Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her

Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her #1-6

by Richard K. Morgan (Writer), Sean Phillips (Illustrator), Bill Sienkiewicz (Illustrator)

Hot on the tail of Richard K. Morgan's searing comics debut comes the further dark exploits of Natasha Romanova, the original Black Widow.

Some say she's a traitor, some say she's a murderer... and what most say about her isn't even printable. But nobody denies that the former Cold War spy is a force to be reckoned with. The last man foolish enough to send killers after her paid the highest price, but his friends on Capitol Hill will ensure that Natasha doesn't get off easy... and not even Col. Nick Fury can protect her this time. Meanwhile, the survivors of Natasha's last tirade start coming back to haunt her... and they're beginning to join forces. Also featuring a guest appearance by Daredevil!

Collecting: Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her 1-6

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes, Action

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Richard K. Morgan (sometimes credited as Richard Morgan) is a science fiction and fantasy writer.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good solid Black Widow stuff, but I'm missing all of the backstory, which might have affected the way I felt about this one.
The art?
Ehhhhhh.
Not so much a fan of it, but it does sort of fit with the dark nature of the story. This isn't the same Black Widow from the Avengers. This chick is willing to do whatever and hurt whoever she needs to, in order to get what she came for.



Natasha is at the top of the United States most wanted list, and being hunted as a terrorist.
{Insert Story I Am Unaware Of}
From what this volume indicated, it was because she killed the CEO of a company that had friends in high places...who I'm assuming was a horrible person.
I'm trying to track down as much Black Widow stuff as I can right now, so I'm thinking I'll run across that story eventually.
So. What would you do if you were wanted by the American government?
Head to Cuba, of course!
It doesn't hurt that Cuba is the home of another Black Widow named Yelena.



I'm going to admit right off the bat, that I have almost zero knowledge of that character. I recognize the name, but that's it.
At any rate, she agrees to help Natasha with her problem, if she'll help Yelena with hers.
So it's off to find some illegal (medical) drug suppliers and beat them into giving up Yelena's shipment.



While Natasha is gently beating the suppliers, she runs across some information that Sally Anne is still alive!
WhoTheFuckIsSallyAnne, you ask?
Well, I don't know. But she's really important to Black Widow.
Again, just from what I gleaned from this volume, she appears to be a kid (15ish) that Natasha saved and took under her wing, at some point.
Right now, though, she's being experimented on by human traffickers, who are trying to come up with a drug that makes their workforce docile.



Black Widow to the rescue!
In the meantime, Nick Fury & Daredevil are both trying to figure out how to help her, even though she really doesn't seem to want them to.
Nick eventually gets himself arrested and shoved into a no-name prison (thank you, Patriot Act!) after he saves her from a sniper. And Matt ends up on the run in Cuba after he tries to save Nick from a beating in said prison.



{More Stuff Happens}
And Natasha ends up a prisoner in Sally Anne's factory, getting tortured by two other people who hate her for {Insert More Things I Haven't Read About}.



And they all lived happily ever after...

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sequel to Black Widow: Homecoming, Natasha is now enemy #1 in the U.S. after killing the CEO of a drug company. The company was teaming up with a Black Ops group operating on U.S. soil and now they are hunting Black Widow down. The story is kind of messy actually and the art is even messier. Sean Phillips and Bill Sienkiewicz are both talented artists on their own but Sienkiewicz finishing Phillips layouts looks pretty awful unfortunately.

[David Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would thought that sci-fi writer Richard Morgan would be a comic book writer as well? And a darn good one. I love this side of the Black Widow. More spy, less superhero!

[jess the ninth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just let a woman write Black Widow, please

[Tris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can men just...stop trying to write Black Widow.

[Silver Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

La ilustración no me gusta nada... Pero la historia está bien. Es la Natasha que conocemos pero diferente.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moody, morally ambivalent, fun (in a "beating on bad guys because they deserve it" kind of way). This is a part of the Marvel universe that I don't get enough of.

I wasn't sure what I'd think of the art, based on the messy cover. Turns out that it's actually pretty deliberately messy - helps convey the equivocal nature of the people, their loyalties and the swimming-in-sewage aspect to how Black Widow has to get her work done. (I wasn't sure if the Phillips/Sienkiewicz combination would really work - Phillips work with more conventional colourists is great, and Sienkiewicz' art from the 80's still blows my mind, but it took me a while to adjust to the overlay of spatter and rough-outside-the-edges on the clean, minimalist pencils.)

Natasha is very hard here, no room for second guesses, and no interest in taking a few extra seconds to save a few lives. Expedient, angry and brutal. I'm not entirely sure of I'm on her side or not, and I'd have preferred a little more insight into why she chooses to kill some and not others, but it's still compelling reading.

Hard to put down, and hard to accept that there have been no more such volumes since this was published. If I was a prose-reading kinda guy I might convince myself to add Morgan to my "gotta sample" list, but seeing as I'm a pictures-with-my-words Neanderthal, there's a better chance of me learning to eat insects (that aren't disguised as food colouring) than wade through 500 pages of this dialogue (no matter how good it is).

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay book, but not an especially good Black Widow book. Not just one thing - the art kind of sucks, the story is kind of in the middle and heck I don't even like the politics setup. It just didn't add anything to the mythos and didn't leave me with wanting to read the previous or next books - just kind of drab. Still it was readable and interesting - I just wanted a lot more. 2.5 of 5.

[nanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

As ilustrações dessa HQ, principalmente a capa da #1, me deixaram muito incomodadas com a pose e a sexualização desnecessária na personagem, infelizmente é algo que só recentemente vem mudando. Tirando isso, e outras coisinhas mais pequenas, a história foi interessante e adorei ver um pouco mais da dinâmica da Natasha-Yelena, o modo como a Natasha age sempre me surpreendendo.

[Jaye Berry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I SHOULD have known from the awful cover this was going to be gross shit like wtf is that pose? Dude what the fuck? That isn't how humans work but okay. My desire to read all Black Widow is leading me down some shitty paths.

I thought the first volume Black Widow: Homecoming (weird numbering no idea why this is back to #1 when this is literally part 2), was okay but this one just went out of the way to piss me off.

It's fucking disgusting and full of misogyny and for what? I don't want to be that person but it was so awful to read like it's 7am, calm the fuck down my dudes. Natasha has a lot of enemies in this. What do they call her? Well let me get the long list of things like bitch, whore, and my personal favorite trollop while of course saying russian / ex commie in front of it. So creative. Glad they were all gendered insults because oh yeah Natasha is a woman huh. Oh don't forget!! There is a lesbian character!! Make sure to call her "dyke" and man comments as much as possible.

Then there is a bad guy who LITERALLY makes a "don't trust something that bleeds every month and doesn't die" comment when like? Fuck off? And Black Widow doesn't even have a period? It's like when you are in an argument with a man and he's like wow what are you on the rag? Eat shit my dudes. This character's entire personality was how he wanted to assault Natasha too in revenge for her drugging and interrogating him. GG writing, so different, so unique.

Black Widow's suit also lost the zipper which I take back any compliments I gave the first volume when they didn't do that because this time, they really said get them titties out Nat!! She was drawn so ridiculous, with big boobs and her suit was a joke. It didn't match anything we were going for here in how brutal this story was (but it sure matched Yelena being nothing but sexualized too).

Ofc the story was just endless violence against women, how these girls were taken and used for experiments and oh yeah sexually assaulted just throw that in with a side comment.

I liked how badass Natasha was, she gave zero fucks and was going to kill everyone to save a girl and herself but the whole story with Cuba just felt so... sus. Weird politics comments that were in here too much aside, this comic was absolute dog shit.

Also the art was ugly.

[Emelda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually pretty good, once I finished it. But I kept putting it aside because OF THE FUCKING FUCKING AWFUL COVER. Seriously, wtf is with the cover art? Fuck you, artist. Because I literally had this out from the library for months and could not bring myself to finish it until today, when someone else put a hold on it and so I had to return it or pay a fine. Things I love about Black Widow: while she's known as Marvel universe men's collective ex-girlfriend (and is constantly surrounded by men because this is the comics world are women are even more undervalued than the real world), she pretty much hates and is weary of all men. Misandry level: tied with me. Awesome level: higher than everyone and climbing. Natasha is constantly using people's expectations of her, but mostly women in general, to trump them. Can we please not fall into they trap when doing cover art? Seriously, that pose is absolutely anatomically impossible, as would be shooting the gun without falling... Despite my pleasure with the female friendship, revenge, etc. that happens in the plot, I don't think I could even bring myself to buy this due to the cover art (the comics themselves are fine, though). One star off just for that.

[abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

So continuing on with Richard K. Morgan’s Black Widow run was an ultimately fun time. I didn’t like this volume as much as I liked the first one. The vibes felt a little different, and this volume was drastically darker—which isn’t a bad thing in most case scenarios,—but the way some of the serious topics were dealt with made me uncomfortable. Also, a lot of homophobia in here which hindered my enjoyment some, but I tried to look past both these issues since these comic runs are from over fifteen years ago.

Aside from the problematic aspects, I really loved Natasha in this collection. She’s so fucking unapologetic and badass, and she does not give a single fuck. Nat will do whatever she needs to do to get to a means end. Comic Natasha is so much more ruthless and rabid than she is in the mcu, and her comic persona is what I so desperately wished the mcu would have done to Nat’s character. I loved seeing Yelena again, and while personality wise, Yelena comics vs. mcu are pretty different, I still love both of them separately.

The art is still not my favorite. It just looks really like undeveloped and scratchy??? Almost like a touch draft of a sketch if that makes sense? It just personally wasn’t my cup of tea, but I will admit there were a few pretty panels here a there. But if I could avoid reading more with this art style, I probably would. The plot line wasn’t the best in this one. In fact, I was kinda over the plot by #3. The only reason I rated this 3 stars instead of 2.5 was because of Natasha. That’s it, Natasha is one of the coolest characters I’ve ever read about.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

He sucumbido a la tentación y he comprado los cómics de Panini que cuestan 3 míseros euros, y esta es la primera historia que he leído.

Ha sido una lectura interesante. Estoy acostumbrada a leer y ver a los personajes de Marvel como los buenos, incluso sí al principio de la historia van a contracorriente, siempre terminan siendo los buenos, así que es refrescante leer sobre un personaje que es más un antihéroe en este punto de su historia.

Las cosas que dicen de ella no es mi cómic favorito, pero sí me gusto, sobre todo por haber visto a Natasha como casi una villana, verla matar a sangre fría y no tener piedad me gustó mucho. No disfruté mucho del personaje de Yelena, principalmente porque era un poco una femme fatale y no me agrada mucho ese tipo de personajes.

En general, me gustó y lo recomendaría a alguien que quisiera leer una historia más cruda de un personaje que en el MCU es una heroína.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Black Widow: The Things They Say About Me – This one doesn’t quite hit the same mark as Welcome to the Game. It leans more into traditional superhero territory—Daredevil shows up, there’s more action and bad guy-punching—but it loses the gritty, detective-style edge that made the first one stand out. It’s not bad, just a bit more generic. If you liked the noir tone of the first, this might feel like a step back.

[danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was actually insane wow

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just read this to continue the story from Black Widow: Homecoming, but now I wish I hadn’t. The story was pretty meh and the art was even worse. I’m only rating this 2 stars instead of one because it wasn’t quite terrible enough for that.

[Ricky Ganci · Rating 5 out of 5]

What marvels me in THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT HER, the second phase of Richard K. Morgan's comics career (and, God-willing, he'll do more), is how he is able to simultaneously balance the following things:

1 - The story, which he has clearly concieved and executed carefully from page one

2 - The characters, many of whom he has not created, but all of whom nevertheless maintain their proscribed characteristics, personalities, and traits

3 - His own approach to both historical and contemporary issues

4 - What it is he wants to say specifically about #3

His dialogues, are, as always, consistent, excellent, creative, balanced, and understandable. The Natalia Romanov that appears in this novel (as well as HOMECOMING) echoes both her Cold War roots as well as Morgan's contemporary vitriol towards the free market in the 21st century. When Morgan describes the battle-ground of the free market's international exploitation, he compares it to a "sewer." This illustrates exactly what it is that makes Morgan the perfect author (and screenwriter?) to usher the Black Widow into the 21st century: his ability to reconcile all of the areas he sees as affected of or by a specific arena with a simple passage of dialogue.

Without his ability to narrate the surroundings of his characters--relying instead on the artists he is working with--seems to make Morgan an even MORE efficient writer, which is difficult to do, as none of his novels seems particularly overlong. TTTSAH suffers from no lag, no downtime, but rather brings six perfectly paced and well-structured comic chapters into a single graphic novel that stands alongside his novels as a biting, effective commentary on contemporary issues (the 'free' market, the Cold War, women's issues, etc.) while not suffering from the short memory that seems to affect so many authors. He is the premier science-fiction author of the 21st century through its first decade, and his foray into comics serves not only to provide his fans (and, hopefully, the greater reading community) with another fantastic book, but also another scathing look at "market forces." Thanks again, Richard K. - keep writing, and I'll keep reading.

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm just so very tired of the same plot being used over and over for the Black Widow, where she's considered an outlaw and fighting against the rest of the world to do something she feels she needs to do because of her history. Oh, and she'll do whatever she needs to do to get the job done. Black Widow needs someone like Priest to do for her what he did for Black Panther and reinvent her. Someone needs to look to her future, rather than constantly looking toward the past.

[Jena · Rating 3 out of 5]

2020 update: I'm revisiting some Black Widow comics in preparation for putting together reading recommendations, and I cannot for the life of me understand why 2012 Jena gave this a 5 star rating. 2020 Jena has snapped it back down to 3 stars where it belongs.

[Luana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe this is an actual Marvel book published by Marvel Comics in which the heroine ends up in Cuban asylum and she has the baddie be put on trial for human rights offenses... also in Cuba!

Morgan makes Natasha a total badass and frankly I've gained an appreciation of Yelena too.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a number three, and I read it before the number two. Damn you Marvel

Because all the plot lines and characters were set up in the #2 which I had not read, I was mostly at sea reading this. I went back after and re-read it but still, not the same.

I found the artwork in this book much more exciting than in the previous one, not as formulaic and much better motion scenes. The use of red in the night scenes to pick out Natalya's hair especially, I thought it gave focus and set the scene for those frames. There were plenty of variable frame action shots, which I like and the use of heavy black lines and flood coloring to emphasis strong emotions worked well for me.

It did occures to me that the reason I liked the art in this one so much more might be that the story could barely hold me and I had more conscious attention for the art work.

In this one Natalya is one angry little uber bitch bent on causing mayhem for reasons that were a little mysterious to this reader. She obviously killed a few people in an earlier part of her story and so lots of people want to kill her back. Having read the previous book one still didn't entirely help with the level of vindictiveness that drives a few of the 'bad guy' characters. Natalya herself is simultaneously angry bitch from hell and helpless victim in a way that did not really rock my boat.

Sally Anne made no sense to me and it was not just because I had not read the first part of the story; even after I read the first part of the story I got no basis for understanding the obsession with a single random stranger.

The appearances of Fury and Matt seemed redundant (though I imagine it was setting us up for future storylines, I suspect I am not engaged enough to pursue them), though I did quite like the inclusion of Yelena her constant 'to the rescue' appearances were a bit deus ex machina.

[Krzysztof Grabowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Początek nowych przygód Nataszy był moim zdaniem fenomenalny. Kapitalna opowieść z klimatem i fantastyczną oprawą potrafiła zachwycić. Wprawdzie oprawa nadal zachwyca oczy, ale już historia nieco zbyt mocno przebrzmiała.

Wdowa po zamordowaniu wpływowego biznesmena zostaje spalona na terenie Stanów Zjednoczonych, więc musi uciekać za granicę. Wybiera... Kubę, gdzie jak się okazuje, przesiaduje kolejna była czarna wdowa, Yelena(a nie miały zostać wszystkie ukatrupione w poprzednich przygodach? Ta...). W ramach podzięki Romanowa podejmuje się zadania odzyskania pewnych specyfików, jakie znalazły się w rękach pewnych gangsterów działających na terenie Florydy. Tam Natasza wpada na trop pewnej dziewczynki, Sally Anne...

Wiedziona matczynymi odruchami wobec piętnastolatki, Natasza rusza w odsiecz. Nie będzie osamotniona w swoich działaniach, bowiem z pomocą rusza jej Nick Fury oraz Daredevil. Działania Fury'ego to chyba najjaśniejszy punkt całej opowieści. Reszta jest już przeciętna i nieco za bardzo nielogiczna, przez co działania Czarnej Wdowy wydają się chwilami nielogiczne. Zwłaszcza, że w ślad za Wdową ponownie ruszają pracownicy North, z agentką Kastrel na czele, której dopomaga jakiś psychopata, ale był tak "charyzmatyczny", że w dobę po lekturze nie pamiętam nawet nazwiska. Wiem tylko, że Natasza zrobiła mu narkotykowy zjazd, aby uzyskać pewne informacji i facet za wszelką cenę chce się teraz zemścić...

Zwieńczenie 12 zeszytowej serii niestety bardziej rozczarowuje niźli przynosi jakąś satysfakcję z działania byłej agentki KGB, tym bardziej, że autorowi przecież nie brakuje wyobraźni. Tym bardziej, że nie czuć tutaj żadnej stawki, a pobudki Nataszy są nieco za mało wiarygodne.

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of my Daredevil readthrough, and it was disappointing. Part of that, no doubt, is that everything I read before and after it was part of one of the best comic book runs at all time. But another part is that the art is uninspiring, and the espionage story, while by no means boring, wasn't told well.

The art aspect is the most disappointing because both Bill Sienkiewicz and Sean Phillips are some of the best and most important artists of the late 20th/early 21st centuries. But their styles just didn't mesh here, and the result was just bland comic book art. Not terrible, but kind of a bummer when you go in knowing how talented these artists usually are.

This is completely unnecessary to the Daredevil run, and I don't recommend it.

[Xavier Marturet · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the first time I read a comic-book of the creator (creators) of Altered Carbon.
The story is OK. A good beginning and a good end, but some boring in the middle of this six issue limited series.
Sienkiewicz is impressive. As always. But this is far from that Elektra Assassin.
I suppose Sean Phillips did a great work here with sketches and storyboarding. But when Sienkiewicz is working, all the rest is eclipsed.

[meagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

not my favourite story of hers - any positives were completely over shadowed by her being so overly sexual, like is it truly necessary for her zipper to be revealing the majority of her chest mid fight???? plus the advertisement “deadlier than the male” ugh just go away

daredevil didn’t even redeem this one

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly like... I love this political shit. But the art varies wildly, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's awful. The action scenes are nowhere near as well rendered as in the first volume. And I could have done without the homophobic slur from Fury.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The combination of Sean Philips and bill sienkiewicz made the art great. And the colors were fantastic. The plot was whatever, and Natasha's characterization wasn't very interesting. But it was a fun read.

[Ruby Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

this one follows on from black widow 2004 almost immediately after. i didn’t think it was as good as the 2004 comic because this one didn’t have as much action or as much natasha in it, but it was still really good. i loved yelena in this as well! the art is amazing as well

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aún destaco los primeros arcos de la Viuda Negra en MK... Pero esta miniserie... menudo atufe de trama hiper política de su tiempo y más lo de utilizar la sexualidad de una antagonista como menosprecio recurrente (en lo gráfico aún alegra ver al combazo Phillips-Sienkiewicz).

[Gerry Sacco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story with an interesting take on the character a bit older. Art, not my taste.