Edmondson, Nathan & Noto, Phil: Black Widow (2014-ongoing)
I keep being lured into reading the current Black Widow series by its wonderful art, even though I know it's not going to make me happy. The problem is, Nathan Edmondson's Natasha Romanoff is not my Natasha Romanoff.
Edmondson's Natasha Romanoff is full of man-pain. She is isolated by guilt for her checkered past. She is so terrified of vulnerability that a major subplot of the first arc of the series is focused on whether or not she can bring herself to admit she has inadvertantly adopted a stray cat. She is a great spy because of her physical skills with guns and hand-to-hand fighting. (She also is incompetent at basic research, but this is clearly because of Edmondson's ineptness with plotting rather than intended as a character trait.)
And ... all of that is so not Natasha.
Most of my knowledge of pre-21st century Marvel comics is secondhand; my introduction to Natasha came through the MCU. Nevertheless, I have read a range of comics featuring Natasha. My formative comics Natasha is Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuña's Name of the Rose, but I've read versions by Warren Ellis, Kelly Sue de Connick, and Greg Rucka where she's the lead character, and by Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Jonathan Hickman where she's a significant supporting or ensemble character. All of these versions depict a Natasha Romanoff who is conscious she can never make amends to the people she hurt, but that she can do a lot of good now. She may not tell any single person all her secrets, but she has strong and warm connections to many people, from lovers to friends and colleagues to younger heroes she mentors. She is determined to save others from her own tragedies. (Her attempts to build a relationship with the second Black Widow, Yelena Belova, are particularly notable.) She is an excellent fighter, but her greatest asset is understanding and out-thinking people. She can be brutally efficient and has clashed with the more rigid ethics of Captain America, particularly when it comes to defensibility of killing, but violence is not her first resort. The greatest difference I see between comics Natasha and MCU Natasha is that comics Natasha already knows who she is behind all the masks.
Edmondson has taken this complicated character and turned her into a standard male action hero. And I like seeing women in action hero roles, I like seeing women given the narrative beats they're usually denied, but this isn't a new character. This is a character with a history. Reading Edmondson's version is like looking at an oil painting that someone has retraced in magic marker.
But, okay, let's wipe away my preconceptions. Let's pretend I've never heard of Natasha Romanoff before. Let's look at the story Edmondson wants to tell, rather than the story I want to read.
He's not very good at telling it. The twists in the plots frequently rely on Natasha failing to do basic research into her own assignments, or failing to have basic background knowledge of the environments she enters. In the third issue, for example, she is hired to rescue a man who, the client claims, is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. He is innocent of those crimes. What Natasha doesn't realize until the end is that he's a famous war criminal. (Ironically, after she kills him, her internal monologue is: A good operative knows his environment. His home. He knows which creatures are docile--and which are dangerous. By this metric, Natasha is a terrible operative. It doesn't seem to be an irony that Edmondson is aware of.)
And it's a pity, because Phil Noto's art is lovely, very cleanly composed, and entirely without the objectification that mars so much superhero art. His action scenes -- so often an excuse for T&A with superheroines -- are all about the athleticism and the efficiency. His Natasha wears practical clothes, and generally fairly loosely fit ones. It greatly benefits the series that Noto is the sole artist on it; many otherwise excellent series with distinctive visual styles (Hawkeye) have been handicapped by switch-offs in artists. Noto's pastel-wash coloring is an unusual and striking choice for a spy series: its murkiness coming not from dark colors but from a washed-out over-exposure. Even the occasional striking red is a little too orange to be blood-red, super-saturated against the pastels, but still not quite saturated enough.
(Image from Black Widow #1)
I cannot praise the art for this series enough. I just wish I could praise the writing.
cups brewed at DW
Edmondson's Natasha Romanoff is full of man-pain. She is isolated by guilt for her checkered past. She is so terrified of vulnerability that a major subplot of the first arc of the series is focused on whether or not she can bring herself to admit she has inadvertantly adopted a stray cat. She is a great spy because of her physical skills with guns and hand-to-hand fighting. (She also is incompetent at basic research, but this is clearly because of Edmondson's ineptness with plotting rather than intended as a character trait.)
And ... all of that is so not Natasha.
Most of my knowledge of pre-21st century Marvel comics is secondhand; my introduction to Natasha came through the MCU. Nevertheless, I have read a range of comics featuring Natasha. My formative comics Natasha is Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuña's Name of the Rose, but I've read versions by Warren Ellis, Kelly Sue de Connick, and Greg Rucka where she's the lead character, and by Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Jonathan Hickman where she's a significant supporting or ensemble character. All of these versions depict a Natasha Romanoff who is conscious she can never make amends to the people she hurt, but that she can do a lot of good now. She may not tell any single person all her secrets, but she has strong and warm connections to many people, from lovers to friends and colleagues to younger heroes she mentors. She is determined to save others from her own tragedies. (Her attempts to build a relationship with the second Black Widow, Yelena Belova, are particularly notable.) She is an excellent fighter, but her greatest asset is understanding and out-thinking people. She can be brutally efficient and has clashed with the more rigid ethics of Captain America, particularly when it comes to defensibility of killing, but violence is not her first resort. The greatest difference I see between comics Natasha and MCU Natasha is that comics Natasha already knows who she is behind all the masks.
Edmondson has taken this complicated character and turned her into a standard male action hero. And I like seeing women in action hero roles, I like seeing women given the narrative beats they're usually denied, but this isn't a new character. This is a character with a history. Reading Edmondson's version is like looking at an oil painting that someone has retraced in magic marker.
But, okay, let's wipe away my preconceptions. Let's pretend I've never heard of Natasha Romanoff before. Let's look at the story Edmondson wants to tell, rather than the story I want to read.
He's not very good at telling it. The twists in the plots frequently rely on Natasha failing to do basic research into her own assignments, or failing to have basic background knowledge of the environments she enters. In the third issue, for example, she is hired to rescue a man who, the client claims, is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. He is innocent of those crimes. What Natasha doesn't realize until the end is that he's a famous war criminal. (Ironically, after she kills him, her internal monologue is: A good operative knows his environment. His home. He knows which creatures are docile--and which are dangerous. By this metric, Natasha is a terrible operative. It doesn't seem to be an irony that Edmondson is aware of.)
And it's a pity, because Phil Noto's art is lovely, very cleanly composed, and entirely without the objectification that mars so much superhero art. His action scenes -- so often an excuse for T&A with superheroines -- are all about the athleticism and the efficiency. His Natasha wears practical clothes, and generally fairly loosely fit ones. It greatly benefits the series that Noto is the sole artist on it; many otherwise excellent series with distinctive visual styles (Hawkeye) have been handicapped by switch-offs in artists. Noto's pastel-wash coloring is an unusual and striking choice for a spy series: its murkiness coming not from dark colors but from a washed-out over-exposure. Even the occasional striking red is a little too orange to be blood-red, super-saturated against the pastels, but still not quite saturated enough.
(Image from Black Widow #1)
I cannot praise the art for this series enough. I just wish I could praise the writing.
cups brewed at DW