Being an Avenger is not all fun and games as we see in Black Widow Vol. 1: The Finely Woven Thread.

Natasha Romanov aka Black Widow is a master spy and expert at armed and unarmed combat, but she still puts on pants one leg at a time.  She has a little apartment she lives in and has to take odd jobs just to make ends meet. Being an Avenger doesn’t pay as much as you would think.

A lot of Black Widow’s missions consist of protecting bad guys from worse guys.  This would not be an acceptable mission for most Avengers, but Black Widow is different.  She remembers back when she was not such a good person. Her life got turned around and she became a hero.  A person’s path is not set in stone and maybe these bad people can turn their lives around too.

Black Widow takes odd jobs here and there and completes them with ease.  However, one day she encounters Molot Boga aka Hammer of God and things change.  He a muscle bound religious zealot who appears to feel not pain and morphs God’s word to justify his violence.

Black Widow Vol. 1: The Finely Woven Thread was written by Nathan Edmondson with art by Phil Noto.  Marvel Comics published the volume in 2014.

This volume was really boring.  The story is not really one complete story but also not exactly a one or two issue story either.  It played it right down the middle and it really hurt the story.

There was not a central villain to watch through the issues and each issue finished very lackluster.  Short one issue stories are fine and work well for a day in the life of kind of story. However, the stories have to be good which they are not in this.

I really liked the art style of Noto.  He describes his style as a “retro paperback cover” style and that makes perfect sense.  His style is very retro and comforting and easy on the eyes. Sometimes art can be too flashy and take away from the story, but Noto’s does not and I mean that in the best possible way.  

The one complaint I have of Noto’s art is some of his males characters looked exactly the same.  I got confused a few times as to who was who.

I thought the story was weak, boring and the volume was uneventful.  However, one aspect I really liked was scenes with a cat. A black cat keeps hanging out outside Black Widow’s apartment and wants to come in.  However, she doesn’t want to let the cat or anyone in.

This is a good analogy for the character because she was supposed to be a spy and change her appearance and personality to infiltrate places and people’s hearts.  She was trained to not let people in and be vulnerable. I liked this little bit of extra depth to the character.

It was really hard to enjoy this comic and I really tried.  Black Widow is a really cool character and has a ton of really cool story possibilities, but this failed to utilize any of it.

Rating:

1.5/5

 If you like the day in a life of an Avenger kind of story than I suggest Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon by Matt Fraction.  It does exactly what this comic tried to do but it worked and wow did I love David Aja’s art.

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