Saturday Morning Comics: [Richard Morgan’s] Black Widow

[Everybody knows Natasha Romanova, aka Black Widow from Iron Man 2– I’m spinning this with the “not everyone knows Morgan’s version” line.]

A few years before Batman Begins, Richard K. Morgan, hardcore sci-fi and fastasy author, put his spin on two limited series featuring Russian spy the Black Widow (Homecoming and The Things They Say About Her).

He essentially stripped the character of all/most of her comic book features, and artist Bill Sienkiewicz even drew her as a fairly normal-looking woman who works out a lot, rather than the impossibly-proportioned porn-worthy females typical of comics.

For example, the “Widow’s Bite” bracelets (see below) were gone, complete with the explanation that they were several pounds of Warsaw pact equipment that tended to malfunction (plus they were too heavy overall, and impossible to find parts for in the US).

Black Widow’s history was also retconned fairly realistically [SPOILERS]:

Saturday Morning Comics: Heroes for Hire, Vol. 3

Hit it for the massiveness.

It’s not about a particular hero this morning– but this was just too internal-12-year-old-salivating to pass up.

This week Marvel released the first issue of Heroes for Hire (Volume 3). Though there have been, obviously, other versions in the past, this setup is different: overseen by Misty Knight (known as “control”– she mails each hero a earpiece for their instructions), each issue features one or several heroes working together, or completely apart from one another (though coordinated by Ms. Knight) for a certain end.

Whether it’s a coordinated effort to stop Atlantean drugs from coming up to the mainland, or mystic weapons being trafficked, there are usually very MI:6/CIA missions involved, but with Earth 616‘s spin.