It’s interesting how Morgan finishes the series—it’s kind of setting up Civil War only with Dubya as the bad guy. I guess Marvel lost the cajones.

He also runs out of space, hinting the character he wasted about fifteen pages on throughout the series will be a threat next time, not this time. And there is no next time. The editor really should have asked for an outline.

The issue opens like a dream sequence, where everything’s going to be okay and then Natasha will wake up from a drug-induced delusion. Only she doesn’t wake up. The calvary arrives and it looks ludicrous—Daredevil running around in broad daylight, the blond Black Widow accessorizing her rescue gear—another sign Morgan stopped caring, if he ever did about this series.

He gets it to a mildly honest final moment (borrowing from The Terminator no less), but it’s not enough.

It’s not an all-action issue, instead Morgan creates the all-torture issue. Well, okay, he’s got a scene with the blond Black Widow saving Daredevil and another one with Black Widow’s sidekick, but basically the entire issue is just Natasha either being tortured or about to be tortured.

Oddly, the torture isn’t what drives the comic (and presumably the series) off the rails. It’s the pacing. Nothing happens this issue. Nothing gets resolved from last issue. Morgan’s just dragging it out. It’s like he needed one more issue of the last series so instead Marvel gave him six.

There’s something incredibly defeatist about it too. As good as Morgan writes Natasha, he doesn’t spend any time writing Yelena (blond Black Widow) well. He writes her as a self-aware bimbo, like if “Sex and the City” met superheroes.

It’s a disaster; I didn’t even pay attention to the art.

I think I just remembered how this series ends. I think it’s with a big, unresolvable cliffhanger.

Unfortunate.

Anyway, this issue’s pretty good. It’s an all-action issue—Natasha goes and gets her sidekick from the South American work farm. There’s also another big Daredevil scene with Nick Fury—Matt beats up a bunch of guys—and it’s where Morgan is setting up the eventual series cliffhanger.

The art is off again. It’s the faces. They aren’t Sienkiewicz faces here, they’re a strange amalgam.

The issue opens with those bad faces and it’s this scene setting up yet another plot thread. I guess the series did open with it, so it’s not a setup, but Morgan hasn’t done anything with it since the first issue.

This Black Widow series might be the perfect example of why you shouldn’t do a sequel to a good limited series; they don’t necessarily work.

Reading the scene where Nick Fury gets tortured by a Bush flunky, it’s clear why comics should never get too involved with politics, especially not superhero comics. It’s Nick Fury… shouldn’t Captain America bust in and save him? And if Captain America isn’t busting in and saving him, isn’t the reason why more important than anything else going on?

Otherwise, the issue is all right. About half of it is spent on Black Widow’s teenage sidekick, who’s recuperating in a third world South American hospital. It takes the focus away from Natasha, which is okay because Morgan doesn’t really have a story for her this series. It’s still all clean-up, competent and all; there’s just no real point to it otherwise.

The art’s finally starting to mesh though. The Phillips is a lot stronger than the Sienkiewicz here—like Sienkiewicz decided only to do faces or something. It works.

The art problems continue. It appears even when he’s just doing finishes, Sienkiewicz didn’t really want to take the time on the series.

This issue improves the series overall, even if Morgan is sort of racing around. There doesn’t seem to be a story so much as clean-up from the last series. Natasha is trying to find her friend (who I really hope doesn’t turn out to be brainwashed to be an assassin against her) while her enemies are trying to track her down.

Then there’s Daredevil and Nick Fury, who are just standing around so they can guest star. The first series felt like Morgan wasn’t on a leash. This one… it feels like Marvel is giving very specific instructions as to how many pages Daredevil shows up on….

It’s hard to dislike because it’s so competent; it just doesn’t have much energy to it yet.

Soon, hopefully.

It’s Sienkiewicz over Phillips so you’d think the art would be good… You’d think. Instead, it’s a bad combination. Sienkiewicz is too contained in the layouts, Phillips is too broad because he knows there are going to be finishes. There’s no magic here.

Morgan starts this issue a week after the last series ends. It’s a direct sequel, lots of returning characters. Unfortunately, it’s been more than a week for the reader, so one might need a cast refresher and none is offered.

As for the series itself, it’s too soon to tell. Morgan just barely introduces the overall story, instead focusing on Natasha becoming an outlaw. Only that part of the story belongs to Nick Fury. Natasha seems like she’s guest starring in her own book. There’s even a pointless Daredevil cameo just for the solicit.

Morgan manages to be subversive, he just doesn’t get a compelling story going.