HI! What are your favourite parts about Black Widow: the Name of the Rose? I've just read it, and now I'm very curious!
This had to wait until I reread Black Widow: Name of the Rose because I wanted to be fresh and also because I've been meaning to do that for a while.
I mean, the unhelpful answer is "the whole thing." Thematically, artistically, characterization-wise...it's just a very good Black Widow story. But I can dig into that a little more.
"Wolves and girls. Both have sharp teeth.” I wrote...a personal essay that quoted this line. Because there’s this thing, as a theme of Marjorie Liu’s that shows up in a lot of her work (X-23, Black Widow, and, perhaps most notably because it’s her creator owned work, Monstress), about women and monstrosity, and monsters inside women, and women who are monsters or have been made monsters by others. And that’s a thread that runs through this comic, too - not as strongly as Liu’s other two series I mentioned, but it’s still there.
And the themes it brings up, too, of agency and choice, most clearly defined in the fight with Electra.
Natasha, walking out of the fridge. I wrote an essay for an art history class about this scene! Just...the fact that some villains literally strip Natasha naked and put her in a fridge, and she turns the tables on them and walks out of it, is such a pointed counter to the women in refrigerators trope that...it’s well done. And also I will never not be impressed with Acuña (see below) for managing to draw a naked Natasha through a lot of an issue and never making it feel (at least to me) voyeuristic.
The fucking end quote... "what matters is we loved...and lived." As I said above, there’s threads about monstrosity and the violence of Natasha’s past, and present; how dangerous she is and how vicious she can be. (”Killing people is easy. Making them suffer is an art.”) But the heart of this book, the core of it, I think, is this line and the monologue that precedes it. It echoes, actually, a panel from an old Marvel Team Up comic (guess what! I have it saved on my computer):
Natasha is a character intimately familiar with death. Dealing it, watching it, losing people to it. But I love when writers use that familiarity and make it not about cynicism or jadedness, but rather about a recognition of what’s beautiful about being alive.
The art. I love Acuña's art, not least because it lets Natasha look...well, not bad, no one in comics (who is good) ever looks bad, but look beat up. And also it’s just gorgeous, and I love how distinctive it is. Very much not house style.
Natasha's relationships with other characters at the fore - she stands alone/on her own but she has people at her back. I feel like this one speaks for itself, mostly, but - one of the things I love about Natasha in comics, and that I think sometimes people lose when they focus on her as the assassin/superspy, is the network of relationships she has. She works on her own, she’s independent, but she’s not alone. And I think my favorite Black Widow stories are the ones that remember that, even if it’s not the focus.
I just. God. I love it so much. Also it deserves credit for being the book that turned me on to Marjorie Liu as a writer, whose work on X-23 and Monstress are two of my other favorite comics works.