Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up

Reprints Marvel Two-In-One #10, Marvel Team-Up #57, 82-85, 98 and 141 and Marvel Comics Presents #53, 70 and 93
Written by Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Christopher Priest, Roger McKenzie, Fabian Nicieza, Robert Campanella, Dan Slott and Tom DeFalco.
Penciled by Bob Brown, Sal Buscema, Will Meugniot,  Ron Frenz, Greg Laroque, Rob Liefeld, Larry Alexander and Dwayne Turner.
Inked by Klaus Janson, Steve Leialoha, Dave Hunt, Bruce Patterson, Mike Esposito, Bob Wiacek, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, and Dwayne Turner.

Summary:
170 pages of Bronze Age greatness starring martial artist and super-spy the Black Widow!

On a peaceful springtime Sunday afternoon in Central Park, the serenity is broken by a high-speed car chase! At the wheel of the lead car is Natasha Romanoff, better known to the world as the Black Widow! She's being chased by a car full of armed gunmen.

Elsewhere in the park, Ben Grimm, The Thing of Fantastic Four fame, is enjoying a pleasant walk through the park with his girlfriend Alicia Masters. Their afternoon is interrupted when Black Widow's car crashes into Ben. She and the Thing are then taken captive by the gunmen to a prison in the middle the Atlantic Ocean.

The heroes learn that the gunmen are part of a terror organization that calls itself the Sword Of Judgement. Their leader, known as Agamemnon is an old acquaintance of the Widow. The Sword has a thermonuclear bomb powerful enough to wipe out New York City and all its citizens.

Can Ben Grimm and Black Widow prevent the Sword Of Judgement from detonating the bomb?!

Some months later, Spider-Man stumbles on a robbery of an antique store on Madison Avenue. The wallcrawler stops the robbers, but is then attacked by the Silver Samurai, who has battled Daredevil and Black Widow in the past.

Surprise gives the samurai the advantage, but fortunately, Black Widow arrives to assist Spidey!

Can their combined might defeat the Silver Samurai?!

Subsequently, a school teacher named Nancy Rushman is walking through Midtown Manhattan and is attacked by a gang of muggers. Thankfully, Spider-Man intervenes and saves the day. The webhead immediately recognizes "Nancy Rushman" as none other than the Black Widow!

But Rushman has no memory of being a superhero. Spider-Man digs the Widow's costume out of her bag and convinces Nancy to try it on. She does, but this does nothing to bring back her memory.  Spider-Man has another problem when he finds himself attracted to "Nancy," and the attraction is mutual.

In the midst of this, Spidey and Nancy are attacked by Agents of SHIELD! Suddenly, Nancy goes into full "Black Widow-mode" and takes out the agents. However, Nancy still doesn't recall her life as the Widow.

Spider-Man and Nancy soon discover that the SHIELD agents are being mind-controlled by the master criminal known as the Viper! The villain is also accompanied by the Silver Samurai and Boomerang! In addition to crushing the heroes, Viper plans to destroy the United States Capitol while every U.S. leader is in the building for a Presidential address.

Fortunately for Black Widow and Spider-Man, help arrives in the form of Nick Fury and Shang-Chi, Master Of Kung Fu!

Can the heroes thwart the Viper's plans and restore the Widow's memories?

Sometime after that, an intelligence agent named Simon is kidnapped by a gang of criminals. Simon is an old friend of the Black Widow. With the help of Spider-Man, the Widow learns that Simon is being held captive at a Long Island mansion. 

When the heroes arrive, they're shocked to learn that the villain running the show is their old enemy the Owl! A recent battle has left the Owl crippled, but the Maggia crime cartel has outfitted him with a floating wheelchair that's a veritable arsenal! Can Spider-Man and Black Widow save Simon and defeat the Owl?

Finally, during a New York City blackout, looters raid a pawnshop. Spider-Man arrives to stop the looting, but when the pawnbroker pulls a rifle on the looters, he's shot to death by an unseen assailant.

A young man named Juan Santiago is arrested and charged with murdering the pawnbroker. During his arraignment, he's represented by one of New York's best lawyers, Matt Murdock. Since Murdock is actually Daredevil, his superpowers enable him to detect that Juan is telling the truth about his innocence. However, he can't explain that to the authorities without exposing his identity.

When Murdock tell his old friend the Black Widow (who knows Murdock is Daredevil) about his client's innocence, the Widow decides to investigate the underworld to find the real killer. Spider-Man joins Black Widow's quest for the truth. They capture a few criminals, but don't get any closer to finding the killer.

In the middle of their investigation, Spider-Man disappears! The webhead seems to have vanished and no one knows where he is! Thankfully, Murdock puts on his Daredevil costume and helps the Widow solve the mystery.  But in order to free his client, Daredevil may have to make a deal with one of his greatest foes: Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin Of Crime!

Can Black Widow and Daredevil locate the real killer before it's too late for Juan?  And what has happened to Spider-Man?

Review:
Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up is a fun book and a nice showcase for Natasha Romanoff. It's worth noting that Black Widow was not part of any ongoing series when these stories were published. This allowed writers to include her in team-ups and avoid messing up continuity or worry about what she was doing in another series that month.

Story:
The opening story, taken from Marvel Two-In-One #10, features good interactions between the Thing, Black Widow and their captors. Chris Claremont wrote this and it includes some nice character development for Ben Grimm. He hates being a "monster," but we get a scene where Ben acknowledges that if he wasn't the Thing, he wouldn't have been able to save the world from the Sword Of Judgement's bomb. The only problem with this story is that Agamemnon and his minions are generic gunmen who are never seen again.

Claremont also penned the second adventure, from Marvel Team-Up #57. There isn't much in the way of story, but it's an entertaining brawl that features Spider-Man and Natasha taking on Silver Samurai.

The heart of this book is the four-part story that features Black Widow, Spidey, Shang-Chi, and Nick Fury teaming up against Silver Samurai, Viper, and Boomerang. When Widow is brainwashed into thinking she's a teacher named Nancy Rushman, Spider-Man thinks to himself that he might like her better as "Nancy" and they begin to fall for each other. Under a different writer, this could have come off as creepy, but Claremont handles this well. Since he's a superhero, of course Spider-Man ultimately helps Natasha regain her memories and puts his romantic interests in Nancy aside so that Black Widow can regain her memories and help save the day.  

The Owl tale was plotted by Marv Wolfman scripted by Roger McKenzie. It's a solid done-in-one that shows a menace like the Owl could be dangerous even if he's confined to a wheelchair.

Last but not least, the Spider-Man/Black Widow/Daredevil two-parter was written by the trio of Tom Defalco, Christopher Priest, and Bill Mantlo. It's a good street-level crime story that also features an early appearance of Spidey's black costume.

There is one big problem with the last three stories reprinted in Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up. In the Viper story, Spider-Man helps Widow regain her memories. Yet in the next story, Natasha at one point observes that, "It's true what they say about Spider-Man. All that he cares about is the glory." She doesn't make any reference to her "Nancy Rushman" phase in the next story either. I realize different writers wrote these stories, but that's a continuity gaffe. They could've written at least one sentence where Black Widow acknowledges how Spider-Man saved her life and helped her regain her memories.  

Art:
The art in Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up is good from start to finish. The opening story features Bob Brown's pencils inked by Klaus Janson. It's good storytelling from the art team that also collaborated on Daredevil during the Bronze Age. I thought this page below (left) perfectly captured the helplessness of Alicia Masters when she realizes Ben Grimm is missing:

Sal Buscema and Dave Hunt are the art team on the second story. They provide nice Marvel house style art and lots of great fight scenes. Buscema gives us one of his trademark scenes where a character gets punched towards the reader.

The Nancy Rushman story also features Buscema on pencils, inked by Steve Leialoha. These two artists had very different styles, but they work very nicely together here. Buscema and Leialoha create a great-looking combination of both their styles and it's the best art in the book.

Will Meugniot and Bruce Patterson are the penciler and inker, respectively, on the Owl story and it features enjoyable art. Meugniot is best known for his work in independent comics and animation and this is one of only six Marvel stories Meugniot penciled.

The last tale features pencils by Ron Frenz and Greg LaRoque, with Mike Esposito embellishing their work and they produce some solid house style art.

How Does It Look?:
Here are two pages scanned from a copy of Marvel Team-Up #82:

And here's how the pages look in Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up:

Extras:
This book features three stories published after the Bronze Age, three pages of original art, plus Black Widow's profile from the 1983 edition of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up is a good book and a nice introduction to the Black Widow's Bronze Age escapades. These stories aren't classics, but they're fun and the Nancy Rushman saga makes the book worth buying all by itself.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.

Daredevil vs. Bullseye

Reprints Daredevil #131-132, 146, 169, 181 and 191
Written by Marv Wolfman, Jim Shooter and Frank Miller.
Penciled by Bob Brown, Gil Kane and Frank Miller.
Inked by Klaus Janson, Jim Mooney and Terry Austin.

In a New York skyscraper on 86th Street, a businessman named Hunnicutt is disturbed when a projectile is thrown through his window.  He's shocked when he discovers it's a paper airplane. When it's unfolded it contains a note that reads "Pay me $100,000 or I will kill you!! -Bullseye."

 As soon as he has read the note, Hunnicutt receives visit from Bullseye. When he tells Bullseye he doesn't have $100,000, Bullseye murders him with a ballpoint pen.   

Daredevil stumbles on the crime scene and takes an interest in the case. Daily Bugle reporter Jake Conover is reporting on the murder and asks to speak with Daredevil. Conover fills in DD about Bullseye's backstory. He was once a baseball pitching prospect, until he enlisted in the military.  Bullseye applied his pitching skills to throwing knives, guns and anything else during the Vietnam War.  Daredevil learns that anything in the hands of Bullseye is a deadly weapon.

That same night, Daredevil is attacked by Bullseye. After a brief skirmish, Bullseye leads the hero into an arena where a circus is being held.    

Sometime after that, Bullseye returns to New York. Matt Murdock is walking around and his radar sense recognizes Bullseye, who is out of costume. Bullseye attempts to rob a jewelry store, but Murdock intervenes. The police arrive and think Murdock is just an insane blind man, so Bullseye escapes. Murdock is released by the police, but Bullseye nails him in the head with a golf ball. This assault damages DDs radar sense, making him truly sightless.  

Later that day, Bullseye takes over a TV studio and calls out Daredevil on live television. Bullseye has taken hostages and will kill them if Daredevil doesn't accept his challenge to a televised duel to the death! Without his radar sense, the Man Without Fear must rely on intestinal fortitude, instinct and luck to defeat Bullseye.

Matt Murdock & Bullseye tangle in a jewelry store;
Bullseye later assaults Murdock with a golf ball!

Months later, Bullseye is taken to a hospital so that a tumor on his brain can be removed. But he escapes before the operation and is running loose in the streets of New York. The tumor causes him to hallucinate. He perceives everyone in sight as Daredevil. Bullseye lashes out at all the "devils" that surround him, which makes him more dangerous than ever!

Daredevil learns of this and goes after Bullseye. Their battle takes them from a Times Square movie theater to the tunnels of New York's subway system.

Following that, Bullseye is back in prison and hears that the Kingpin of Crime no longer wants Bullseye to be his #1 assassin. Kingpin has hired Elektra, a ninja who shares a romantic past with Matt Murdock, to be his new hired killer. Bullseye is determined to escape prison and regain his place in the Kingpin's organization.

He breaks free, but if he wants his old job back, he'll have to go through Elektra first. The two assassins engage in a duel to the death! And Daredevil is waiting in the wings to take on the survivor.

Lastly, Bullseye is recovering in the hospital from his latest battle with Daredevil. He's surprised when DD shows up with a gun and plays a version of Russian Roulette with his arch foe.

Review:
Bullseye is one of the greatest villains to come out of the Bronze Age and this is a good introduction to the character. But I have some problems with Daredevil vs. Bullseye.

Story:
Marv Wolfman wrote the two-parter that introduced Bullseye and it's a great debut for the villain. We learn right away that Bullseye is a cold-blooded psychopathic murderer, willing to kill for publicity and the thrill of it. Wolfman shows him using a pen and a paper airplane as weapons in his first scene, driving home the point that Bullseye has perfect aim and can use anything as a deadly weapon.

Daredevil knocks out Bullseye to conclude their first encounter.

The battle between Daredevil and Bullseye is a good one, but there are some plot points that are either ignored or forgotten.

Bullseye tells Daredevil that he must fight him at the circus because he has gunmen aiming at the spectators. When Bullseye gases the crowd they run away...and gunmen are nowhere to be seen. Was Bullseye lying? Did Wolfman forget? Or hoped we forgot? Otherwise it's a good story that establishes Bullseye as a serious threat.

Jim Shooter wrote the second portion and it's a great one-and-done tale.  Bullseye is getting crazier and more dangerous with every appearance. Daredevil becomes truly blinded for most of the fight and Shooter does a nice job getting inside the hero's head and illustrating his determination to bring down Bullseye without his radar sense.

The portions written by Frank Miller are very good. The story from Daredevil #181 is one of the best of the Bronze Age.  But the inclusion of the Miller stories in this tpb is problematic. They're part of a much bigger storyline and reading them out of order could ruin the bigger saga for new readers. Plus, there are other Bullseye stories that are skipped over that would've been better choices (the character also appeared in Daredevil #141-142, 159-160). Plus, the Elektra saga has been reprinted in multiple books.  I guess Marvel used the Miller stories because they're more famous and would help sell the book better than the earlier tales.

Art:
The art featured in Daredevil vs. Bullseye ranges from good to fantastic. Bob Brown penciled and Klaus Janson inked the first story. They do a nice job here. I love this image of Daredevil cartwheeling to avoid a charging elephant:

The art gets even better as the book progresses. Gil Kane penciled the story from DD#145 and it contains lots of his cool angle, "looking upwards" poses. Daredevil and Bullsye's brawl at the TV studio is a classic fight scene thanks to Kane's pencils. The scan below provides a nice example of Kane's work in this book:

Frank Miller's Daredevil art has been deservedly praised for more than 30 years and it still looks great.  But inker Klaus Janson helped define what most people think of when they talk about Miller's work.  Their noirish approach still looks amazing today. There are many pages in this book that feature no dialogue or narration caption, the gorgeous art is all that's needed to tell the story. Miller and Janson are one of the greatest penciler/inker teams of all time.

Bullseye escapes from prison during a televised interview.

The final story, from DD #191 features Miller inked by Terry Austin. This art looks much different than the pages embellished by Janson. But that's okay, as Austin was one of the finest inkers of the Bronze Age and his inks look great over Miller's pencils.

How does it look?:
Here's another problem. Some of the stories here are recolored. This might not bother new readers, but it looks garish and wrong to me.  

Here's a scan (borrowed from torriol.com) of an original page from Daredevil #181:

The same page looks like this in the tpb.

It's not enough to ruin the whole book, it's distracting and isn't necessary. 

Daredevil Vs. Bullseye is a good book and a nice introduction to a great villain, but the skipping of stories and (especially) the recoloring prevent me from giving it a higher recommendation.

J.A. Morris' rating:

      




3 Sals.

Marvel Masterworks: Black Panther Volume 1

Reprints Jungle Action #6-24

Written by Don McGregor.
Penciled by Rich Buckler, Billy Graham, Gil Kane, Keith Pollard.
Inked by Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, Pablo Marcos, Billy Graham, Bob McLeod, Jim Mooney, Keith Pollard.

Variant cover.

The Black Panther, AKA T'Challa, monarch of Wakanda, has returned to his kingdom in Africa after years of living in the U.S. where he worked as a school teacher and served as a member of the Avengers. He's surprised to learn he has fallen out of favor with many Wakandan citizens who feel that he abandoned his country.

This has allowed his rule to be threatened by Erik Killmonger, who is leading a revolt against T'Challa.  The Panther tracks down Killmonger and engages him in hand-to-hand combat. 

T'Challa is easily defeated, thrown into a waterfall and presumed dead. 

But Black Panther survives, swims to safety and returns to his village to recuperate.

He embarks on a quest to find and defeat Killmonger. But T'Challa will have to fight his way through several other villains if he wants to defeat his would-be usurper:

Venomm: a snake-charmer whose face has been scarred by acid. He uses his trained constricting snakes and his whip to choke the Panther within an inch of his life!

Baron Macabre, a mutated human who turns humans into zombies and uses them to attack T'Challa!

King Kadaver, who uses psychic powers to inflict pain on his opponents!

Black Panther encounters Baron Macabre(left) and King Kadaver.

Plus, T'Challa's search for Killmonger takes him through the dreaded Valley of Serpents, where dinosaurs still walk the Earth. 

At the same time, Black Panther's girlfriend, Monica Lynne, has been wrongly accused of murder. The native Wakandans in T'Challa's court have always been suspicious of Monica, because she is an American. The Panther tries to prove Monica is not guilty, but in the mean time, she is locked up in a cell.

Can the Black Panther defeat Killmonger and stay in power? Will he be able to free Monica and discover the identity of the murderer?

Plus, T'Challa and Monica visit Georgia, where they are attacked by the Ku Klux Klan!

 

Review:

"The Panther's Rage" is one of the greatest arcs of the Bronze Age. I hadn't read the story in its entirety (I always had trouble finding a few issues) until I picked up this collection.  

Story:

It's difficult to say too much here without spoiling the plot. Don McGregor writes a great story here. This is his crowning achievement. It feels a lot like an old time movie serial, with lots of cliffhangers and a different enemy showing up every 17 pages.  

McGregor gives us many pages with only narration, no dialogue. We get inside T'Challa's head and get an almost palpable sense of his anger and desperation. The captions on the scan below show a great example of this:

Killmonger is a great adversary. McGregor could've just brought back a preexisting Black Panther foe (like Klaw or the Man-Ape). But this is Killmonger's first appearance and giving him an axe to grind (even if it's not really justified) makes him more than just a would-be usurper. It makes perfect sense that Wakandans would feel abandoned by T'Challa and want to follow the charismatic Killmonger.

And the other villains are new as well. They're all entertaining, but my personal favorite is King Kadaver. He's very creepy and I love his name!  

The follow-up story focuses on T'Challa battling the KKK in Georgia. It's also good, even if it's a slight step down from the Killmonger tale. But it's also a credit to McGregor that he took the character in a very different direction, rather than staying in Wakanda. The one problem I have is that the book ends with the Klan story unfinished. Jungle Action was cancelled and this story wasn't completed until three years later in the Marvel Premiere series. I hope Marvel gets around to reprinting the conclusion someday. 

Art:

The book opens with some outstanding art by penciler Rich Buckler and inker Klaus Janson.  Just take a look at this double-spread title page, where action is taking place in the title itself:

Simply gorgeous.  

Buckler didn't stay with the book very long, leaving after three issues. Comic legend Gil Kane penciled one issue. After that, Billy Graham takes over and pencils the next 100+ pages. Graham does a great job and this is some of the best work of his career. 

Graham and Buckler are the best artists in this book, but he rest of the pencilers do a fine job as well.  Klaus Janson inked the bulk of the stories, so the art maintains a consistent look while pencilers come and go.  

On the whole, the art is excellent throughout, no matter who is penciling.  

Extras:

Don McGregor wrote a nice introductory essay for this volume. It's obviously a story he's very proud of even 40 years later. We get some original art, plus some nice photos of McGregor and Graham working on the issues. Here's a great photo of McGregor posing, showing how he wants the Black Panther to be drawn:

Marvel Masterworks: Black Panther Volume 1 is highly recommended to any fan of Bronze Age comics. It features a great story and fantastic art, and it could serve as a great introduction to readers who aren't familiar with T'Challa. I hope someday we'll get a book that reprints the rest of the "Black Panther vs. KKK" tale.  

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!