Good story and characterization. The art is wildly uneven, though. ( )

I've been busily buying and enjoying Marvel comics since the Avengers film was released. I loved the characters and wanted more. So I stared with Fury’s Big Week, which tied directly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It was good, and I subsequently branched out to the traditional Marvel Universe with Journey into Mystery and Thor. Black Widow Strikes is something of a blending of the two.

The obvious tie-ins to the MCU are Agent Coulson and the Samuel L. Jackson-inspired Nick Fury. However, the mission reads as if it could be any Black Widow adventure. She’s a spy after all. She is sent to kidnap a target, but an assassin kills him first. An assassin who wants to be Black Widow – by replacing Natasha. The artwork is excellent, showcasing a very sexy Black Widow, and kicks it up a notch. Backgrounds were filled out and there was plenty of detail to pull a reader in.

Overall, this was an enjoyable stand-alone story without much meat. It is very short, so the book is filled out with a random, really old, Iron Man adventure. This was very disappointing – if you need to pad the book, why not an early Black Widow adventure in keeping with the protagonist? Yes, this was probably just a chance to grab some non-comic readers by cashing in the on the film’s popularity. Still, the price point (especially after a discount) is reasonable for such an effort. Recommended, particularly to fans of the film. ( )