One of the greatest spies of all time is better than ever thanks to Marvel’s most infamous symbiote.

Black Widow: Venom #1 opens to the sight of a lone guard standing high atop the roof of a secluded Alchemax facility. When a black widow spider creeps behind him, the soldier is quick to stamp it out with his boot. Unfortunately for him, that spider was just one of an infinite horde of eight-legged horrors, all of which are at the beck and call of none other than the Black Widow herself.

Written by ERICA SCHULTZ Art by LUCIANO VECCHIO Colors by DAVID CURIEL & RACHELLE ROSENBERG Letters by VC’s ARIANA MAHER Design by STACIE ZUCKER & NICK RUSSELL Main cover art by LEIRIX Variant covers by INHYUK LEE, DERRICK CHEW, and LUCIANO VECCHIO

Natasha Romanoff, better known as the Black Widow, has been a part of the wider Marvel mythos since her introduction alongside her longtime ally Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, all the way back in Stan Lee and Don Heck’s 1964 story “Hawkeye, the Marksman!” from the pages of Tales of Suspense #57. Originally a villain, the Black Widow launched numerous attacks on the likes of Iron Man before eventually finding a place for herself with the rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Since then, the Black Widow has maintained her place as the Marvel Universe’s greatest super spy, albeit with a few major hiccups.

During the events of 2017’s Secret Empire, the Black Widow lost her life in battle against Hydra’s twisted Captain America. Thankfully for fans of the character, not to mention Natasha herself, it was less than a year before the Black Widow returned. While this version of Natasha was one of the many clones created by the clandestine Black Widow program, she was somehow able to retain all of her original memories, allowing her to pick up where she had left off without her malevolent creators knowing.

During Natasha’s investigation into the secretive terrorist group known only as No One, she came across a portion of the Venom symbiote that had been separated from the whole. As seen in the pages of 2023’s Venom #23 by Torunn Grønbekk, Ken Lashley, and Ramon Bachs, the two formed a faster bond than almost any other symbiote-host pair in Marvel history. Within moments, Natasha and her variant of Venom had come to terms with not only their newfound attachment but with what each other was truly capable of. As such, she quickly mastered the abilities that took other symbiote-wielding heroes and villains months if not years to understand for themselves.

Black Widow: Venom #1 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.

Source: Marvel Comics