Black Widow #15 // Review
A chapter in the life of Natasha Romanoff comes to an end as she and her crew survive the mission from hell in BlackWidow #15. Writer Kelly Thompson wraps up her run with one of Marvel's greatest spies with art team of Elena Casagrande, Rafael T. Pimentel, and Elisabetta D'Amico. Jordie Bellaire handles the colors. The end of the storyline promises the potential for fascinating things to come for Natasha, depending on what direction future creative teams might decide to take her. As it stands, Thompson and company have given the Black Widow a firm footing in a potentially appealing new life.
Black Widow just had her arm sliced off at the end of the 14th issue. (It happened on the last panel of the penultimate issue.) Her arm was sliced off by a sinister assassin called The Living Blade. She's understandably in shock, which means she's probably going to die...or would be likely to die were it not for the fact that she's got friends like Hawkeye, the Winter Soldier, and Yelena Belova. They've all got a lot to deal with, as well as it IS the case that there's great danger in the building they're all running around in. Things might explode.
Thompson's final issue feels a bit rushed. Given the power of the moment Natasha loses her arm, one might expect it to be something she might have to deal with for more than a few pages. The conflict between Black Widow and The Living Blade isn't given a lot of time on the page either, which is disappointing as there has been a great deal of lead-in to it. Thompson really should have had a sixteenth issue to further wrap things up, but she does a pretty good job of landing the final pages of her run with Natasha.
Casagrande and company put the final moments of the current series on the page quite well. Of particular note is a big climactic battle between Black Widow and the Living Blade that arcs around the perimeter of the page as Yelena crouches in the center. It's some of the more elegant visual composition to make it to the page in the current run of the series. Bellaire's colors splash a bit of red around and amidst the climactic battle's minty green. The deep reds of the danger at the beginning of the issue feel suitably overpowering, considering how things open for Natasha.
Natasha's adventures end for now in a bit of a rush. She's earned the rest at the end of the series, though. There might have been a bit more of a satisfying end to this issue of Thompson, and company would have had like...maybe twice as many issues as they did to tell the same amount of story. Natasha, Yelena, and company have developed a fun rapport that is beginning to develop into something respectably unique...just in time for the end of their series.
