Morgan’s a novelist--I think it’s sci-fi of the Philip K. Dick vein, but I’m not 100% sure--and I wonder if his novels are as depressing as Black Widow. Oh, the series is fantastic, probably even better than the first one, but it’s got to be the most desolate reading experience I’ve had in recent memory. Unlike feature films, which require lots of money and therefor cannot offend lots of people, comic books can... offend, I suppose. Black Widow is all about George W. Bush ruining the United States and the world in general. Other comic books--The Losers in recent memory--have pursued this avenue, but the Losers turned out to be ball-less about it in the end. DC is pro-Bush and (so far) silent on the subject, Marvel is vocally opposed to selling partisan-ship (and their editor-in-chief equated homosexuals to violent psychopaths just recently), but publish incredibly rational material about the state of world affairs (The Punisher is another good recent example and even the super-mainstream Secret War delved into White House corruption).
Except Black Widow isn’t propaganda. Not in the least. It’s context is the incredibly corrupt military-industrial complex, but it never makes any particular comments about it. There is no rational defense, I suppose, but Morgan boils all the character conflicts down to the personal level. Black Widow 2 is a direct sequel to the first series, which I read quite a while ago, and many of these conflicts are from it. The story becomes about a very tangible goal immediately, or in the second of the six issues anyway, and the rest of it is just watching the character move toward the goal. The character’s definition doesn’t change much, it’s such a direct sequel she’s still operating on the first series’ definition, and it’s about the only instance of a successful tight sequel. Usually, the material feels tacked-on, but not so in this case.
Even the depressing ending passes over--I suppose there’s some homage to The Terminator in it too--because the character’s so incredibly unhopeful, so incredibly matter-of-fact. Morgan leaves room to do more, but doesn’t emphasis it. The story, and the character, are only concerned with completing their original impulses. It’s a fantastic comic book (it is better than the first one, I’ve just decided).
