(The Funnies 030, 1939)
The Black Widow is a sinister femme fatale spy chief in the classic mode, complete with cigarette holder, tight red dress and imperious attitude. A few things that make her fun:
-the vague European country she works on behalf of is Bosylvania, a country about which nothing is revealed aside from the fact that it has the best geographical suffix: -sylvania
-the Black Widow is in fact Princess Maxine of Bosylvania so her activities have an even greater potential for international incident than your typical spy, and certainly there's an even greater risk than usual of tying her to her employers.
-the Black Widow does not leave her castle HQ (located in the Castle District of the Northeastern US, presumably) for the duration of the story. This is because she knows how to delegate.
When Secret Service agent Tom Beatty and his teen pal Danny show up despite the bomb the Black Widow had placed in their plane she takes another pass at killing them using an assassin's teapot, which is always fun to see.
Beatty is eventually captured and though it doesn't turn out well for her I must say that any villain who takes the time for a bit of hero-taunting before their triumph gets a gold star in my book. Just stay well away from the bars!
Beatty is of course recaptured because this is a serialized story and getting captured is good cliffhanger fodder. The Black Widow and her cronies come really close to getting away but instead she gets horribly killed just off panel. I guess exploding princess heads were too much even for the heady days of the pre-Code Golden Age - we'll have to wait until the late 80s at earliest before we get an explosive decapitation in a mainstream comic if I'm any judge.
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