Black Widow — Grayson & Rucka’s Natasha/Yelena foundation
Devin Grayson · Greg Rucka · J. G. Jones · Scott Hampton · Igor Kordey
Story era 06 · Heroes Return, Modern Dawn
Grayson and Rucka establish the Natasha and Yelena rivalry through three espionage stories about competing meanings of the Black Widow mantle.
Setup & reading order
- After Black Widow (2001) #3
Read Pale Little Spider as the contained Yelena prequel, then jump to Waid and Samnee’s later Natasha run.
Optional context & path
Path: Black Widow. Related projects that read well in this order; the order is a suggestion, not a requirement.
Only required setup and earlier volumes in the same project affect the queue. Everything here is optional.
About these books · 4 sources
Publisher and reference pages describe the editions. Reviews and reader discussions offer different views of the stories.
- r/Blackwidow — Natasha/Yelena entry-point assessment (opens in a new tab)Readers
- Slings & Arrows — collected Black Widow review (opens in a new tab)Critics and editors
- Penguin Random House — Black Widow by Grayson and Rucka (opens in a new tab)Publisher
- Grand Comics Database — nine-story Black Widow collection (opens in a new tab)Reference
The books
Marvel Knights Black Widow by Grayson & Rucka: The Complete Collection
Book 1 of 1 · Heroes Return, Modern Dawn
Natasha confronts Yelena’s claim to the Black Widow mantle in the Marvel Knights era; Pale Little Spider is Yelena’s earlier mission.
See reading checkpoints9781302914004Planned edition#1–3#1–3#1–3Edition sources
Each ISBN identifies a specific printing and cover. “Owned copy” identifies the edition on my shelf; “Planned edition” identifies the edition listed for collecting.
Duplication across this project
These books share full issues or parts of issues with other books in the plan. Open the lists below to see which stories repeat.
No shared contents are recorded with other books in the plan.
Things to know
- Pale Little Spider is an adult espionage story involving sexual violence. The later expanded Epic adds a different Richard Morgan phase; that is outside this compact selection.