Black Widow (2020) #2 Review/Discussion10/8/2020
When we see Natasha in this second issue, it's hard to argue she's in any danger. She sings to herself happily as she messes around with some tech in her garage, giving Clint an opportunity to step in and get a feel for her situation. "Natalie" is casual, at ease, and endlessly cool. If she recognizes Clint, she gave no indication, and it hurt him, deeply.
Casagrande draws incredible emotional turmoil in Clint as he sees her with a child that looks just like her. Bucky, handling the situation just slightly differently, seems filled with a mix of confusion and hope--hope that they haven't lost their friend to a strange new life. They see her as happy, truly happy, and it scares them. First, because something may be up, but the even worse option is that she may actually be loving this new life, without either of them in it. Nat admits in her conversation with Clint that the past months have been a blur, suggesting mind control for sure. Throughout her interactions with her "family," there are clearly has gaps in her memory, specifically around her fiancé James and the baby Stevie. For example, when the night's babysitter arrives, Nat openly admits she wasn't around the last time she sat for Stevie. As he watches from wherever he is, Arcade obviously knows who Clint and Bucky are ,and can guess as to why they're sneaking around Nat's new life. But the faceless screens in charge of this experiment or game tell him the men's visit was a perfect test of their control over Nat. Even with those two triggers wandering around, their control hasn't wavered. One expresses concern over the babysitter, but the others don’t recognize her. In the City later, Nat winds up encountering an attempted gang rape in a dark alley. Although her inner dialogue claimed to not know why she walked in there, knowing the danger, it is almost as if a part of her made her do it, knowing she could help. Faced with the group of violent criminals, the crude comments from the men drive the former Widow to action, utilizing her modern jewelry to quickly incapacitate the men and get the woman to safety. Even when one pulls a gun on her, Nat instinctually moves and disarms him, calling 9-1-1 to pick up the trash. While this scene was surprising for Natalie, she doesn't spend too much time worrying about it. The fight scene itself is drawn with poetic paneling, with the weaponry Nat "creates" from her adornments adding more panel-breaks with their movement. Arriving at home alone that night, she says goodbye to the sitter, smoothly lying about a tear in her dress from the fight. They joke about the child, Stevie, being an escape artist, and Natasha addresses the family cat as Logan--another name with close ties to her past life as a superhero. The blue-haired babysitter heads off, and Nat says her goodnight to her son. While she sings Stevie a pleasant song, a masked man watching her on screens mutters to himself in a foreign language, "What have we done?" After putting her son back to sleep, a few panels of silent, focused work have Nat working on something intently in the garage. When she snaps out of the apparent trance, she’s unknowingly built a bomb! She speaks the fatal question aloud, "But why?" Isn't that the question of the hour? Once again, the art of Black Widow is sublime, delicious, and addicting to read. As I said in the review of the first issue, Elena Casagrande's art lands somewhere between Joelle Jones and Otto Schmidt, two extremely popular cape comics artists. Casagrande's art is perfect for the subject matter, and nothing less than sexy. Even the way she lays out the panels and the movement across the pages is fitting for a Black Widow story, and it keeps the reader engaged as much as it is pleasing to see. Casagrande excels where some comic artists struggle--with character faces. Her "Natalie" is slim and slender, but still very noticeably not breakable. Casagrande's art is again joined by Jordie Bellaire's colors. Bellaire is one of my favorite industry colorists, and Black Widow only solidifies that notion. Often times, as noted while reading Black Widow comics in the past, many artists will try to make Nat's brilliant scarlet hair the main draw of any page or panel, spotlighting the red hair wherever it appears. Usually, Widow stories are cloaked in darkness, shadows, and stealth missions, leaving that bright red to shine as the main spot of color. Bellaire doesn't play that way, and the result is far superior. Every square inch of Black Widow is colored to the nines, appropriately, and given equal effort in making each colored segment shine. Partly this could be because of the series' subject matter, how Nat is under some happy-go-lucky mind control, it almost seems. The bright, unashamed coloring of the issue parallels her life's happiness, and doesn't hide anything. This issue had readers officially meet Natalie's partner, James. We learned James is just her fiancé, and the third issue main cover by Adam Hughes features Nat in a wedding dress. It seems marriage is coming sooner rather than later, but will the boys from her past life let her get married? They discussed the possibility that whether or not she is under mind control, she might not be in any danger, and stepping in will only make her life go back to how she doesn't want it. It also begs the question of if James in on this whole act, as well. He seemed surprised when he met Clint in the garage at the beginning of the issue, but all the best terrorist organization shave agents capable of keeping their cover. If he isn't in on all of this, who is James, and how did he get wrapped up in this? Clint and Bucky also theorized that the baby, Stevie, might actually be Nat's kid, even though she’s only been gone 3 months. Is it possible there’s some kind of time weirdness at play? This is comics, so the answer is always yes, but there are other possibilities. Stevie could be lab-grown, an android, or any number of insane evil-organization plans to make Nat and the others think this is really her child. The masked man towards the end of the issue is likely speaking Russian, the only language with real significance to Natasha. His sentiment of apparent regret at this possible mind-wiping of Nat backs up the theory they had a relationship of some kind in the past, making me think his identity is Red Guardian. The coloring was tricky, no doubt on purpose, shadowing his mask just enough to not quite know for sure if it is the Russian hero or not. If it is Red Guardian, why is he in on this plan to hurt Natasha? This second issue of Kelly Thompson's Black Widow held up to the excellence of the first better than I hoped. The art of Elena Casagrande, paired with Jordie Bellaire's stunning color work, creates a world I can't blame Nat for getting lost in. The third issue comes out November 4th, so I definitely recommend catching up and being ready for that issue! This series will personally go down as a favorite of mine for Black Widow, and I'm thrilled the creative team is made up of women. We're only halfway through the first arc of the series, if even that, so there's plenty more where this issue came from!
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