Story continued from BLACK WIDOW
(2010) #8.
A Russian delegation arrives at
one of the Kuril Islands, to meet with their Japanese equivalents. But the
Japanese look odd: it turns out they are all dead and held up with wires. Then
a band of killers led by Ronin slaughters all of the Russians….
Hawkeye and Mockingbird infiltrate
the upper levels of Century Plaza Suites across from the UN Building in New
York. They find a dead man, a Japanese security man and former SHIELD Agent,
killed with a shinobi-zu, an antique ninja weapon. They have a list of spies
from all nations who have been killed or are targeted, and Mockingbird is on
the list. Clint and Bobbi have been dispatched by Steve Rogers, Commander of
National Security, to ensure that nothing turns upcoming peace talks into an
international incident. Agent Twitchy sends them a recorded call for help from
a compromised agent. They make arrangements to visit Russia….
In Yakutsk, Russia—the Coldest
Place on Earth, Clint and Bobbi, accompanied by Dominic Fortune, are in a
skimobile battle with KGB agents, Hawkeye shooting down a helicopter by firing
an ice arrow at its rotor blades. They arrive at the entrance of a secret
underground bunker where they are met by Black Widow. Natasha takes them inside
to show them a Red Room where all of the female agents in training have been
massacred. Nat warns them that the kill list was leaked to them for a sinister
purpose, while they question the source that brought her there. Nat opens a
secret panel and discovers a kusarigama, another antique ninja weapon. Dominic
Fortune discovers internal surveillance footage, showing the killers whom Nat
recognizes as the Dark Ocean Society, a Japanese gang tuned black ops team.
Then the Supreme Soviets arrive—Crimson Dynamo, Perun, Fantasma, and Sputnik,
announcing the interlopers will be sentenced to life in the prison camps while
the one responsible for the murders will be executed. Black Widow tells them
that peace talks between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands is coming up;
a member of the Japanese contingent has been murdered so the Russian
Ambassador, still in Russia, will be next…
…and he is. The band led by Ronin
enters the Ambassadors home and kills his staff…
Perun shocks the heroes and as
they are carried off, they learn that the leader of the Dark Ocean Society is
Ronin, an identity once used by Hawkeye….