Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl: If I Ask Really, REALLY Nicely Can I Have A Black Widow Movie?

Black Widow: Red Vengeance 

by 

Margaret Stohl

I have made a huge mistake. I don’t remember what happened in the first book . . . I mean I remember the characters and all but that’s about it. Which is kind of ironic because I read the first Black Widow book because I wanted some Black Widow backstory 

(hint, hint marvel I’ve been asking really nicely). 

Anyways Natasha and her (baby avenger?) co-Widow Ava are going after everyone and everything to do with the Red Room. The place/thing/organization that turned them into tiny psychopaths. Also, the peoples who killed Natasha’s brother? I think. I honestly can’t remember if he’s her real brother or not.

              All that aside Y’all know the drill. Weird stuff starts happening things get shot, things get hacked and things blow up! Occasionally Tony Stark shows up and sasses people too so that’s always nice.

Characters

Natasha: was maybe a tiny bit of a drama queen. Don’t get me wrong she was still an awesome kick-butt sassy widow who was probably my favorite character. I just didn’t expect her to have a Batman-esque brooding psyche. 

Other than that, I was just glad to get a better look into the Natasha’s head. Even if it wasn’t exactly what I expected.

Ava: why is this child here? I vaguely remember her having a believable reason for sticking around but . . . why? Ava’s got some sort of electricity superpowers (on top of being psychically linked somehow with Natasha) and she still seems incapable of doing anything to advance the plot. 

Besides I kind of thought that teenage sidekicks were DC’s things.  

Ghost Alexai: Actually, kind of funny . . . if I weren’t so concerned about Ava and Natasha’s mental health. Still if he’s the only consistent comic relief I’ll take him.

Tony Stark: also, there to be comic relief. I think. He did some stuff! At the very, very end. But not when a bunch of missles were aimed at some random places in Europe. You’re Iron Man Stark! Go blow those suckers up! Come on you’ve got a giant freaking suit that can do pretty much anything, get your butt out of the chair and move!

Carol Danvers? Gotta admit, I don’t know who this is. She’s a superhero I got that much. But I still don’t know what’s going on.

Likes

Any Black Widow backstory is always cool: Do you guys even know how hard it is to find comic books? My libraries can’t even get their act together long enough to get eighty percent of the good books much less a decent selection of comics. The other option? Fifteen dollars for fifteen pages of primarily pictures on amazon. 

No thanks.

 Occasionally I find some comics online but if I really want to know a characters backstory I’ve got Wikipedia or a movie. Or in this case a book! Sweet.

When Natasha gets to be awesome she is awesome! Yeah it’s maybe not quite as cool as watching her beat up a bunch of dudes with a chair, but it was close. Or maybe I’m just really, really desperate anything to do with Black Widow whatsoever.

Dislikes

I understand why Ava is here but I don’t like her: Yeah I get it, Natasha is larger than life so the narrative needed a character to bring it down to earth. Not to mention Natasha is cool because nobody knows exactly what’s going through her head, does she actually know everything or is she just messing with you. 

My one question is, why wasn’t that Hawkeye? Is it just me or does that make much more sense than allowing Natasha to bring an untrained punk kid on missions?

Besides in story’s when a professional makes a mistake it’s just a mistake, they’ve already proven that they’re competent so when they screw up it’s understandable. But when Ava screws up not only is it a big deal in the story it simply proves again that she shouldn’t be there. Basically, she doesn’t have any credibility and I don’t trust her to walk to Starbucks alone much less stop a biological weapon.

Why is a Black Widow book more about explosions than spying? I get why the movies are like that, after all she’s usually in a situation that’s out of her element. But I just thought that since she was in her own book she’d have a plot that was more . . . her style? Does that make any sense what so ever?

Dang it Marvel I just want a Black Widow movie! If it weren’t for the fact that this was the only story about Natasha that I can get my hands on I wouldn’t have given it the time of day. So, sure, if you’re desperate you might like this book. If you’re not, maybe I should just direct you to that fifteen-dollar comic book.