soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2014-06-07 03:25 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2014-06-07 03:25 pm
Black Widow: The Name of the Rose, by Marjorie Liu, art by Daniel Acuna
Okay um! The number of graphic novels I have read in my life can be counted on one hand so I'm not very practiced at how to talk about them?
So uh yes Black Widow: The Name of the Rose was really great! I loved it a lot! I had a million Natasha feels! Natasha having vulnerabilities but still being hella competent and capable of rescuing her own self! Natasha not being able to trust in people 100% and having securities against the possibility of everyone being untrustworthy! Natasha working with and caring for other people anyways!
And also awww yay people being on Natasha's side even when other people are trying to turn them against her!
Another thing I really loved about this was the art - it was beautiful and striking, and pretty easy to follow (...I'm not great at reading visuals). And it did not do the frustrating thing I associate with comics of always posing female characters in the sexiest possible way because obviously she is only there for the (male) reader's titillation! That was not a thing here! YAAAAAAY!
There was one thing I found frustrating, that being the fact that Natasha's tragic backstory stuff in this comic is about her having had a dead baby once upon a time. Because it feels like EVERY woman's story ever inevitably has to involve her having babies at some point, and it's just, UGHHH, NO, there are other things about being a woman than having babies!!!! It's possible I'm a little over-sensitive on this issue, and as baby-related stories go this one's well-handled. I still found it frustrating.
But other than that this was great. A+, would read again, will happily take recs for other comics I should read. (please only comics without the tits-and-ass sexy-lady style artwork, because I am just not interested in subjecting myself to that.)
So uh yes Black Widow: The Name of the Rose was really great! I loved it a lot! I had a million Natasha feels! Natasha having vulnerabilities but still being hella competent and capable of rescuing her own self! Natasha not being able to trust in people 100% and having securities against the possibility of everyone being untrustworthy! Natasha working with and caring for other people anyways!
And also awww yay people being on Natasha's side even when other people are trying to turn them against her!
Another thing I really loved about this was the art - it was beautiful and striking, and pretty easy to follow (...I'm not great at reading visuals). And it did not do the frustrating thing I associate with comics of always posing female characters in the sexiest possible way because obviously she is only there for the (male) reader's titillation! That was not a thing here! YAAAAAAY!
There was one thing I found frustrating, that being the fact that Natasha's tragic backstory stuff in this comic is about her having had a dead baby once upon a time. Because it feels like EVERY woman's story ever inevitably has to involve her having babies at some point, and it's just, UGHHH, NO, there are other things about being a woman than having babies!!!! It's possible I'm a little over-sensitive on this issue, and as baby-related stories go this one's well-handled. I still found it frustrating.
But other than that this was great. A+, would read again, will happily take recs for other comics I should read. (please only comics without the tits-and-ass sexy-lady style artwork, because I am just not interested in subjecting myself to that.)
no subject
The new ongoing Black Widow series is also really good; pretty art, good characterization. That one and Fraction/Aja's Hawkeye are the only Marvel titles I follow. Aja also draws women very well; like people instead of pinups. Natasha sometimes appears as a guest characters but mostly it's about Clint and Kate.
I have another Black Widow TPB here that I've just started reading... Homecoming. Te beginning is promising and the art is also nice (and non-titillating). But it didn't grip me quite as much from the start as all the above books did.
no subject
I think the dead baby plotline is meta commentary on previous Black Widow comics (in this case Homecoming/The Things They Say About Her, which I loved but I get the impression it's controversial, especially the backstory it establishes, including whether Natasha can even get pregnant and why). Name of the Rose is definitely chock full of meta commentary--I am pretty sure I said "are you SHITTING me" out loud when Natasha literally woke up in a refrigerator. So great.