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Fuck Yeah, Black Widow

Fallaces sunt rerum species

Здравствуйте from FYBW, your one-stop tumblr shop for Black Widow news, no-prizing, and oversaturated .gifs. Some MCU, mostly comics. Often overwritten. Always overthinking.

Black Widow created by Lee, Rico and Heck & is © Marvel Entertainment.

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You might have heard— Marvel is doing a gigantanormous 700 issue free digital bonanza and this means for the first time I get to do a masterpost for some of my favorite Black Widow comics!!

Black Widow v6 #1 (url)
The kickoff to the 2010 ongoing is still my preferred intro point, because this is a kickass run of comics that mixes grade-A character study with the context of the wider Marvel universe. Again, this is the Natasha story I think everyone should read. This story arc continues with #2-5 of the same series.
Words by Marjorie Liu, art by Daniel Acuña
Black Widow v1 #1 (url)
The 1999 mini introduces Yelena Belova, a second Black Widow and mixes glossy international espionage with themes of identity and individuality. I still love this one, and it was my go-to rec before the 2010 ongoing came out. Continues in #2-3 of the same series.
Words by Devin Grayson, art by J.G. Jones
Black Widow v2 #1 (url)
This is a spiritual sequel to the first Grayson mini, and is a mean, twisty mindfuck of a story. I like this because it shows Natasha at her worst, and also shows what drives her there. Continues in #2-3 of the same series.
Words by Devin Grayson & Greg Rucka, art by Scott Hampton
Enter the Heroic Age #1 & CA and the Secret Avengers #1 (url & url)
Two linked one-shots by Kelly Sue DeConnick, involving copious ladysnark, over the top Bond-villainy, and an assortment of cute coats and puppies. Read Enter the Heroic Age, then the SA issue.
Words by Kelly Sue DeConnick, art by Jamie McKelvie and Greg Tocchini
Fear Itself: the Black Widow (url)
This takes place during the Fear Itself megacrossover but you don’t need to read the big crossover to understand what’s going on. I like how this one explores Natasha’s ruthlessness in the context of her vulnerability, and the art is lithe and elegant.
Words by Cullen Bunn, art by Peter Nguyen

These are all #1 issues, so they were written as starting points and should be easy for anyone to download and digest.

ETA: the demand on comixology’s servers caused them to pause the promotion, but fill out this form and they’ll let you know when you can get your free comics.

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Natasha: You can watch if you want, James.
Logan: Yes, James. Don’t mind me.
Bucky: Shut up.
Natasha: Yes, Logan, Please do. You’re not out of the woods with me, yet. A little warning would have been nice.

I guess I wish I lived in a world where I could go off on a rant like yesterday’s without feeling the need to clarify: you can be anti sex trafficking without being anti sex. But, if I’m honest, the feminist movement has a bit of a historical problem with this. There’s also a Dude in the Comments Section with a historical problem. Like, every time someone blogs about Uncomfortable T&A Pose, take eleventy billion, Some Dude will show up to whine about how feminists are censoring female sexuality. (For this dude, “female sexuality” is defined as sexy things he wants to see women do.)

Here’s the tricky truth of it: we live in a society that both pressures women to have sex they do not want and shames them for having it. Sexual liberation isn’t really about the freedom to be sexy— it’s about the freedom to have the sex you want. The other tricky thing is that fictional characters do not want. They’re fake. But we need to believe in them.

That means that they need to be believable. believable doesn’t have to mean realistic— but if a story’s going to chuck the laws of physics out the window it’s generally got to give us something else to keep it from spinning apart. Without internal logic or consistency, there’s nothing for us to hold onto. Superhero comics are actually a perfect example of this, because they are a place where wearing underwear over your tights is a kind of visual shorthand for bravery, but fans still try to mine them for threads of logic. We’re all searching for the mathematical formula that will make the sliding timescale comprehensible. Fans will notice if, several years and creative teams later, Teddy from Young Avengers is wearing the wrong amount of earrings.

This detour brought to you by the letter O and what I’m actually trying to say here: when it comes to the fake people sex stuff, you have to convince me. I’m all about what these women want, what I can believe they want. The reason so many comic book sex scenes fail is that they twist anatomy around to make sure we see everything, then use magical shadows and sheets to make sure we see nothing that counts. If every woman has the same hairstyle and bodytype it is difficult to believe these parts of their character design are really tied to character. And if women are always drawn sexy, pouting and thrusting in every panel, it is difficult to believe in that sexiness as a choice.

So, like, yeah, I don’t have an issue with plunging necklines, just the idea that a stealthy superagent would choose to go backflipping in one. Natasha’s attitude toward sex and sexuality is going to be informed by her quest for bodily autonomy, the harassment she’s had to deal with, all of her love affairs turning out to hopeless & tragic or Matt fucking Murdock, and the fact that she enjoyed them anyway. It wouldn’t be believable otherwise.

Anyway, this is a scene with boob that I like, one that works because of specific characters and specific contexts. We understand that Bucky is a ~gentleman, that Natasha might not be a ~lady, and that Logan’s a little bit creepy uncle— but Natasha’s self-confidence is such that the last bit doesn’t phase her. All of this makes sense so I believe it and none of it means the creepy dudes from pages past were right about her sex life. They were just right to be afraid of her.

From Black Widow #5, by Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuña.

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Natasha: Tolstoy will live forever. Some people do. But that’s not enough. It’s not the length of a life that matters… just the depth of it. The chances we take. The paths we choose. How we go on after our hearts break.

Death Comes for the Black Widow

Fury: Why are you asking about her?
Ulrich: I’m trying to put the pieces together.
Fury: The pieces… Natasha died four years ago.
Ulrich: Dead?
Fury: Died. Dead.
Ulrich: How?
Fury: The Avengers. A skrull thing. We kept it quiet at her request.

Daredevil: End of Days is a miniseries coming out now with the compelling premise of “everyone dies, Klaus Janson and Bill Sienkiewicz draw things.” In a future where comic book timelines are vague, Ben Ulrich is investigating the murder of Daredevil and the Kingpin— he tries to track down Black Widow, only to have Fury tell him she’s been dead for four years. It made me think of two very different Natasha panels, one written by Marjorie Liu, one by Richard K. Morgan.

From Morgan:

You always knew. Across this flag-worshipping idiot glboe, fighting the shadow wars, this side, that side, both ends against the middle, noble causes and dirty little deals. Cracking your sinews at the edge of loss, breaking the bones and minds of those who lost the game to you. And all the time you knew that sooner or later it would come to this. No one plays forever and there’s only one way they let you cash out. But you always thought you’d die alone.

From Liu:

Imus: You can’t win by walking away, Natasha. I have the technology. And even if you take that away, I still have my memories. Enough to rebuild. There’s only one way to end this for good.
Natasha: Shut up, Imus. You’ll die one day. So will I. But unlike you… I’ll show some spine. And I won’t be alone.

Superhero comics are known for their contradictions, the way they bend back on themselves and change what came before. But there are also contradictions in the way certain writers approach certain characters, who are all supposed to be the same. And it’s rare that it stares you back so starkly as this.

It’s no surprise that I’m on Team Liu and not Team Morgan, but this really gets to the heart of what I felt was lacking from Morgan’s Natasha— mostly, the heart. It’s very easy to make her this sort of lone wolf figure, cold and removed. “Love is for children,” and all of that. But if you glance back through her history, there’s no way that adds up. She has always made these very strong, very human connections. Her loneliness is one of survival, not death. She’s cold, not because she doesn’t care, but because she cares so deep-down it’s hard to see it.

Of course, she could die alone, it wouldn’t be hard. But Morgan had Natasha rejecting her previous connections because he thought they made her weaker, and that’s always struck me as going backwards. There’s a tremendous strength she has, in being complicated, but not fundamentally broken. She treasures companionship and owns her desires.

In Morgan’s defense, Natasha didn’t die alone— she was rescued by women she’d previously saved. It was a nice twist, one I really appreciated. But I still don’t know how Natasha could see herself dying alone when she’s been there through the deaths of so many people she’s treasured.

All of which is to say, you think I’d be mad Bendis went and killed Natasha off-panel. But I’m not, because he made it clear that she didn’t die alone.

From Daredevil: End of Days #2, Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her #6, and Black Widow #5.