Saturday, October 27, 2018

Book Review: Black Widow vol #3 (Marvel Now)


Book: Black Widow volume #3: Last Days (issues #13-20) by Nathan Edmondson with illustration and color by Phil Noto and letters by VC's Clayton Cowles

Edition: Single Print Issues

Description:

The world has turned against Black Widow. Her web is broken. How will she deal with this? The final path to Chaos is at her feet, but will her own demons keep her from finally taking it? What happened to Isaiah? Can Black Widow still turn to the Avengers, or even to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Natasha wants answers about Chaos and now she has a list of people who have them.



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

In the second volume, the secret organization CHAOS targeted Black Widow with a calculated attack by destroying her reputation with a damaging news story and nearly killed her lawyer/friend Isaiah.

Instead of backing off and laying low, Natasha (in issues #13-18) was going after CHAOS but she was going to have to do it without S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers assistance. But thanks to an acquaintance, she had a good lead in tracking down members of the organization. Everything was working out well for her, however a plan she set up to lure some of the members to an isolated location to track down a certain member hit a snag. The members may not have been aware they were snared in Black Widow's trap but someone in CHAOS must have anticipated her because in what should have been an easy extraction turned into something deadly for Natasha.

As it was starting to become dire for the Black Widow, it's a good thing someone was looking out for her because the Winter Soldier showed up just in the nick of time. However, the members of CHAOS escaped but that's not going to stop the Black Widow and Winter Soldier from going after them. By the time the duo caught up to the CHAOS members, something unexpected happened and Black Widow was abducted by a mysterious guy.

She found herself learning a great deal about CHAOS and how they operate but something she wasn't expecting was to get an offer to join the organization. The guy was very persuasive telling her she could do good things in the world with CHAOS' help but Natasha wasn't buying it. And when she refused, it was time to get rid of her but it's not easy to kill off Black Widow. This ordeal had Natasha thinking about making a new change to her life including making a change I would have never thought she would make. But she did.

The finale two issues showed a back story of Natasha in one of her first assignments for the Red Room while also showing in the present the Avengers trying to rescue people. During her assignment, Natasha showed how extremely efficient and deadly she is and how she goes above and beyond to complete a mission. The Red Room trained her to perfection and she didn't hesitant in doing what she had to do no matter how despicable the task may be. And I feel like this last story showed Natasha at her worst (in the backstory) while seeing just how much she had changed.

This third volume is just as amazing as the first two and I'm really surprised this series ended with only 20 issues because both the writing and illustrations were excellent. This was an amazing spy thriller that had Black Widow taking on cases as a way to right some of the wrongs she had committed while inadvertently becoming enemy number #1 of CHAOS. Throughout these issues she was reevaluating her life resulting in an interesting change. I always love seeing the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier team up because they work so well together. But it's also sad because Natasha doesn't remember the relationship she once had with Bucky while you can see how much he cares about her and how he would do anything to help her while to her he's just an ally. I almost forgot, besides Bucky there were other notable appearances by Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Maria Hill, Sam Wilson (Captain America) and Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel).

This was a very good read and if you're looking for a really good Black Widow series to read, I would definitely recommend reading all three volumes of this.

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