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.

Black Widow: The Sting Of The Widow

Reprints Tales Of Suspense #52, Amazing Spider-Man #86, Amazing Adventures #1-8, Daredevil #81
Written by Stan Lee, N. Korok, Gary Friederich, Mimi Gold, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway.
Penciled by Don Heck, John Romita, John Buscema and Gene Colan.
Inked by Don Heck, Bill Everett, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema, John Verpooten and Jack Abel.

Variant cover.

Black Widow observes Spider-Man & gets some inspiration

The Black Widow (known as Natasha Romanoff in her private life) has decided to change her approach to crime-fighting. She observes Spider-Man and designs a costume and weapons that copy his own.

Peter Parker's love life is complicated (as usual);
Black Widow puts on her new costume for the first time.

Her bracelets shoot ropes that let her swing all over the city. They also emit an electric charge she calls the Widow's Bite that stuns her opponents in battle.

The Widow decides to attack Spider-Man directly, to see what she can learn. She has him in trouble, since he's still reeling from a previous fight. But the webhead rallies and Natasha realizes she's in a bit over her head.

Later, Black Widow's housekeeper Maria asks for Natasha's help. Maria's son Carlos owes money to a mobster named Rizzo. When he fails to pay Rizzo the money, Carlos is taken captive. But the Widow tracks him down, frees Carlos and makes easy work of Rizzo's gang.

Black Widow saves Maria & Carlos from Rizzo's thugs.

Subsequently, we learn that Carlos is a member of the Young Warriors, an activist organization dedicated to protecting civil rights of Puerto Rican Americans. The Young Warriors take over a building with plans to serve free breakfast for poor children. But Anthony Scarola, a corrupt local politician, keeps an office in the building. Scarola sends a gang of armed thugs to take out the Young Warriors.  But the Black Widow shows up and helps the Warriors maintain control of the building.

On Christmas Eve, Natasha's chauffeur Ivan Petrovich finds a young man on a bridge. He's planning to jump off and commit suicide, but Ivan saves him and brings him back to the Widow's apartment.

The young man (we never learn his name) tells them his backstory. He arrived in New York with no place to live and was taken in by a man called the Astrologer, a criminal who used the stars to plot his schemes.  The Astrologer plans to ransom the city's supply of type O-negative blood. When the young man rebelled against the Astrologer, he felt like he had nowhere to go, which led him to the bridge.

Suddenly, the Astrologer and his goons storm Natasha's apartment. The young man saves Natasha's life, but falls to his death in the process. Black Widow is crushed by his death and is determined to bring the Astrologer to justice.

After that, Black Widow is lured to a remote motel. Upon arrival, she's jumped by two men. Natasha learns they work for a criminal who calls himself the Watchlord. The Widow learns that Watchlord was a child in Germany when his country was occupied by the Soviet Union. His father was killed by the Soviets, so Watchlord has declared war on all Russians. He plans to kill Natasha and Ivan as part of his anti-Russian crusade.

Lastly, Daredevil has been beaten by his foe the Owl and is sinking to his death in the Hudson River.  But the Black Widow shows up and rescues DD from drowning. Natasha will team up with Daredevil and help him try to stop the Owl.

Black Widow takes on the Owl.

Review:
I've always been a fan of the Black Widow.  My first exposure to her was in during the years she was partnered with Daredevil.  But the Widow deserves better than what's reprinted in this book.

Story:
The first story reprinted here (from Amazing Spider-Man # 86) was written by Stan Lee and is pretty good. We get the first appearance of Black Widow's iconic black body suit.

Natasha seems to have the upper hand, until Spider-Man breaks loose.

But Natasha's solo adventures that follow aren't a lot of fun. They were written by five different writers (not a good sign, since there are only 8 issues reprinted) and each tale is only 10 pages long.

First off, most of the villains here are just generic gangsters with no super powers. They never feel like a credible threat and Natasha easily defeats them. Black Widow by this point had worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. and helped the Avengers, so she should've been given better adversaries.

The one villain who has super powers is the Watchlord. But his powers are ill-defined and he's never been seen again. Plus, his motivation is silly, even for a supervillain. Watchlord's father was killed by the Soviet Army, so he wants to kill everyone from Russia? Including Ivan and the Widow, who have both defected to the United States?  Watchlord's name isn't even very memorable.

A note about the writers: The story from Amazing Adventures #4 was written by Mimi Gold, one of the first women to write a superhero story. 

I found the stories that featured the Young Warriors to be the most interesting. The Young Warriors are obviously based on the real-life Young Lords organization. This made the story an interesting product of its time. For more info on the Young Lords, click here.

The last tale in this book, from Daredevil #81, is good, but it drops the reader in the middle of a multi-part story. This is a problem I have with in general with reprint books that are built around characters rather than storylines.

Daredevil teams up with the Widow.

Art:
The art in this book is a bit better than the stories. The first story reprinted contains art by John Romita Sr. inked by Jim Mooney (a great penciler in his own right).  John Buscema penciled a couple of the Widow's adventures and his work is great as usual. The splash pages drawn by Buscema are especially nice.  Here's one:

 And another:

Gene Colan is one of my favorite comic artists of all time. But his pencils here are inked by Bill Everett, best known for his Golden Age creation of the Sub-Mariner. Everett was  a legendary artist, but I felt like his inks made Colan's work look fuzzy. Colan pencils the last story here too, and it's an improvement. I love the way Colan draws Natasha's underwater rescue of Daredevil:

How does it look?:
Based on what I've seen of the original issues, these reprints look great. No recoloring in this hardcover.

Nice "Daily Bugle" splash page; Next page features a brief cameo of J. Jonah Jameson & Peter Parker!

Extras:
The first story in the book features Black Widow's first appearance in Tales Of Suspense #52, from the Silver Age. We also get Natasha's entry from The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe. 

Black Widow: The Sting Of The Widow was generally disappointing. Natasha deserves better. But I'll give the book a marginal recommendation due to the art of Romita, Buscema and Colan.

J.A. Morris' rating:

 .5


2 and a half Sals.

Wolverine: First Cuts

Reprints X-Men Origins: Wolverine #1, Uncanny X-Men #118-119, Wolverine (1982) #1-2, Marvel Team-Up #83-85 and material from the Best Of Marvel Comics hc.
Written by Chris Yost, Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
Penciled by Mark Texeira, John Byrne, Marshall Rogers Frank Miller and Sal Buscema.
Inked by Terry Austin, Steve Leialoha, Mark Texeira, Josef Rubenstein, Ricardo Villamonte and Randy Emberlin.

Three Bronze Age tales that introduce people who would be important in the life of Wolverine!

The X-Men sail into the Japanese port city Agarashima. The city is on fire and an earthquake has recently occured. Team leader Cyclops says they must visit Sunfire, a former X-Man so that they can remain in Japan legally.

Wolverine meets Mariko for the first time.

When they arrive at Sunfire's compound, Wolverine meets Sunfire's cousin Mariko Yashida. They are instantly attracted to one another. Wolverine and Mariko are having a pleasant conversation, when suddenly another earthquake hits. Wolverine saves Mariko while the house around them is reduced to rubble. Storm says the quake was likely man-made. 

The X-Men battle the Mandroids.

In the midst of this, the X-Men are attacked by Mandroids. They're easily defeated, but the real brains behind the threat has arrived: Moses Magnum, a criminal arms dealer who previously battled Spider-Man and Luke Cage. Magnum demands that he be appointed ruler of Japan. If his request is denied, he will sink the island nation. Can the X-Men stop Magnum before he destroys Japan?   

Next, Wolverine takes a leave of absence from the X-Men to visit Mariko in Tokyo. He has not heard from Mariko in months.  All his letters to her have been returned unopened and she will not take his phone calls.

Wolverine learns that Mariko is married and that her husband is abusive.

Upon arrival in Japan, Logan learns that Mariko has been forced to marry a man she does not love. Her father, Lord Shingen Harada has returned and arranged this marriage to a man named Noboru-Hideki, to settle a family debt.

Wolverine visits Mariko and finds that Noboru is abusing her. He's determined to exact revenge, but is attacked by ninjas who drug him with poisoned shurikens. 

When he wakes up, Wolverine is brought before Shingen. He says Wolverine is unworthy of his daughter's love and challenges him to a duel, with wooden bokan swords. Wolverine is still suffering from the effects of the poison, and Shingen is a master swordsman. The battle is brief and Shingen wins easily. He has succeeded in humiliating Wolverine in front of Mariko, who turns her back on Logan.

The Hand attacks Wolverine & Yukio.

Wolverine is dumped in an alley. A street gang finds the drugged, beaten-down Logan and attacks him.  But he's saved by a woman named Yukio, who takes down the gang with knives and martial arts. She claims to be a ronin, a samurai who serves no master. Wolverine is grateful to Yukio for saving his life and he feels they are very similar. Yukio is falling in love with Logan, but his heart is set on Mariko.  He will need Yukio's help if he wants to take down Shingen and win back Mariko's love. But can Yukio be trusted?

Viper's recent history is recounted.

Lastly,we get the first ever team-up of Viper and Silver Samurai! Viper has hypnotized SHIELD agents and has taken over their Helicarrier base. She plans to crash it into the United States Capitol while Pres. Carter is giving a speech. Viper believes it will encourage the smaller nations of the world to rise up and destroy the U.S..

Silver Samurai & Boomerang battle the heroes and teleport away.

But all hope is not lost. Spider-Man, Black Widow, Shang Chi (Master Of Kung Fu) and SHIELD chief Nick Fury have teamed up to thwart Viper's scheme. If they want to stop her, they'll have to get through Silver Samurai and Boomerang first!

Shang Chi takes on Boomerang on the Hellicarrier.

Review:
As the cover image would indicate, Wolverine: First Cuts features stories that introduce characters featured in the 2013 movie The Wolverine. It's an odd hodgepodge of stories (see the "Extras" section below for specifics) from all over Wolverine's history. As per usual, this review focuses on the Bronze Age stories contained in this tpb.

Story:
The two-part X-men story is pretty good. It's from a long-ish arc from X-men that ran from 114 through 125. The X-men are presumed dead and go on a "World Tour" that will eventually take them home.  Mariko's introduction is a small part of this story. But it's an important step in Wolverine's growth from animalistic killing machine to complicated hero. Chris Claremont and John Byrne give us a solid story here that features plenty of action.

The X-men attack Moses Magnum, Wolverine gets slapped around.

Moses Magnum is hardly an A-list villain, but he works okay here. These stories have been reprinted several times in Masterworks and Omnibuses, but the non-completists will appreciate their inclusion. I hadn't read it in 20+ years and it holds up pretty well. It's not exactly essential, but it's a good "battle" issue, and it includes Banshee's finest moment as a superhero.  

I've always been a sucker for stories that take place at Christmas time, so that was a nice touch.

Banshee is released from the hospital, just in time to celebrate Christmas.

The second portion comes from the 1982 Wolverine miniseries, but we only get reprints of the first two issues. I recently reviewed the book that reprints the whole series here, so I won't go into detail about the content. At the end of the reprint from #2, we get an ad that directs the reader to buy the book that reprints the whole series. You'd think Marvel could have reprinted the whole miniseries here (and included the follow-up story) and just raised the price by a buck or two, but no. Feels sort of like making readers buy the same material twice.

The highlight of the book is a story that does not feature Wolverine at all. The reprints from Marvel Team-Up #83-85 are here because they feature the first time Viper worked with Silver Samurai. It's a three-part epic, with heroes taking on three villains. Claremont writes this as well, though we get a much different dynamic between the Viper & the Samurai than we're used to. She treats him like a hired thug, whereas they treat each other more less equally when they later battle the X-Men and the New Mutants.

Another nice part of this is story is that it mentions John Belushi...twice! In the Silver Samurai's previous appearance (Marvel Team-Up #74), he attacked Belushi on the set of Saturday Night Live.  This is discussed in two separate flashbacks. As a big fan of the original SNL cast, I think Belushi would get a kick out of being referenced twice in a reprint book published 30+ years after his passing.   

Art:
The X-Men story features pencils by John Byrne inked by Terry Austin. They're one of the all-time great art teams and they were hitting their stride here.  Simply gorgeous.

The Wolverine portion contains art by Frank Miller and Josef Rubenstein that I gushed over in my earlier review.

Lastly, the Marvel Team-Up story simply credits Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha as "artists". I don't see a lot of Buscema here. Perhaps Sal drew some rough breakdowns, because all the faces certainly look like they're drawn by Leialoha. I'm geneally not a big fan of his penciling, but Leiloha does a nice job here. They make a good art team.

How does it look?:

Looks fine to me, and here's another scan:

Extras:

We get stories published after the Bronze Age, plus entries from The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe for several characters. 

Wolverine:First Cuts would be a better book if it included the whole miniseries. The X-Men story can be found elsewhere. The inclusion of the Marvel Team-Up story makes it worth reading, but it shouldn't be at the top of your Bronze Age Reprint reading list. 

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5


2 and a half Sals.