This was a BIG WEEK for my pull list. With 20+ issues, I got more than enough content to sift through. And of course, you know I blazed through most of my haul in a couple days, no problem. We got the penultimate issue for The Blood Hunt event, including 4 tie-ins and one-shots. I picked up the prelude issue to DC’s upcoming mega event Absolute Power. And a fellow comic reader pressed me to pick up the crossover issues for House of Brainiac running through current issues of Superman and Action Comics. And even though it was an obvious choice to go with Blood Hunt #4 as my pick of the week, there was another comic that I flat out enjoyed a lot more– in fact, the entire 4-issue limited series had been a nice surprise, starring one of my favorite characters of the moment:
Comic Book of The Week:
Black Widow & Hawkeye #4
Phillips / Villanelli / Iacono
So Black Widow & Hawkeye #4 had been the second comic I read this week (right after Blood Hunt #4) simply because i wanted to get it out of the way. I was so focused on the Blood Hunt event that I didn’t realize how much I had been enjoying Stephenie Phillips limited series about the two non-powered Avengers. This final issue, of course if the final battle with the villain Damon Dran, who incidentally was the man that first helped them forge there ‘ride or die’ relationship. Phillips does a great job of deconstructing their lover/friend/family relationship and shows how the vicious cycle of sacrificing their lives for each other first started. The story and art were great, by low-key one of the biggest/coolest understated things in Marvel Comics right now is Natasha Romanov with a damn symbiote suite! I’ve been following her around different books simply on her appearances (Vemon, Avengers, Caption Marvel…).
Stephenie Phillips writing has been a real nice surprise in the book like this. Somehow she manages to really put the relationship of these 2 Avengers to the forefront, without disrupting (or ruining) the overall mystery. I’m usually not a fan of the parallel flashback style, but here it makes so much sense. Loving Paolo Villanelli’s art, I had to go back and figure out where I saw it before. Come to find out, his art runs on Gwen Stacy: Ghost Spider, Fantastic Four, and Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest are the main reasons I kept up with those books. When I finished this book, I went back and re-read the whole 4-issue run and realized it will work better as a trade. Reading the entire run feels like a treatment for one hell of a MCU movie or series. I almost feel that was the intent with this story. Sure, the Widow is dead, but we’re currently dealing with multiverse shenanigans, so who knows.
So when this book drops as a trade, i’m sure i’ll get it to go on my shelf. I really loved the story of two heroes who are more than friends… not actually family but will give up who that are to save the other. If I were Marvel, I’d want Phillips and Villanelli to do two more Black Widow/Hawkeye limited series as a trilogy. I really enjoyed Blood Hunt 4 this week, but #realtalk, this is the book that stayed with me long after I read it.
Rating: 4/5
Best of The Rest:
