What’s so amusingly sad about the final issue of Deadly Origin is Cornell’s pop psychology to explain the villain’s intentions. I think if Cornell had sat down and watched a bad episode of “Another World,” he would have come off with a deeper understanding of the human condition and how to apply it to the contrived plot he has going here. It’s really a dreadful finish.

But the worst part is all the John Paul Leon flashback art is in the first half of the issue. The rest of it is left to Raney and Hanna, who do the same bad job they’ve been doing the rest of the time. It’s a little worse, I suppose, since Raney’s got to render a SHIELD helicarrier stand-in… in space. It looks really stupid.

The Leon work at the beginning is just wonderful. Makes me wish he’d do a full Marvel series.

So all of (well, most of) John Paul Leon’s flashback art this issue is when Black Widow was a superhero in the seventies and eighties. It’s all this fantastic, bright Marvel superhero art, only by Leon. It looks amazing. I wonder if he could sustain it or if just doing a few panels is the limit.

The rest of the issue is awful. I love how Raney can’t keep Natasha’s face centered on her head and his Bucky needs to be seen to be believed. Bucky looks like a teenager with some kind of glandular disorder.

Cornell’s writing is pretty hideous and his big reveal at the end is dumb. But I guess Jim McCann liked the twist a lot because he used it again, less than a year later, in Widowmaker.

Maybe if Cornell’s dialogue were good… but it’s not. Even the flashback dialogue reeks.

Just like the comic.

I wish I knew who had the idea suggesting Black Widow and Mockingbird were lesbian lovers, Cornell or his editor… Because unless the next issue reveals Natasha’s only into guys for country and it’s girls for self, it’s the lamest writing move I’ve read since Jeph Loeb had a fifteen year-old girl make out with Poison Ivy to please debauched readers.

Besides that weak finish, this issue is mildly better than the first. It’s incredibly confusing and a bad story, but it’s better than the first issue. I guess Black Widow is now the Russian equivalent of Captain America only she didn’t go on cold storage.

Actually, the real reason this issue’s better is it seems like there’s more Leon, even if he’s just more spread out through the issue, and at least Leon’s competent. Raney and Milla’s renderings are hideous, whether Natasha or her supporting cast.

Origin stinks.

I thought I liked Paul Cornell. I would have reexamine that affection, or I can just finish reading Deadly Origin and it’ll do it for me.

Apparently, Natasha’s really old. Like pre-WWII old. And she’s been artificially de-aged and she used to know Wolverine and Bucky when he was Winter Soldier for the Commies.

This might be the stupidest retcon I’ve ever read, but it’s hard to make that kind of final judgment because it’s so bewildering. What’s the point to making Natasha a WWII hero? What’s the point of the Wolverine tie-in? I thought Marvel had stopped tying everyone into Wolverine. Maybe sales dipped again.

The real monstrosity is the art. Regardless how stupid the plot, Tom Raney and Scott Hanna’s art is infinitely worse. They draw Natasha like she’s a teenager (with eighties hair).

John Paul Leon’s fill-in pages are better, but not great.