Black Widow 11, Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier 1

Black Widow 11

Black Widow knows her attorney's gone missing and she is not thrilled about it. With the suspicious intel of Tori Raven and the help of X-23 (who, I suspect, has teamed up with Natasha thanks to events that we maybe were already supposed to know about from the aftermath of DEATH OF WOLVERINE, though I don't know that that's true and I certainly don't want to do research on such a thing), she storms the casino where Isaiah is being held and makes it up to the top floor, where she finds that Isaiah has been taken away by his captors and a bomb has been left in their place. Natasha and Laura manage to evade the bomb and catch up with the helicopter leaving the casino. Natasha keeps X-23 from killing one of the men, hoping for answers, and keeps Isaiah from keeping Rashid, the man Natasha once saved long ago. However, Rashid forces her to let him go from the helicopter, plunging into a pool below and surviving, but not before muttering that "they hadn't told him about this part," leading Natasha to suspect something about CHAOS, assuming it is them behind this, has to do with some sort of precognitive ability. This seems confirmed when we see, after Natasha, Laura, and Isaiah have successfully left the casino area, Tori take a call from the people at CHAOS and imply once more that they have access to future information.

On top of the gorgeous art of this book which, hopefully, you have checked out by now, one of the great things about this book is the tone and atmosphere of the story. I've already talked at length (perhaps ironically) about the terse dialogue and narration of the book, which makes the book move really quickly and keeps Natasha's character pretty well-defined while still ensuring to keep things decidedly close to the vest, even with the ever-present and unseen audience. However, in the broader sense, Edmondson is doing a fantastic job keeping CHAOS out there and somewhere on the outskirts. It's the same sort of thing you see in a lot of spy or crime series. One notable example is the tandem of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the first two Daniel Craig James Bond movies. The end of Casino Royale introduces this new apparently anti-MI6 terrorist group called Quantum and then Quantum of Solace, which picks up just minutes after the end of Casino Royale, goes on to illustrate them as this ubiquitous group that hides in plain sight, showing Bond that he can't trust anyone and forcing him to rely only on himself and anyone he can tangibly prove isn't working with the organization. In just 11 short issues (and far fewer concerning CHAOS), Edmondson has nicely planted the seeds to view this group in that sort of light, some sort of ubiquitous but unseen enemy that is constantly closing in on Natasha. It's a perfect adversary for her and it's presented brilliantly by both Edmondson and Noto. It's classic spy stuff and it's so far striking the perfect balance that makes them a massive threat but not something that requires Avengers attention on it (always a worry in a shared universe: why didn't so-and-so just call the Avengers? They can't ALWAYS be off-world!). Really great book just doing what it does, continuing to be really great.

Total Score: 5/5


Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier 1

Bucky Barnes has taken on Nick Fury's role as "man on the Wall," the guy who protects the planet from interstellar threats before they can even make it to Earth. This first issue finds him all over the galaxy with his chosen sidekick-who-isn't-a-sidekick Daisy Johnson. They start on a planet, kill a dude, take a weird little pet off the planet, investigate a drug trade through Atlantis, and team up with Namor only to find that the drug dealer's middle man was Loki and then the drug dealer is killed by someone else who seems impossible to identify in the murkiness of the final page.

I hate to say "I told you so" but I especially hate to say "I told you so" to myself, who was really starting to eagerly anticipate this book. I have had my problems with Kot in the past (I think SECRET AVENGERS is all over the place and certainly has become a book that isn't for me, a thing I hate dealing with because I still force myself to read every book like some dummy. I also think Kot really wants you to know that he's smart and thoughtful and progressive, something I would honestly have believed if he just wrote books I like because I think writers who can make good books ARE smart and thoughtful and progressive and don't always need to have an agenda LOOK, we're on a tangent again) and they're all coming right to a head here as he loads each page with dialogue and exposition and throws it all at us over Marco Rudy's really specific art style. One of the problems with that is that Rudy's art style involves using space on the page in a way that's very rarely, if ever, done. There are a lot of circular panels in the middle of a page that kind of branch out to create the rest of the page's layout and, when used effectively, create a really neat and unique sort of page. Here, though, it's really hard to follow the art because the words are so very present and it's a struggle just to find your way around the story, meaning you can't really make room for the art. Hopefully this is something that will settle out as the book continues (which is certainly a possibility as the two become more comfortable working with one another) because I still want to believe this book has potential. I just need to stop rolling my eyes at it.

Total Score: 2/5

Captain Marvel 16, Secret Avengers 9

Captain Marvel 16
DeConnick and Van Meter (w) and Oliffe and Geraci w/ Nguyen (a) and Troy (c)

We get a bit of recap here for people who have been following Infinity pretty intently; we see Carol go Binary, save her team, and get interrogated by the Builders, where she hears the Builders' intent for earth and sees J-Son betray the resistance and get punished for it. It's a nice bit of recap for people who haven't been paying attention but it takes up a lot of issue space. Returned to her imprisonment alongside the less powerful Avengers among the captured (Hawkeye, Sunspot, and Cannonball), Carol makes a plan to save Earth by sacrificing herself and her teammates in one last-ditch attack on the Builders. Right as they're about to set off, the Avengers strike team makes it on to the ship to provide their rescue. Carol directs them to the bridge, where the rest of their team is, and they have to fight their way through the rest of the crew to get there. Spider-Woman and Carol have a bit of a fight and a bit of a resolution as they make their way there, then we see essentially what happened at the end of the Builders' story in Infinity 3, with Starbrand making his mark on the fight, though we see it from Carol's perspective.

It's a nice touch to have Carol rally the troops at the end here, though in Infinity, it's Black Widow who inspires Starbrand to defend the resistance. It's not necessarily not that in this one, but we don't get it from Widow here, which is interesting in a book with so much recap. Still, the touch of Carol giving the big speech that pulls everyone together and having a big Avengers moment is solid, as it wraps up this little arc nicely by putting Carol in the captain role that Captain America was in last issue. A bit heavy on recap for me and the art isn't exactly my favorite in comics today (lot of really defined face lines) but it's also a solid issue for Carol's character and thematically with the last one (and the rest, it fits nicely with what we know of Carol from this series). Looking forward to the promised double issue next time as we return to Carol full-time.

Secret Avengers 9
Spencer (w) and Guice (a) and Wilson (c)

Daisy Johnson has been removed as SHIELD director in favor of Maria Hill after the botched invasion of AIM Island. Aware that her memory could be erased at any time (she and others implanted the memory chips as a sort of show of good faith and as a safeguard for themselves as well), Daisy's desperate to back up her knowledge. With the help of fellow former-Secret Warrior, now Avenger Manifold, she breaks into an old Tony Stark lab which has tech to record a disc with her memories on it. She insists on being backed up and asks Eden to keep an eye on it for her while it happens. As it's happening, SHIELD psy-division picks up on it and notifies Hill immediately, who demands they remotely wipe her memory of all of these events. As a result, her back-up stops at 62%, leaving her only kind of aware of what's been going on. It's enough, though, to show Hill that she still remembers some things (Hill doesn't know how much), and to enlist outside help in the form of (FINALLY) Winter Soldier.

There's a nice Secret Warriors feel to this issue, thanks in large part to the focus on Daisy and the inclusion of Eden and the original Nick Fury (who comes to pay his respect to Agent Ralston and to give Daisy some advice). It also has that wheels-within-wheels feel of Secret Warriors, though a little more explicitly perhaps. Making the reader remember Secret Warriors, though, isn't ever a bad thing. The start of the issue drags a bit as we go back in time to the month before the Secret Avengers program was initiated, where we see Hill and Daisy talking about what was going to happen going forward. Most of it's important as it characterizes the differences in the two women (Hill is very do-what-it-takes where Daisy wants things done right and well but within maybe a few more moral parameters) and it gives us the backstory, but it's definitely slower reading than the rest of the issue. There are nice little characterizations for Fury and Eden (particularly Eden continually standing on one leg in almost a yoga pose) and the inclusion of Winter Soldier (finally) is encouraging. Pretty solid issue, which isn't something I've been particularly prone to say about this series so far. Excited to see where it goes. Not to mention, all this talk of recording memories makes me hopeful for Bucky and Natasha.