Black Widow/Hawkeye #1: The Bland Couple

Black Widow/Hawkeye #1 — written by Stephanie Phillips with art by Paolo Villanelli, colors from Mattia Iacono, and lettering by VC’s Joe Sabino — is a perfect snapshot of the Marvel landscape, pairing characters amid a major status quo change with little sense of urgency or direction. The book has the heavy task of contextualizing Black Widow’s recent bonding with a symbiote (which occurred in the pages of Venom) and setting up a mystery featuring Hawkeye. The last time these two characters shared a major interaction was during Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande’s run.

That storyline and specific dynamic feel like a major touchstone for this series, yet this debut issue only hints at offpage tensions between the two. Narratively, this issue feels like a series of okay scenes and dramatic shortcuts strung together in a way that attempts to resemble a compelling plot that lacks any momentum or quieter, character-driven beats. Phillips attempts to infuse tension through the use of a non-linear story, but the final execution is just a confusing mess that deflates the pacing. It’s a hacky assemblage of scenes and timelines that undercuts itself, relying on empty spectacle and stilted dialogue to try and move things along.

Much of that forced feeling is the restraint of Marvel’s miniseries predilection these days, which makes it difficult to invest in and follow the ongoing arcs of characters. Having not read all of the issues of the last Hawkeye series, Venom, or even the Thompson Black Widow makes it laborious to track where the Natasha/Clint relationship is. There’s fertile ground in exploring that from a meta-lense, treating it like a cycle of toxic codependency that tries to peek from the surface of the issue. However, it’s done in a sloppy manner that releases any rich tension that could be explored. What should come off as a cathartic moment for Clint reads like a temper tantrum, while Natasha’s arc is to just go through the motions with little input.

Villanelli’s pencils go through the same sense of tepid motions, providing some decent action sequences at the moment that never escape velocity into excellence. Having read the issue twice, there is no real standout image or sequence that lingers beyond the closing of the back cover. The only beat that comes to mind is Natasha using the symbiote to make spiders crawl all over a target, illustrating an interesting visual that is quickly moved past. All of the characters are well-designed and on model, and there are no glaring issues or a sense of rushed artwork on the flipside. The artwork just comes across as passionless, evoking the sense of work-for-hire that feels evident across Marvel’s publishing line.

The palette from Iacono shares that bland quality, working as a serviceable affirmation of the tones evoked by the story without thrilling or making a proclamation. The book is confined in drab hubs due to the vaguely Eastern European and then Madripoor setting while Natasha is searching for Clint, and it results in a series of backgrounds that resemble the boring MCU palette. Even the attempts to give the book a sense of scope or beauty, like in the opening sequences, feel restrained compared to the work of, say, a Matthew Wilson or Jordie Bellaire. A spy book with splashes of superheroes is the opportunity to get fun and crazy with the coloring, so it’s a shame to see the book take the safe, boring route at every turn. Even the Black Widow symbiote and Hawkeye suit feel muted in a way that makes this feel like a middle-of-the-road palette.