Editor's Note: Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 arrives in stores tomorrow, November 4.

Paul Cornell needs to write James Bond. That's the conclusion that I reached after reading the first eight pages of this issue, which see the Black Widow, an experimental spacecraft, some double-crossing counter-espionage, and a casino all come together to form a pre-credits sequence that's worthy of 007 himself. Of course, this riff on the standard trappings of the superhero/espionage genre is an obvious nod to the best known fictional secret agent of all, but it's also a chance for Cornell to introduce his lead character in no uncertain terms: the Black Widow is a no-nonsense super-spy who can go toe-to-toe with the best of them.

After this energetic and punchy opening, Black Widow: Deadly Origin calms down a little. Much of the issue is concerned with telling the story of Natalia Romanova’s WWII origins, framed by a present-day segment that sees the Russian army initiate the "Icepick Protocol"--a programme that will apparently have dire repercussions for the Black Widow and her loved ones (and which, I thought, could also be a sly allusion to Sharon Stone's murder weapon of choice in Basic Instinct--but maybe that's just me).

Whilst this first chapter is very much an issue of setup, Cornell still manages to make it entertaining and compelling. There are flashes of his trademark humour (such as the comical rhythms that are created by the repetition of "that changes the game" in the opening pages); there are guest-appearances from a couple of Marvel Universe anti-heroes--and Stalin(!)--that feel organic and natural rather than contrived and forced; and there's some interesting characterisation for the young Natalia as she develops her relationship with the first victim of the "Icepick Protocol".

In addition to this, I was pleasantly surprised by the artwork. Tom Raney turns in some decent (if fairly ordinary) work for the present-day sequences, but it's the work of John Paul Leon that really blew me away. I've enjoyed Leon's work when I’ve seen it in the past (in occasional issues of New X-Men, Daredevil, and the most recent Ex Machina Special), but his work here is even better than those earlier books. Leon’s bold, thick lines and heavy inks capture the roughness and harshness of World War II-era Russia well, and his faces are subtly expressive--by which I mean that they capture the emotions of his characters realistically, without resorting to exaggeration or caricature.

Leon also gets a couple of chances to cut loose with slightly more inventive layouts. The way in which the combat training scene between Natalia and Wolverine is arranged works wonderfully, and it's followed up a couple of pages later by a glorious pop-art explosion of a montage page that depicts Natalia and Ivan's activities during the war. Both of these pages are enhanced by bolder than usual colours from Matt Milla, which really helps them to stand out against the more restrained and subdued colour scheme of the other flashback pages. Despite some occasional inconsistencies (Natalia looks a little older than twelve during the scenes set in 1940, and the length of her hair seems to change between pages), this is excellent work, and I hope to see more work of this quality from Leon as the series progresses.

When I first heard about this miniseries, I expected it to be more of a tie-in to the upcoming Iron Man 2 film as anything else: a slightly more in-depth version of the Black Widow's origin story for those who had enjoyed her appearance in the movie. Whilst it does appear that Deadly Origin might serve that function, it turns out that there's a lot more to it than that. In addition to shedding light on the Black Widow's early years, this first chapter creates a compelling mystery, adds some detail to a relatively unexplored corner of the Marvel Universe, and provides a little food for thought concerning the politics of World War II and the Cold War. Anyone looking for a good superhero-spy thriller could do a lot worse than to check this out.

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