvel alternate future universe. It originally started as a “What If…?” issue that got such high demands for more that Marvel decided to continue it. Back in the 1990s, Mary Jane Parker had been pregnant and lost the baby. This was a future where she didn’t lose the baby. I have to say, I thought the concept was brilliant. I thought the execution was excellent. I especially liked that at first Peter was resistant to the idea of his daughter being a superhero. The writer could have written it having her idolizing Spider-Man her whole life, with all the stories of how “daddy was a hero” and all, but he didn’t do it that way. Mayday didn’t know she was the daughter of a superhero until she absolutely had to know. And he didn’t write it as “you have powers, May, go out and fight crime,” Peter didn’t want his daughter to be in danger. Yes, with great power there must also come great responsibility, but the responsible thing to Peter was to protect his daughter. Mayday being a superhero was something that scared him. I felt like that made this series work better. I’ve seen superhero movies where the superhero parents are all for the kids joining the family business, so Peter telling Mayday “No” was refreshing to me. The supporting characters were interesting to me, it felt to me like a good drama. I might have appreciated this series a bit more when I was at a younger age, this did almost feel like a teen drama, but even at this age I still enjoyed it. I liked the concept of having Phil Urich be Mayday’s “Uncle” and be in on Mayday’s secret, even helping hide it from her father, the man he works with. I liked Darkdevil as the mentor/antagonist, I thought that having the enigmatic stranger was a brilliant idea. I do have to say, her villains weren’t as good as her father’s, but Spider-Man is considered to have one of the best rogues’ galleries in all of comics, so beating that is difficult, but they were still at least interesting enough, and bringing Venom back was nice, too, but I wish the writer would have done a little bit more with him. I loved the artwork; I thought it was all great. Some of my real long-timers know I’m partial to comic book art from the mid- to late nineties, and the issues in this book were published between 1998-1999, so it was from a time-period I really enjoyed. I would have liked a little more humor, it seemed to be missing some comedic elements in my opinion. The time travel storyline didn’t work, though, unless the past she went to was an alternate past, or else Peter would have known about a Spider-Girl from his time in high school.

            Okay, next, I’ll discuss accessibility. What I mean by this is how easy it is to pick up. If you’ve never heard of any Marvel comic book before you came across this review and are intrigued by this, I will say this is a very good entry point. I feel that it’s easy to pick up no matter how familiar with Marvel you are. Knowing a bit about Spider-Man helps, of course, but I think if you’re looking to start reading comic books, this could be a good book to pick. It requires very little background knowledge and I feel like it’s very self-contained. It’s the start of a new comics universe. There is a little outside content from the New Avengers and Fantastic Five, who both had separate series at the time, but knowledge of them aren’t necessarily required, and I don’t even know about the time period, since I’ve never actually read comics from this universe before, so this was actually all new territory for me, so that’s why I’m pretty confident that it’s easy enough to pick this book up, even if you don’t know comics. It’s a semi-rebooted future universe, so Marvel history did happen, but I didn’t feel like knowing it was essential to reading this book, especially since it started in a “What If…?” issue. It felt self-explanatory in my opinion, so I don’t think it would be difficult to pick up if you know little or nothing about Marvel Comics.

            Okay, I’ve talked enough at this point, let’s get on to the main reason we’re here: for me to actually rate this book numerically. My previous readers know the drill by now, but for you newbs I have to say it again, so here goes: I score of a scale of one to ten. One means absolute trash, the worst, don’t read this at all, ten means this is gold, the best book you will ever read, go out and read this book right now. Now, you’ve probably established by now that this book is not a ten, but you’ve also established this isn’t a one. I enjoyed the stories a lot, the short bits really helped my opinion of the book. I loved the artwork; I thought it was exceptional. If you’ve read a lot of my reviews, you know I’m a harsh scorer, I don’t like handing out perfect scores very easily. So, let’s put it all in, story and art, everything combined to get my score, the whole book into consideration. Giving it a numeric score, I rate it at… drumroll please… seven. I really enjoyed it, but there were just some flaws here and there which I just couldn’t overlook. The time travel story was wonky, and I just didn’t like the New Avengers or the Fantastic Five. I didn’t say that before because it didn’t fit in with a review of “Spider-Girl,” but I’m saying it now as a generalization, the teams just didn’t really work for me. The Avengers were all new characters I didn’t know and quite frankly didn’t appeal to me, and the Fantastic Five’s portrayal fell flat. It could have been done a little better.

            Finally, I’ll say if I recommend this book or not. I do, I highly recommend it. If you like Spider-Man and are looking for something fresh and different, pick this up, I think you’ll find it worthwhile. I especially recommend this book to younger audiences, like teenagers. It felt a lot like a teen drama to me, so I think that age range is the best audience, but adults can appreciate this book, too. This is also a good pick for female readers. I know sometimes there’s the stigma that comic books are mostly for men, so a strong female lead like Mayday is very empowering for women to read. If you read this review and have an interest in reading this book, I honestly don’t feel like I should stop you, no matter what your familiarity with Marvel may be. Sometimes I do tell some of my readers to hold back, but I don’t think this book requires that at all.

            Now, I’ve gone on for way too long at this point, so I have to start wrapping this up. I will say that I have done dozens of reviews like this one on this site and you can expect another one sometime within the next three weeks. I’ve also written short stories, free verse poetry, articles, editorials, and several other kinds of pieces, so there’s plenty more content to check out if you liked this post. I will be back, but I will say until next time, as always, Tim Cubbin… out!