New ANT-MAN series announced, FANTASTIC FOUR cancelled, new HAWKEYE creative team

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Cover by myself and @fatheadwilson to the just announced new Ant Man series by Nick Spencer and Ramon Rosanas. (Scott Lang's new costume design is by yours truly as well :)

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A new ANT-MAN series was announced at New York Comic-Con this weekend. The series, which will debut in January 2015, will be written by Nick Spencer with art by Ramon Rosanas. This is a move that isn't unexpected as we're closing in on Ant-Man, the major motion picture set to come in the back-half of 2015. Spencer, of SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN and AVENGERS WORLD, seems a really good fit for the book, which will focus on Scott Lang and undoubtedly will want the sort of humor Spencer can bring to a book.

In other news, FANTASTIC FOUR has been cancelled by Marvel in a news story that no one finds surprising. It has, of course, led to a number of articles speculating (or claiming as fact) that Marvel has done it to keep promotion of Fox's upcoming Fantastic Four movie down, which continues to sound like the worst reporting in the whole wide world and continues not to be a rumor I buy in the least. Instead, I think the book is just not good and it's getting cancelled because, you know, it's not good.

The other big news I've seen is the announcement of a new creative team on huge Marvel hit book HAWKEYE. Matt Fraction and David Aja will end their hugely acclaimed run soon, leaving Marvel with the challenge of wanting to continue a great series that has found a huge following but losing the talent that put it on the map. At NYCC, they've announced that they're committed to putting top talent back on the book with Eisner-nominated writer Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH, ESSEX COUNTY) and Eisner-winner Ramón Pérez (JIM HENSON'S TALE OF SAND). It's a huge decision and one that could prove excellent for Marvel as it allows Fraction and Aja to finish their story without it dragging on and still keeps top talent with big followings themselves on the book.

Also announced at NYCC is that February will see a line of 20 books with Phil Noto variants. Pretty excited about that, you guys.

Black Widow 9, Punisher 9

Black Widow 9
Edmondson (w) and Noto (a and c) and Cowles (l)

Black Widow got a hot-tip that Chaos, the organization she's after, has some link to a ship out in the ocean. She arrives there to find it apparently empty but her presence set off a number of alarms elsewhere, including on Crossbone's plane which he's using to transport Punisher back to his boss. He's also planning, apparently, to rig the same ship Black Widow finds herself on to explode. Crossbones arrives on the ship and he and Black Widow scuffle, finding themselves at a stalemate which skews towards Crossbones since he has henchmen. Of course, his henchmen are busy being picked off one-by-one by Punisher, who does appear to help Natasha. With about four minutes left before the ship blows, Natasha gives the ship a once-over to see if she can't find any leads. She finds one worker on the ship who does seem legitimately to not know anything but she comes dangerously close to torturing him anyway before PUNISHER stops her (that capitalization was to show how crazy that sentence is). They manage to escape the ship in time with the innocent worker, from whom Natasha manages to get a little bit more information. Then she turns the tables on Punisher, holding him at gunpoint. More on his landing place in the next review. Fast forward to the next day where Maria Hill wants to know who could have hacked SHIELD's communications and to a phone call Natasha receives where she learns that Isaiah has been taken.

Strong stuff overall and the crossover business is pretty cool as two really good Edmondson books with very strong looks come together. One of the coolest things between the two is a page that has the same starting lines and the same ending lines, which makes comparing and contrasting the page layouts and the focus of the panels really interesting. I'm onboard with this sort of really small, really contained crossover, particularly in this case, which will undoubtedly add to the coming stories in both books (helped by the fact that both books are written by Edmondson). Also, guys, Phil Noto continues to be amazing and I really like this cover AND really like PUNISHER's cover, to be seen JUST ABOUT NOW.

Total Score: 5/5


Punisher 9
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c) and Petit (l)

Punisher is being transported by Crossbones when he breaks out of the jet, taking a couple henchmen down at the same time. He saves Black Widow after working his way through more henchmen and reveals that Crossbones rigged the ship to blow. He takes out more henchmen and saves the worker from Natasha's torture before getting both of them off the ship. Black Widow turns her gun to him, though, and he quickly remembers his standing with the Avengers. She drops him off at a Central American prison and he also remembers that he doesn't really like the Avengers.

Look, I said most of what I wanted to say above. More strong writing, though there's a running comparison of his stressful day to a vacation and it falls maybe a little flat, particularly since it feels a little out of serious Punisher's voice. Still a lot of fun in this crossover and a really well-drawn book by Mitch Gerads. And check out that cover!

Total Score: 5/5

Comics this week

According to my count, we have 18 new books out this week. However, it's a bit of a tricky week because a handful of those books are throwing me off, like 100TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL FANTASTIC FOUR 1, or DAREDEVIL 0.1, or GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: GALAXY'S MOST WANTED 1. We'll have to see if those three make the cut when I'm pressed for time. On the flip side, there are a slew of books that I'm really, REALLY excited for this week. Let's get into them (and also I'll mention ORIGINAL SIN 5, which I'm not really, REALLY excited for but, you know, I'm sure I'll mention it).


Black Widow 8
Amazing, amazing book as it is BUT writer Nathan Edmondson teased a couple months ago that phenomenal series artist Phil Noto "draws a mean Winter Soldier" when referring to BLACK WIDOW 8. To sum up: it's a book that I absolutely love where we may just see the first sign of fallout on Natasha's side about how things broke down with Bucky back in Brubaker's WINTER SOLDIER. Excited!

Captain America 22
Super soldier no more? We've had a number of fake-outs with this sort of thing in the past and I'd be surprised if Steve Rogers were about to lose his super soldier serum altogether but leave it to Remender to shake things up. Let's see where Steve is when the dust settles.

Moon Knight 5
This book has been blowing me out of the water so far, leaving me a little shell-shocked as each issue ends. This is the penultimate issue for series creators Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey and I expect it will travel very much in the vein the rest of the book has so far traveled. Looking forward to it.

Original Sin 5
We're at the halfway point of the summer's big event and I'm still undecided on it. I was a little harsh on the first couple issues but I think there are some strong things happening here. I didn't reach a decision on INFINITY for quite some time, wary to give it a stamp of approval (which I ultimately did), and this book seems to be no different, though I am leaning in a less positive direction from this one than I did with INFINITY. Still, big things are set to happen as we reach the midway point and Tom Brevoort promises a new character in this issue who he thinks has real sticking power in the MU. I'm a little bitter at this book, though, because I didn't want to cheat and add a sixth book to my pre-game and this one took the place of the outstanding IRON FIST: THE LIVING WEAPON

Rocket Raccoon 1
It's a pretty GUARDIANS heavy week this week as we get a likely movie tie-in with the aforementioned GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: GALAXY'S MOST WANTED and two new series in Sam Humphries' and Paco Medina's LEGENDARY STAR-LORD and the incredible Skottie Young's ROCKET RACCOON, which already has crazy pre-order numbers and will be both written and drawn by Young. Very much looking forward to seeing how Young handles full responsibility on an ongoing. I think he's a huge and exciting talent and I'm looking forward to checking this out.

This week's picks

The week that I earlier proclaimed to be "an embarrassment of riches" insofar as what books would be released ended up living up to its hype, providing plenty of really good issues to explore. It was one of those weeks that helps someone who might be a little burned out get excited about just sitting down and binge reading every issue. ANYWAY, it still wasn't as hard as I'd have thought to pick the top three but note that there aren't too many ways you can go wrong this week choosing a book or two to pick up.

Black Widow 7

In a week of great character moments and defining issues, BLACK WIDOW 7 stood out as one that I'll be thinking about for some time. This issue was the perfect juxtaposition of Natasha's role in today's world and exactly how the world sees her and the role she used to try to play when comics didn't want their heroes to kill at any cost. Now it's a bit murkier and Natasha knows her position and isn't afraid to take someone out. This whole series has shown her struggling with which jobs to take and how blind she should be to the jobs she takes and it's made the audience comfortable with everything she does, including the more minor or abrupt killings (like the guy from whom she took the computer virus in this issue, the messenger she would replace). Now, as Natasha thinks about the need for friends, we see her judged by a former extremely close friend and found to be untrustworthy. It's a tough blow to Natasha and it burns here. Nathan Edmondson is doing phenomenal work on this title (and on PUNISHER) and Phil Noto is absolutely destroying it on the art of this book. Just a really great series that you need to be reading.

Moon Knight 4

This one takes a spot on this list without too much contention if just because it fits so nicely into the world Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire have created. There's an interesting story with a creepy but satisfying twist at the end and Ellis, as always, knows just when to pull back and let the art reign. I think I've mentioned here before that my first experience with now top-5 (for me, at least, but probably for EVERYONE, right?) artist Jamie McKelvie was Ellis' SECRET AVENGERS 16 (another book that centered on Moon Knight, in fact, though there were plenty of other great characters to be seen there). It was another standalone issue (like each of these MOON KNIGHT issues so far, though "standalone" is maybe too broad a term for this series) and it involved an entire city created beneath Cincinnati, one that was prepared to bomb the city above. Even amidst how heavy that plot obviously was, and how much it was to explain in just one issue, Ellis pulled back for pages at a time to let McKelvie's art carry the load and it worked incredibly. That's what this series has done in full. Declan Shalvey's art, which I've always liked a lot but never seen like this, carries this book in a lot of ways but it never feels like the writer is trying to overshadow that or speak unnecessarily to explain something we can see on the page. Really great book, one that (like the rest) you'll just fly through because you're so engrossed (and they read really quickly) but you'll catch yourself flipping through again and again to see the art.

New Warriors 5

I don't necessarily know that this is one of the three best books out there this week (I don't know though, it's definitely up there, competing against titles like IRON FIST: THE IMMORTAL WEAPON, CAPTAIN AMERICA, AVENGERS WORLD, PUNISHER, and even a couple others) but I wanted to shine a light on it here because I think, maybe along with SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN, it does the most this week to really affirm its tone and the feel of this book. In just five issues, Chris Yost and his artists (typically Marcus To but here Nick Roche) have established such a strong feel for this book and created such a unique tone to enforce that feeling. It's fun and it's exciting but that also doesn't trap them into going too light. Instead, there are a few dark moments in this issue that work perfectly amidst all of the fun and energy here, particularly as Speedball is stunned out of his re-found happy-go-lucky attitude by the mention of Stamford and his time as Penance. It's a jarring moment, one that's perfectly timed and excellently executed (particularly in this issue, as we watch Roche's very kinetic and almost cartoonish depiction of Speedball actually stopping). I can't guarantee that this book is for everyone but I'd encourage everyone to try it; like with Yost's SCARLET SPIDER before it, I think NEW WARRIORS is so sure of its characters and so sure of its place in the universe and its tone that it's going to continue to be a strong book for as long as it continues.

Black Widow 6, Punisher 5, Iron Fist: The Living Weapon 2

Black Widow 6
Edmondson (w) and Noto (a) and Cowles (l)

Black Widow has been captured and has spent her interrogation trying to learn what she can about her captors but it's only led her to realize that they're more scared than anything, desperately striking out while they can at anything that could give them information. She breaks out of her bonds when the time is right and begins to make her way down to Damon Dran, who has apparently reconstructed Molot Boga in the hopes that the new steel Hammer of God will be able to protect him from whatever's after him. Widow throws him overboard and captures Dran but whoever it is that's after him has infiltrated SHIELD to some extent as well, turning one of their officers who delivers a poisonous gas to Dran in his cell. Not knowing who she can trust, Natasha returns to her regular life and gets her new assignment from Isaiah.

Story
Edmondson is doing something really interesting with this series so far. He's telling quick stories, getting in and out with a good read on the character and a good sense of what these sorts of missions are. Of course, between this new ongoing plot line and the Iron Scorpion plot line from issue two, there are plenty of directions still to go out there but neither requires immediate action. Instead, they create an atmosphere around Natasha, one that shows the world seemingly closing in around her and closing her off (there's a nice theme through this one that she can't trust anyone and that it's possible she'll need friends going forward with Hawkeye tossed out as a possibility). 5/5

Character
The biggest character movements here are seeing Widow using her interrogation to learn more about her enemies, something not uncommon to Widow's character (even enough that it was referenced in The Avengers), and when she realizes just how alone she is. Seeing how she copes with that, if she decides to pursue allies or pushes forward alone, will show a lot about her character while also allowing us a glimpse behind her process. Really looking forward to it. 5/5

Writing
Edmondson, on top of getting in and out of stories relatively quickly, even the ones that he leaves open-ended to return to later, knows that fewer words can often tell more. There's limited dialogue and limited narration, never distracting from the story or the art but still doing more than enough to convey the plot and the character and everything else he may need to do. Natasha has always seemed a terse character and Edmondson isn't afraid to let her action do the talking. Of course, that's made easier when you have Phil Noto doing astonishing work on the book. 5/5

Art
Gorgeous book with phenomenal characters, solid emotion, great action, and perfect colors. I've already said it all about this series but Noto continues to impress. This issue kicks off with a full page panel of a close-up on Natasha's punched face and it still looks phenomenal. I put this issue down, as I do with seemingly every new release from this book, going "geez, this book is great to look at." 5/5

Miscellaneous
Man, it's going to get a five. It'd be nice if she had her memories of Bucky because NATASHA, I KNOW SOMEONE YOU COULD TRUST.

Total score: 5/5


Punisher 5
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a) and Petit (l)

The Commandos after Frank tagged the coyote Loot with a tracker and waited while he traveled from Tuggs' place to Frank's hideout. Frank returns to Tuggs, freeing him from his binds, but doesn't have time to think on who attacked him as Electro has just shut down all power to the city. With the power out and the green light given, the Dos Sols attack every cop they can find, killing off police officers with abandon and creating havoc while their boss prepares to trigger the chemical weapon. Punisher finds him and manages to slow him down, nearly able to kill him, before Electro arrives and strikes at Punisher.

Story
The attack on LA is ramping up quickly as the Dos Sols begin to shoot cops and wrap their hand around the city. Guillermo, their leader, is ready to kill the city to show his strength and to advertise his gang to any who would join up. Meanwhile, the Commandos are still after Punisher and the other characters that have joined Frank's new life are all getting enough screen time to show that they'll warrant some attention here as well. Another strong outing from Edmondson as he shows a city in real chaos (which is, coincidentally, a buzzword in this week's BLACK WIDOW as well). 5/5

Character
It continues to be hard to judge Castle's character as he continues to be someone who plays things pretty close to the vest and doesn't have the benefit that, say, BLACK WIDOW has because there's not a lot of narration to show the reader what's really going through Frank's mind. Still, the speed with which he reacts to Loot's presence and his single-mindedness to stop the Dos Sols and Electro say a lot about him. Like with BLACK WIDOW (it's hard not to compare the books as they star protagonists who are similar in their demeanor and sort of in their skills and as they're both written by the same guy right now), Edmondson keeps it pretty short with Frank's dialogue and allows the art to do the talking for the character. It's strong work and it can be rare to see in a Marvel book but Edmondson is doing well in both his books. 5/5

Writing
Covered a lot of this section both in the story and character sections and in my BLACK WIDOW review, honestly. This story, obviously, is more of a traditional long arc than what B-Widz is going through right now but that makes sense with who Punisher is. You don't send Black Widow into a Punisher story any more than you'd send Punisher into a Black Widow story. Though they're presented in a similar fashion in some of the technical stuff, the stories are pretty diverse and I think Edmondson is showing a lot of poise in crafting them the way they need to be crafted. 5/5

Art
Mitch Gerads is doing really cool stuff with this book both in the action sequences and in the colors. It's a very dark book but he continues to mix in moments that are a bit lighter in their presentation if not in their tone, necessarily. Of course, this issue is largely darker because the power's gone out all around the city and cops are being killed in droves. Still, everyone has a very distinct look and Frank and Electro fighting has the sort of kinetic energy (and electric energy) that it should. 5/5

Miscellaneous
It's a testament to this book that I'm not sure I'm coming around a lot on Frank Castle as a character but I'm still finding this series remarkably engaging and well executed.

Total score: 5/5


Iron Fist: The Living Weapon 2
K. Andrews (w and a) and Caramagna (l)

Danny has to rush to K'un Lun, which isn't supposed to intersect with this plane for years still to come. Fortunately, he has a secret path back secreted away under Rand Tower, a way to teleport into the magic city. While the girl Brenda calls an ambulance for the messenger in Danny's apartment, Danny recalls more of his childhood, now remembering the crazed look in his mother's eye as she swears Danny to avenge his family on Harold and as she sacrifices herself to the wolves so Danny can make it to K'un Lun. Now he's apparently made it to K'un Lun, overrun by the cybernetic ninjas that attacked his apartment, where just days ago Davos, son of the original Thunderer, attacks his sister, who has since taken on the mantle of Thunderer while their father has taken on the role of Yu-Ti, leader of K'un Lun. When Danny finally arrives in K'un Lun, he finds it aflame with what seems to be a decapitated Shou-Lao front and center.

Story
Andrews really throws it all at us right at once, which is a gutsy move for someone delving so deep into K'un Lun history in just the second issue. We see Davos, we see the Thunderer, we see Shou-Lao, we see more Iron Fist origin, etc. It's kind of stunning all presented in there and it shows a lot of guts to hope that readers who may not know all of this will understand it as we push forward and that they'll stick with the book long enough to see how it fits together or where it's going. Still, the story itself is something of a mystery but what we need to know now is that there's discontent in K'un Lun and that someone somehow related to its past is transformed and attacking. It's an interesting story but we'll have to see where it goes now. 4/5

Character
There's a bit more to Danny revealed here particularly as Andrews ekes out the last bit of his childhood origin in this issue and as we get a slightly better sense of his voice through the narration and the way he views himself. We also get a quick tutorial in the way Davos thinks, which will undoubtedly be important, and we get a quick look at the new Yu-Ti (new-ish, anyway. I think this is one of the first times we've seen him acting as Yu-Ti). There are moving parts all around here and the story is at the forefront so there's maybe a little less character than the first issue's initial information dump but there's still a bit here to learn about. You can't expect every issue to come with major revelations. 4/5

Writing
The tone, helped along by the art and the color, is decidedly dark and hectic, all of which comes through pretty strongly here. Andrews deciding not to go into tons of detail about who these characters are and how their lives fit together may be a somewhat risky move in terms of keeping readers onboard but it makes sense as far as establishing a frantic tone and keeping an air of mystery to the book. It's a clever move, we'll just have to see if it pays off as we continue. 4/5

Art
Andrews' art continues to be pretty outstanding and the colors really help to set the tone effectively. The switches between looking at the present and looking at Danny's past are made more interesting and made easier to see as Andrews switches art forms a little bit and switches color palettes while also giving the past sections a more classic comic book faded feel. It's effective and it's useful to establish what's going on in a book that can come off so chaotic at times, intentional or not. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Another strong issue though there are real concerns about how vague and cryptic Andrews is going to be as we push forward. Obviously way too early to tell if this is a real concern just yet.

Total score: 4/5

Hawkeye 17, Black Widow 4

Hawkeye 17
Fraction (w) and Eliopolous and Aja (a) and Bellaire (c)

Back in issue six of HAWKEYE, Clint was invited into Simone's apartment to watch some holiday specials with her kids. This issue brings us back to those heady days with a frame of Clint sitting on the couch with the kids before all the pages between the first and last show us that cartoon, entitled "Winter Friends." The Winter Friends are a superhero group consisting of animals representing various holidays (including Santalope, the Kwanzaagator, the llama Rama-in-Pajamas, and Menorable, a cat with a menorah on its head) and they're up against one of their biggest foes yet: Mister Sun, who is turning the winter into summer, meaning no one needs the feeling of warmth and kinship provided by the winter holidays. With all of the Winter Friends defeated, Steve, the dog with no powers that they hang out with for some reason, is called into action. Joined by his smaller sidekick dog Lil and his brudder dog Herman, they set off to find the Winter Friends. They're attacked by the Dingoes, a bunch of tough dogs who slow up the three dogs. Eventually, three friend dogs Birdie, Lady, and Spooky jump in the fight and help Steve and his friends, despite his continued insistence that he can do it all by himself. He sets off alone for the sun palace and attacks Mister Sun, though he can't really do much against him without any powers. Steve continues the fight, though, because he's not going to let people get away with things just because no one will fight them. Eventually his other dog friends show up and save the Winter Friends, who summon Mother Winter to help them defeat Mister Sun. Before she goes, she calls Steve a good dog. Later, at the multidenominational pantheistic all-inclusive seasonal festivities, Steve thanks Lil for her help and admits he couldn't have done it without her. This lesson, though, may be lost on Clint, who has fallen asleep on the couch.

OKAY, first things first, I was totally wrong in my pre-game this week when I said this was promised to be "the dog issue of sign language issues." BUT, IN MY DEFENSE, the site I use to see what comics are out in a given week lied to me first. Now, about this issue, it's absolutely great. HAWKEYE has found this incredible little niche where it's able to do just absolutely insane things seemingly at will and, guess what, they always pull it off. This is a series that wasn't expected to go past about six issues; according to Fraction himself on the recent LiveWire podcast, he was on his way out of comics in that people were starting to stop calling when HAWKEYE was set to kick off. On top of that, Hawkeye never lasts more than about six issues whenever someone starts up a new series about him. Instead, it took off and did really well, well enough to justify issues like the dog issue and the time-bending and the interesting storytelling and so on. So it does unheard of things (which I think has also inspired Marvel to allow others to try new things, sometimes working and sometimes not) and, most importantly, it always pulls them off and are always worth reading. This issue has series regular artist David Aja illustrating the first and last page, the frame with Clint, and series regular letterer and children's book artist and cartoonist Chris Eliopolous drawing all the pages in between to give it a real sense of a cartoon holiday special. It's incredibly well done and the beats are all funny and sweet as Steve attacks everyone who tries to help him. Perhaps the funniest part is when Birdie, Spooky, and Lady appear as the comic drops all pretenses of passing for a regular special (Birdie, Spooky, and Lady, who represent Mockingbird, Black Widow, and Spider-Woman respectively, all very obviously have explicit ties to their counterparts). Things start to get more and more obvious throughout the issue, presumably as Clint loses any grip on the show as he falls asleep. Really great stuff in here and very, very sweet. If you came here for the ongoing story of the HAWKEYE series, this one may disappoint you, as, you know, it's a children's holiday special set in a HAWKEYE issue that was over ten issues ago. However, if you're here because you've liked what the book has done so far, you'll love it.

Black Widow 4
Edmondson (w) and Noto (a and c)

Black Widow gets caught up in an assassination plot when she's sent to go plant bugs in a foreign embassy only to have the embassy blown up while she's outside. She spots the bomber and gives chase over the rooftops but, when she catches up to him, he mutters a Russian word and cracks a hole in the ceiling of the church they're standing on, sending them both to the ground. Natasha blacks out with a broken arm while her assailant escapes. Her next step, under the authority of Maria Hill, is to spy on a meeting in the Cabinet of Ministries in the Ukraine to find what they know. She finds that they haven't authorized this man, Molot Boga, but that his next target is the Croatian ambassador, who will soon be stopping off in South Africa. Sure enough, when the ambassador arrives, Molot Boga is standing in the middle of the street, giant machine guns blazing. Natasha tries to intercept but has some trouble with accuracy with her broken arm. Still, she gets a couple of shots on him, though it seems to do him no harm. He calls himself the Hammer of God and continues to rail bullets against her. When he runs out on his giant machine gun, he fires a grenade at her, knocking her back into a storefront and giving him the opportunity to assassinate his target. He's in the wind before she can recover. She vows to follow him and meets with Hill to procure what she needs. Meanwhile, Molot meets with his benefactor, the man Molot may believe is God, and tells him that his next target is hard to kill and recommends that he destroy the plane the man is coming in on, regardless of the casualties.

This series has done something really interesting in its layout, something that comic books don't tend to do these days. BLACK WIDOW spent its first three issues creating this Natasha and showing her doing her work around the world. Some of it, of course, has seeds that will be harvested later, but the first three issues were more episodic than serial, in that you could follow the action and the character choices but, by the end of the issue, the story was over. Of course, the Iron Scorpion is someone likely to return but the story he first appeared in here ended with the issue, not a "to be continued" sort of thing. I think it served the series well. Natasha is a character, as I mentioned in my review for SECRET AVENGERS this week, who tends to flummox writers some, unsure if they should make her somewhat maniacal or somewhat unhinged or completely cold and efficient or, you know, more human. This series has a very clear view of Natasha, a very human view, and so sets about establishing that before it tries anything else. HAWKEYE, actually, was not too too different. Of course, there were even more seeds at the start of that series, with appearances by the tracksuit draculas and a slew of supervillains and so on, but every issue ended without an explicit "to be continued." Most books now immediately plunge into arcs within the first or second issue. Here, though, Edmondson and Noto have chosen to give the audience some time to get into the character and the style of storytelling before getting us into a full story. I think it's going to really pay off. Another wonderful issue with absolutely gorgeous art. Phil Noto's Natasha may be my favorite Natasha. Amazing stuff.

Black Widow 1, Iron Man 20

Black Widow 1
Edmondson (w) and Noto (a and c)

Black Widow kicks off her new solo book with a couple of quick missions and a sense of how the book is going to play out. We join her in the middle of a mission as she convinces a possible suicide bomber with a gun who is hiding out in a hotel room, ready to detonate if it comes to that, that she is working on his side and that she was hired by his employers to get him out of the tight spot. She relaxes him with a bit of a backstory and a shared heritage (the bomber is also Russian). When he inevitably opens the door to her, she cuts the detonation wire and takes the gun from him before strapping him up to a rope to rappel him down the building with and pushes him out the window to the cops waiting below. Twenty hours later, she's meeting in Central Park with her lawyer/manager Isaiah to get her next assignment. They talk about her reasons for taking jobs and why she's not in it for money beyond the money she needs to repay debts and live life and so on. There's a nice moment where Natasha seems to zone out and watches a woman play with her red-headed daughter and her son. Another 36 hours later and she's in Dubai trying to stop an assassination by taking out the target's bodyguards, as well as the bodyguards of the man with whom he's meeting. Once everyone is down and Natasha has breached the room, she explains the situation to him and puts a bulletproof vest on him before shoving him in front of a window. The sniper planed across the way fires at him, hitting the vest, and Natasha shoots a rocket back. Fifteen hours later back in New York, she tells a not-quite-adopted cat the story and wonders if she's too far gone to pay back her debts.

Obviously this comic is taking a lot of its cues from The Avengers and the "I've got red in my ledger" mentality of that Natasha. Not to say that she doesn't have those feelings in the comics throughout her history but it's being brought into focus here and it's hard not to feel like it's trying to match the movie. That, of course, doesn't mean it's not a compelling story to tell. The more important thing to it, though, is the way that Natasha carries and conducts herself in the midst of all of this and that's what Edmondson, already, is proving he can do. This Natasha is already proving to have everything I like about Natasha's character and, as yet, none of the weird psychotic sort of tendencies that are sometimes ascribed to her. Occasionally people will write her with a sort of psychopathic cold-blooded thing that I don't think is fair but I think comes from the idea that she has been an assassin and a mercenary and everything else. Certainly she's not entirely normalized but some writers can make that lean a little too far and make her almost bloodthirsty. That very clearly isn't Edmondson's intent and he gives her a couple of really human moments throughout the book, between watching the mother and her children and her conversation (which is simultaneously sweet and no-nonsense) with a cat and a couple of wistful stares (between this book and one of the Marvel previews books lurking around out there). Also, I'm ashamed that I've gone this far in analysis and not mentioned Phil Noto's frankly incredible art. The only thing I'd really heard about the book before I read it was that everyone was saying how great the art was. I assumed it would be very good; people's word and Phil Noto's reputation and history wouldn't lie to me. But I'm not lying when I say every person was absolutely right, the art is amazing in this book. Natasha looks stupendous and very real, the supporting characters all have real personality built in, and the set pieces are gorgeous. Great, great art. Very fun book and a great way to kick off the new series.

Iron Man 20
Gillen (w) and Bennett and Hanna (a) and Guru eFX (c)

The christening of Troy has been interrupted by one of the Mandarin's rings, specifically, as Tony realizes, the Remaker. Unwilling to sit by and let it happen without her, Abby Burns (just got that, "burns") jumps in with her newfound Mandarin ring, the Incinerator (see, burns). The ring and Abby talk back and forth about ways to further destroy Stark and about how she's using the ring and so on before a ring-caused solar flare shorts out all electronics in the area (of course, not including Stark's suit, he's beyond that) and Tony has to flee to check on Arno. Arno is safe, having taken his own precautions against this sort of thing in the past, but Burns escapes and tweets a video of herself next to a space satellite. Tony vows to find her and to find the Remaker but starts to understand just what all of this means; the Mandarin's rings are loose. He and Rhodey pay a visit to SHIELD's high-security weapons vault to check on the rings and see that they're all there, but Tony quickly realizes that one of the rings, the Liar ring, is actually creating a false image of all of them; it subsequently disappears, leaving Tony and Rhodey to wonder where the rings are, who has them, how long they've been gone, and how long they've been apparently sentient. The rings, meanwhile, have decided to escalate things now that Incinerator and Remaker have shown their hand.

There's a lot going on and a lot to like in this series. The idea of the rings as sentient and dead-set on destroying Stark is certainly something that changes the playing field a bit and makes Mandarin an exciting and almost entirely new foe. There's also an undercurrent of mild suspicion around Tony that is both warranted and unwarranted. Rhodey points out that everyone's a little worried about what Tony's up to with this city and these new ideas and locking himself in his lab for weeks at a time, but Tony counters it with his usual "whenever I'm up to something new, the military worries, even though I'm pretty definitively one of the good guys." There are valid points to each argument and it's clear that this debate is one that Gillen will shine light on as we keep pressing. The art looks good and fits the issue well, particularly the action of the issue. There are some bits of the issue that I had to re-read because I started to gloss over them, particularly with Abby. She's a tricky character to read because she's suddenly so at home with this ring and so quickly adapting to possible supervillainy. She's also somewhat irritating, which doesn't help matters. Still, the good easily outweighs the bad here and it's nice to see a re-imagination of one of Iron Man's classic foes. But, you know, not like the re-imagination in Iron Man 3. Which was garbage.