#just...sigh

Word Count:

Best Work:

“I was lost in thought.” Humans did not know what he meant by such words; Saatzade only nodded.

“I thought that might be the case.” He scanned the camp, displeased. “Do you happen to have the time?”

Sen stared, uncertain. “For what?”

“No, I mean…” He brandished his watch, letting it swing between them as a pendulum. “Do you happen to have a watch?”

Clockwork was uncommon outside the Olumeyta, the province of nobles and wealthy merchants who longed to be ones. “There is not much use for time in the woods, maestro. I use only the sun and the stars to guide me.”

His mouth pulled in distaste. “Ah, as I had thought. You have my thanks anyway, maestro.”

He made to move away, but Sen asked, “Can you not use your own?”

I’m going to keep reading it (because, well, desperation for content about my faves) but I’m...really not enjoying the direction the new Black Widow comic is going, and how hard it’s leaning into the ultraviolent, ~hardcore killer~ characterization of Natasha. It feels like walking back a lot of her development in more recent series (the ones by both Nathan Edmondson and Mark Waid and Chris Samnee), and it feels both lazy and like a disservice to the complexity of her character. 

It’s true that Natasha has always been a character who is willing to do the hard stuff, who is willing to kill when necessary, who can be ruthless and hard. But she also has a deep well of compassion. She’s not about violence for violence’s sake, and that’s where it feels like this series has been taking her.

I recognize that this can be chalked up to post-death trauma from Secret Empire (continuing to ruin everything), and that the Soskas may be taking this story somewhere interesting (we’re only two issues in, there may be an arc here that I’ll end up liking), but at the moment...I was reading today’s issue and hit the first panel, and thought of the scene from Marvel Team-Up #85 and Natasha’s line there, and the sheer contrast, and the way it feels like this current interpretation of Black Widow is a shallow one.

you know what though? sometimes women fuck up. like sometimes we mess up and make mistakes at work, sometimes we are absolutely clueless at our job, sometimes we’re not fucking KILLING IT okay? sometimes we just try to get through the day and do better and i think we need to talk about that more because god, it is exhausting to have to be crushing it everyday or to have it all figured out and knock it out of the park