Black Widow: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Most Wanted

I've gone on holiday for a few days and, per my tradition, I've filled my tablet with a bevy of comics and graphic novels to fill my time.

Well, it seems I have a bit of time to fill because on my first night, I read Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's Black Widow: S.H.I.E.L.D.'S Most Wanted.

This trade follows The World's Deadliest Avenger as she is forced to steal from her own agency. Now on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha Romanov must find a way to get herself out from under the villainous 'Weeping Lion' in a tale of action and espionage that sees her cross paths with a new incarnation of the organisation that made her: the Red Room.

I don't remember when I picked up this trade (I wanna say that it was a freebie during the early days of COVID) but, suffice to say, it's been a while. Yet, despite the fact that the team of Waid and Samnee, creators of maybe the best Daredevil run I've read, are behind it, I've never felt the urge to sit down with it.

However, now I know that this was a mistake because Black Widow is a fantastic, action-packed espionage story about the ghosts of out pasts always haunting us.

Waid and Samnee (who did joint writing duties here) have (spy)crafted a story which has all of the wit, charm and depth of their Daredevil run, but with a lot more darkness and brutality to reflect the Widow's tragic origin.

Indeed, Mark Waid, who I said previously seems to hold one of the greatest encyclopedias of knowledge in comics, again uses an abundance of Widow's canonical backstory and merges it with that of others to add another layer of her life before the Avengers in a real shocking twist.

Meanwhile, Chris Samnee, pulling the art duties alone, applies his style perfectly to make Black Widow and truly beautiful comic of almost Darwyn Cooke proportions. As with Daredevil, Samnee applies the action scenes fantastically, giving an almost living aspect to this set scenes and showing off Natasha's ballet skills with some fantastically kinetic fight scenes.

And then there is Matt Wilson's colours which I love as they give the art a bit of a Francesca Francavilla flair (reminds me of Black Panther: Man Without Fear). I also think that his colours enhance the tone to better show darkness of the story.

By the end, I'm annoyed with myself. Not for reading this trade but for waiting so long before I did. Black Widow vol. 1 is quintessential Waid/Samnee storytelling. I was captivated, amused and entertain in equal measure and I have to get volume two to see how the conclusion to thus story plays out.