This book is excellent. It is intriguing on a number of points. The first is that in the end it answers no real questions. You do get to find out who is behind putting a hit out on Widow, but was it really a surprise? I didn’t think so. The second is that despite (at least my feelings) the fact that the old broad was just another nare-do-well, she appears just long enough to reveal a very sticky point involving perfume and Nick Fury’s after-shave, and then, like a geriatric Kiser Soze, like that…she’s gone. However, despite her apparent major role in the Black Widow project, and her predominance in the last, or last two issues, she is just pushed aside, and unlike the real Soze, she doesn’t vanish of her own accord, but rather ends up sitting bench. The last point is the incredible art. Sure, it is liney, and sometimes overly simplistic, but hey, it is perfect, sexy, and fluid. Parlov has an excellent raw style which is expertly colored by Dan Brown, the successful blockbuster author of The Devinci Code (just kidding).

This book was a great finale of this six-part series. Full of action, and trademark Widow-style violence and vengeance, this book is perfect. My only complaint is that it lets too much get away. There is a very basic and extremely open-ended setup for the next miniseries, but I am not sure why they didn’t just start a new monthly, regular series. This book has the style and potential to far outdo even some of my favorites, like Captain America. Really, due to the girl, and the overall mystery rather than just vengeance, this book could be far more popular than The Punisher, and almost as popular as Wolverine. Any way you look at it, it is along the same lines of the above two, but with more depth than Punisher, and more sex-appeal than Wolverine.

The greatest thing about Black Widow, like the new DC book Breach, is that the history behind its origins, its causes, and its ghosts lie within the Cold War – a span of years which is remembered for its secret projects, covert operations, and governmental cover-ups and scandals. This is the perfect backdrop for a believable comic series. The results of the Cold War, as they are explored in this comic, are an excellent source of mystery which is realistic, grimy, and full of suspicious mystery. It is such an excellent setup that it is more akin to an historical fiction than a hero-comic.

I would really like to see and ongoing series on Black Widow, and I hope that Marvel will oblige. This is a character that seems to have endless possibility like Wolverine, and so unlike so many characters that read about monthly.