Captain America and the Secret Avengers #1 Review

Sharon Carter and Black Widow are heading to a fundraiser hosted by an all-girls private school looking for a girl who may be up to no good in this special one-shot celebrating Captain America’s 70th Anniversary.

Captain America and the Secret Avengers #1

So, it looks like a young girl named Tatiana has asked Black Widow and Sharon Carter to attend a fundraiser where she claims some violence is going to happen.  Sharon is immediately suspicious, but Natasha claims she knows that Tatiana wants them there to stop the badness.  It turns out that Lifeline, the group holding the shindig, takes girls to private boarding schools to one day return to their hometowns and make the world a better place.  Unfortunately, they don’t come back.  Why?  That’s because the headmistress, Lady Alicia Wells, trains these girls to be high-priced assassins and all around bad chicks.  The fundraiser is full of corrupt heads of state and industry, but it is indeed a trap.  Lady Alicia poisons everyone and ransoms the antidote for a million dollars a pill.  Also, she’s wanting to kill Black Widow, but thanks to Tatiana, the tables get turned and everyone is given an antidote and Lady Alicia gets her comeuppance.  Tatiana is returned home and all is well again!

Kelly Sue DeConnick wrote this tale of whimsy that doesn’t so much contain Captain America, but delivers on fun.  It’s not a game changer by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a fun one to read.  There are some bits of lighthearted dialog that was okay, but made me wonder why there would be a competition between Sharon and Natasha.  I was also a bit confused by the first page and whether that means Nat and Sharon’s efforts were for naught or if it was how she contacted Nat to bring them to the fundraiser.  Aside from that, it was a fun little story.

Greg Tocchini’s cover was a little unsettling to me.  Sharon and Nat are a bit creepy looking, but the art inside wasn’t so bad.  Aside from some occasional weirdness with facial expressions, the inside was much better than I feared from the heebie jeebies I got from the cover.

If you’re a Cap or Black Widow completist, you’ll likely buy this anyway, but if you’re looking for a nice little book starring two fairly fun characters to read, then you might like this book.  However, don’t expect this to become a series or move mountains.

Tags: Avengers Comics & Avengers Comic Books Captain America Secret Avengers