MARVEL FANFARE #13

”THE WIDOW… ALONE”
Script: Ralph Macchio | Pencils: George Pérez | Inks: John Beatty & Brett Breeding
Letters: Diana Albers | Colors: Ben Sean | Editing: Allen Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: An unconscious Black Widow is taken to a mysterious island complex, where Snap Dragon brings her before her master, Damon Dran. Dran explains that he has replaced the Widow with a lookalike who Jimmy Woo is bringing back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. The false Widow will lead the helicarrier to Dran’s island and then assassinate Nick Fury on the bridge, escaping just before Dran’s cannons blow the ship out of the sky.

Widow is thrown into a dungeon but manages to escape. She bumps into her guardian, Ivan, brainwashed by Dran, and knocks him out. As she explores Dran’s complex, the Widow is attacked by Snap Dragon, but this time she defeats the assassin. Ivan regains some of his old memory and joins Widow in her mission.

The Widow calls the helicarrier and convinces those aboard that the Black Widow with them in an imposter. Fury shoots the false Widow and orders all weapons to open fire on Dran’s island. The island, filled with munitions, explodes, and the Black Widow and Ivan are found drifting in the sea by a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft.

MARVEL FANFARE #12

”THE WEB TIGHTENS!”
Scripter: Ralph Macchio | Penciler/Co-Plotter: George Pérez | Inker: Al Milgrom
Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Bob Sharen | Editor: Al Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Black Widow defeats all of the assassins except Iron Maiden, who escapes when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jimmy Woo bursts into the store. But Widow placed a tracking device on Iron Maiden, allowing her and Woo to follow the armored woman into the sewers. There, Black Widow and Woo defeat Iron Maiden, but both are quickly subdued by yet another assassin — the deadly Snap Dragon.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Kono the Sumo Warrior, one of the assassins, is shot… in the face. By an automatic pistol. Mark Gruenwald would later use him as a villain in the pages of CAPTAIN AMERICA with no explanation as to how he survived being shot… in the face. With an automatic pistol. The kicker: this story’s writer, Ralph Macchio, was editor on those CAP issues!

(There will be more of this next issue, which I’ll cover when we get there.)

MARVEL FANFARE #11

”BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.”
Scripter/Co-Plotters/Penciler: Ralph Macchio & George Pérez
Inkers: Joe Sinnott & Jack Abel (credited as “J.J. Sinabel”)
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski | Colorist: Ben Sean | Editor: Al Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Black Widow eludes security forces on the grounds of a Russian mansion, then after making her escape, recalls the chain of events that led to that situation: She arrived in Russia weeks earlier undercover as a defecting American scientist in order to help with the project Ivan was working on for the Soviets. But, unknown to her, the KGB was aware of her identity and fed her information until she made her move to free Ivan, at which point they sprang their trap.

Following the lead of a distinctive dagger used by one of the KGB agents she fought, the Widow travels to Hong Kong — but as she investigates the dagger’s origin, she is attacked by six assassins who take her out quickly and prepare to finish her off.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A note on the first page tells that this story takes place before the Widow cut her hair and got a new costume in the pages of DAREDEVIL. As a matter of fact, her new look debuted over a year prior to this issue (but one month less than a year before the prior installment) in DAREDEVIL #187 from October of 1982.

S.H.I.E.L.D. is identified per its usual nomenclature of this era, the Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division.

MARVEL FANFARE #10

”WIDOW”
Wealthy Writer: Ralph Macchio | Co-Plottin’ Penciler: George Pérez
Invincible Inker: Brett Breeding | Additional Pencils: Bob Layton & Luke McDonnell
Laid-Back Letterer: Tom Orzechowski | Careful Colorist: Petra Scotese
Amiable Editor: Al Milgrom | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Nick Fury attends a S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting while the Black Widow is assaulted in her Waldorf Towers penthouse. As Fury recaps the Widow’s origin, she fights off her attackers. Eventually she barges into the meeting and demands to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. agents attacked her. Fury reluctantly informs her that S.H.I.E.L.D. has picked her for a mission to travel to Russia and bring back her one-time ally, Ivan Petrovich.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting is presided over by Sam Sawyer, Fury’s former C.O. during World War II. Fury notes that, although he is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sawyer has final say on the Petrovich operation, and has chosen Black Widow for it against Fury’s wishes.

The Black Widow’s S.H.I.E.L.D. serial number is 27684-R, she stands 5’9”, and has auburn hair and green eyes, per a display during the meeting. All other information is obscured.

Before she’s aware of who sent her attackers, the Widow sure appears to kill one of them (an assessment Ralph Macchio agrees with in the introduction to the WEB OF INTRIGUE hardcover collection of this story). Considering they’re S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sent to test her by Sawyer, I wonder what Colonel Fury has to say about this?

BLACK WIDOW: WEB OF INTRIGUE

Remember when we were reading those Frank Miller DAREDEVIL issues and Black Widow ducked out of the storyline pretty early on? And then she returned some time later with a haircut, working for SHIELD? Have you been wondering what she was up to in the meantime? No? Well, we're about to find out anyway.

In 1983, after Miller's DAREDEVIL came to an end with Black Widow in her new look, Marvel published a four-part serial in MARVEL FANFARE showcasing her in a solo adventure set prior to those Miller stories. (We'll get into how and why this might have happened in the ensuing weeks.) I believe I first encountered this story when Marvel published it in a comic book one-shot to coincide with the initial Marvel Knights BLACK WIDOW mini-series circa 1999. Written by Ralph Macchio and drawn by George Pérez, it featured the Widow cast in more of a superspy, rather than a superhero, role, and I really liked it.

More recently, Marvel collected the mini-series, along with a graphic novel from some years later by Gerry Conway and George Freeman, in a hardcover called WEB OF INTRIGUE (conveniently reprinted this past January in paperback format as well). We won't look at the graphic novel, but for the next four weeks, I'll be using my copy of WEB OF INTRIGUE to examine the Macchio/Pérez story issue by issue. I recall liking it back when I was in college; will those positive recollections hold up? Let's find out, beginning tomorrow!

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