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.

Ant-Man: Scott Lang

Reprints Marvel Premiere #47-48; Iron Man #131-133, 151; Avengers #195-196, 223; Marvel Team-Up  #103; Marvel Two -In-One #87; material from Avengers #181, Iron Man 125
Written by David Michelinie, Bob Layton and Tom DeFalco.
Penciled by John Byrne, Jerry Bingham, Luke McDonnell, George Perez, Ron Wilson and Greg Larocque.
Inked by Bob Layton, Jack Abel, Mike Esposito, Chic Stone, Dan Green and Brett Breeding.

Scott Lang turned to burglary when his career as an electronics technician failed to pay the bills. When he is released from prison, Tony Stark offers him a second chance and gives Lang a job at Stark International. 

Lang's new job at Stark is going well and so is his relationship with his daughter Cassie. But Cassie suddenly falls ill with a rare heart defect. Her diagnosis is not good, but Lang has hope. Cassie's physician tells Lang about Dr. Erica Sondheim, who has recently performed the sort of laser surgery that could save Cassie.

But when Lang goes to Sondheim's office, he sees her being forced into a car. He tries save her, but she is driven away. Lang learns that the car took Sondheim to the Long Island headquarters of Cross Technologies. He decides to use his burglary skills to break into Cross, but he will first need to steal money to pay some "muscle" to help with the job.

His return to burglary has a surprising result. He breaks into the home of Dr. Henry Pym, the Avenger who has fought crime as Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Yellowjacket. Lang discovers Pym's old Ant-Man costume and decides to try on the suit. It fits like a glove and he decides to wear the suit and use it to find Dr. Sondheim.

Lang quickly learns how to shrink to ant-size and how to control ants. This enables him to locate Sondheim, but then the new Ant-Man also encounters the villain behind the doctor's capture: Darren Cross, head of Cross Technologies.  

Cross has become super-strong due to a nuclear powered pacemaker. It works so well that it increased his strength and metabolism. Cross tells Ant-Man he's been forcing Sondheim to perform operations on unwilling donors so that he can use their organs to prolong his life. If Scott Lang can't stop Cross, it will mean the end of his daughter's life and the continuation of Cross' heinous crimes

After dealing with Cross, Scott meets Hank Pym. The Avenger tells Lang to keep the costume and a new Ant-Man is born!

Subsequently, Lang's boss, Tony Stark, is in trouble. He needs to talk to his old foe Whiplash, who is incarcerated at Ryker's Island prison. Stark asks Lang to assist him with this, since Lang had served time in Ryker's. Lang shrinks down to ant-size and pays a visit to Whiplash, getting information that could save Stark's life.

After that, Lang assists Iron Man in a project that could save the life of a former Avenger. Dr. Bruce Banner, also known as the Incredible Hulk, asks Tony Stark to use his technological know-how to help cure him of his Hulk-ness. Stark and Banner ask Lang to help them build a nuclear powered pulse regulator that will help Banner remain calm, preventing his transformation. Dr. Sondheim performs an operation that installs the pacemaker.

The operation is a success and Banner is cured...or so it seems. Unfortunately, the gamma rays that reside in the Hulks body act against the pulse regulator. Banner turns into the Hulk and it doesn't appear that he will ever turn back. Hulk goes on a rampage at Stark International.

Iron Man puts everything he has into stopping Hulk, maximizing all power his armor possesses. When the battle is over, Iron Man lies near death, his armor shut down. Ant-Man is forced to shrink and go inside the armor to repair it. If he fails, it will mean the end of Iron Man and Tony Stark.

Some months later, Ant-Man is contacted by Yellowjacket to help the Avengers. Yellowjacket's wife, the Wasp, is being held captive in the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane. But the Institute is really a front for criminal activity.

Yellowjacket and Ant-Man shrink down and sneak into the Solomon Institute. But they soon learn the institute is actually a "school" for criminal henchmen. It's operated by a man who calls himself the Taskmaster. He apprehends Ant-Man and Yellowjacket and tells them that he was born with the gift of "photographic reflexes." This ability enables him to watch a superhero or world-class athlete and emulate their actions.

The other Avengers are outside the Institute. Ant-Man contacts the team as only he can: by sending ants crawling into Iron Man's helmet.

Can the Avengers save Ant-Man, Wasp, and Yellowjacket from the clutches of Taskmaster?

Weeks after that, Lang receives a visit from Gus Sweezer, an old friend he knew in prison. Gus tells him that he's signed up with a criminal organization in Manhattan on Houston St. that pays well, and asks Lang to join him. But Lang has gone "legit" and wants nothing more to do with crime. When Gus leaves Lang's house, he's killed, hit by a car in a hit and run.

Simultaneously, at the offices of the Daily Bugle, editor/publisher J. Jonah Jameson tells photographer Peter Parker to investigate a block on Houston St that has been suspiciously crime free. As Spider-Man, Parker investigates a warehouse that makes his spider-sense tingle. It turns out to be a trap, and Spidey is attacked by the Taskmaster! The warehouse is another of Taskmaster's criminal academies. Spider-Man is taken captive and Taskmaster tells his trainees that this is proof that superheroes aren't all-powerful.

Ant-Man shows up at the warehouse and and sees that Taskmaster's goons are about to kill Spider-Man. Scott saves the wallcrawler by sending ants to his rescue. The two heroes learn where Taskmaster will strike next and set off to stop the villain!

Following that adventure, Lang is working at Stark International, making sure the computer network is working properly. Everything seems to be okay, but, suddenly, a drop of a strange green liquid seeps into the central computer.  

This causes the computer's security system to overreact and it threatens to destroy Stark's headquarters. Lang must once again become Ant-Man and go inside the system. If he fails, it could mean death for him and everyone who works for Stark.

Later, Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing, is assisting Reed Richards in an experiment. Ben ends up being teleported to the subatomic world known as Tok. Ant-Man gets a message from ants that the Thing needs his help.

He goes after Ben in the subatomic world and is shocked at what he finds. The Thing has become a pawn of Queen Pearla. She was aided years earlier by the Fantastic Four and ordered Tok's scientists to bring Ben to her kingdom.  

Pearla and her people are engaged in a war with the Lizard Men of Tok. Zorak, leader of the lizard men, says he will cease hostilities if Pearla appoints a champion to duel Zorak. The winner of the duel will gain control of Tok.

Ant-Man learns that Pearla has has an armada of spaceships ready to attack while Zorak and Ben are battling. Pearla intends to force Zorak to surrender. Lang overhears her plans and enlists the aid of Tok's insects in thwarting Pearla's plans. It's up to Ant-Man to free the Thing and bring peace to Tok.

Finally, Hawkeye visits a carnival in Long Island. He used to work there and the carnival's owner, Marcella Carson, has written to the archer seeking help. The Avenger discovers Marcella is being held captive by thugs.

Scott Lang is also attending the carnival with his daughter Cassie. When he sees Hawkeye running around the carnival, he decides it's time to don his Ant-Man costume and follow Hawkeye.  

It's a good thing he does, because the heroes discover that the man behind the scenes is none other than the Taskmaster! The villain has a bomb that could kill everyone at the carnival and only Ant-Man and Hawkeye can prevent this from happening.

Review:
Like the new Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a lot more fun that I expected.

Story:
David Michelinie writes or co-writes (Bob Layton co-plots the Iron Man stories) all but one story reprinted in this tpb. It was interesting to have an ex-con become a superhero.  Michelinie does a nice job early on giving Scott Lang a distinctive personality.  

I enjoyed Ant-Man's frequent references to movies and TV shows. For instance, when he and Yellowjacket are trying to escape from the Solomon Institute, Ant-Man says they should "make like Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction and head up to that air shaft."

Ant-Man, Wasp & Yellowjacket are held captive by Taskmaster.

Lang's relationship with his daughter Cassie is another nice touch that works. Comic book writers often fail to realistically capture dialogue between parents and children. But Michelinie nails it here. 

Ant-Man fixes his daughter's Rom doll.

Michelinie also makes smart use of supporting characters. Dr. Erica Sondheim appears in the first story. Then some time later, Sondheim is the physician that Stark calls to help perform the operation on Bruce Banner.  

The Taskmaster is an interesting villain and he appears three times in this book. I guess that makes "Tasky" the arch foe of Scott Lang. I'm also guessing Michelinie is rather fond of Taskmater, and rightly so. The Ant-Man/Hawkeye story is especially good, where Michelinie devises a clever way for Ant-Man to save the day against Taskmaster.  

Ant-Man rides one of Hawkeye's arrows in pursuit of a bomb!

Tom DeFalco wrote the Marvel Two-In-One story. It's not great, but it's a fun enough sequel to a Silver Age Fantastic Four tale.  

Scott Lang meets the Fantastic Four.

If there's any problem with Ant-Man: Scott Lang, it's that the book relies on the same concepts a bit too often. For instance, we get a story where Ant-Man must go inside Iron Man's armor to save the hero's life. Not long after that, he crawls inside a computer network to shut down the security system. Both stories rely on the formula of Ant-Man shrinking and going inside a small space.Perhaps this is just a hazard that one encounters in collections of comic book stories that weren't meant to be read in such close proximity.  

Another minor quibble: we join the Avengers story in the second part of a three-part story. Ant-Man doesn't appear in the first part, so I understand why it wasn't included, but Marvel should have given us a summary at the beginning to bring readers up to speed. Part 1 of this tale has been reprinted in Avengers: Heart Of Stone.

Art:
The art in Ant-Man: Scott Lang is mostly very good. The origin story is penciled by John Byrne with embellishment by Bob Layton. They were two of the finest Bronze Age artists and their art here looks fantastic.  

Layton also provides inks on the Iron Man/Hulk portion, with Jerry Bingham penciling. Their art looks great as well. Ant-Man's exploration inside Iron Man's armor is very nicely depicted by Bingham and Layton. It's likely meant to be an homage to a classic Ant-Man story that was drawn by Neal Adams.

George Perez drew the Avengers stories and his art is a great example of his Bronze Age abilities. Ron Wilson and Greg Laroque also provide good art in this tpb.

All of the artists give us cool renderings of Ant-Man shrinking and enlarging at super-speed, as seen in this image:

How Does It Look?:
Here's a panel from the original printing of Marvel Premier #48:

And this is how it appears in Ant-Man: Scott Lang:

Extras:
This book contains Ant-Man's entry from the Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe, plus a page of original art.  

Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a great introduction to the second hero to wear the Ant-Man costume and is recommended. But the similarities of some of stories prevents me from giving it my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5


3 and a half Sals.