Comic Browser:

#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15
Selector

Black Widow #4: Review

Dec 2020
Kelly Thompson, Elena Casagrande

Story Name:

The Ties That Bind Part 4

Review & Comments

Rating:
4.5 stars

Black Widow #4 Review by (March 9, 2021)

Review: Terrific issue with some dynamite action scenes and a shock ending, also fills in the gaps in the plot leading to me pondering a few questions. Natasha was working as an architect; presumably they implanted her with the professional knowhow and created some sort of complex paper trail that made everyone believe she had been active in the field for years and with an accomplished resume so they she would be hired for a major construction project, the kind of thing that wouldn’t go to a beginner. We’ll assume such a huge operation could pull of something like that. Then there’s the obvious question: they had Nat a prisoner for months, couldn’t they just kill her then? Well, remember what happened last time she died, in CIVIL WAR II, she came back anyway in TALES OF SUSPENSE #100-105. So killing her isn’t a solution but trapping her in a happy life would be a more effective way to sideline her. Here’s hoping they answer the last question I had: why did the implant restore all of her memories instead of frying her brain?

Comments: Arcade and Red Guardian do not have speaking parts in the issue.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Black Widow #4 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Black Widow has seemingly died in the arms of her fiancé James and baby Stevie, thanks to an implant put in her brain by the bad guys. But then she shocks awake, with her full memories restored. Watching remotely, Weeping Lion is stunned that she is still alive—and Viper is now angry that they are now all on Natasha’s hit list. She orders a Hydra hit team to the house to buy time while they escape but Snapdragon suggests they all band together to kill her….

Nat asks James to hide in the house with the baby while she takes care of matters, telling him she will explain everything later. The Hydra goons arrive and Nat takes them down with some swift and masterful action. Yelena Belova also shows up to help and they flee to a safe house in the city. Once they are settled in, Natasha tells everything to James, that she is the Black Widow, captured outside her apartment by Viper and some Hydra flunkies. She was taken to a lab where she and James (a stranger) were operated on to install implants with false memories of perfect lives, the bad guys even creating a baby from their shared DNA. They were then released in San Francisco to live happily ever after. Now she’s back to normal but still has no idea, other than Hydra, who is behind this. She then gets to the hardest part of all: to remain safe, James has to take Stevie and go far away, never seeing her again. Winter Soldier and Hawkeye arrive and they help Natasha plan her next moves. But then an unseen sniper fires a rocket into the apartment that explodes in the room where James and Stevie were sleeping….



Elena Casagrande
Elena Casagrande
Jordie Bellaire
Adam Hughes (Cover Penciler)
Adam Hughes (Cover Inker)
Adam Hughes (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Cory Petit.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Black Widow
Black Widow

(Yelena Belova)
Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Hawkeye
Hawkeye

(Clint Barton)
Red Guardian
Red Guardian

(Alexi Shostakov)
Winter Soldier
Winter Soldier

(Bucky Barnes)

Plus: Arcade, Snapdragon (Sheoke Sanada), Viper (Madame Hydra), Weeping Lion (Platch Liev).

> Black Widow: Book info and issue index

Share This Page


Elektra