AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL: BLACK WIDOW AND PUNISHER (2014)

                                                                                                                                                                                               

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                 Here's one of those very scattershot OAVs based on Marvel characters-- scattershot in this case because I doubt anyone in the customer base was longing to see a team-up of the Black Widow and the Punisher, not even one that includes some cameo-appearances of other Avengers and various ancillary (and pointless) guest stars. Actually, a better name for the project would have been "SHIELD Confidential," because the alliance between Natasha Romanof and Frank Castle comes about because the former is a loyal employee of the spy-cabal while the latter is a loner who wants no interference, by SHIELD or anyone, in his private crime-destroying crusade.                 

Though this video was produced by the Japanese studio Madhouse-- which provides better quality animation than one sees in most Marvel OAVs-- the story came from an American author of prose and comics, Marjorie Liu, and the master trope that Liu chose to pursue was that of "by-the-book enforcer must work with loose cannon." In theory the Punisher might seem well suited to be the loose cannon in any team-up, though there are a number of narrative problems that arise from involving Castle with stories involving spycraft, numerous SF-gimmicks, or both. Liu is on even shakier ground in trying to justify using the resourceful Natasha as the rule-follower. True, as a hired gun Liu had to "follow the rules" of the MCU Bible for these characters, and since no MCU production, live-action or animated, ever defined the terms of the Black Widow's allegiance to SHIELD, Liu allows that dramatic shoe to go on hanging in mid-air.                                                                                   

 The teamup comes about because Castle goes after an illegal arms dealer who's also being monitored by SHIELD for his connections to an evil organization called Leviathan. Nick Fury decides that since Castle mucked up their investigation, SHIELD drafts him in their crusade against Leviathan, and the Widow is assigned to keep the Punisher from getting too punitive. Castle plays along because he still wants to take down his original quarry and any of his buddies. Natasha tries to use reason and humor to shake Castle out of his monomania, but the problem there is that without the monomania, the Punisher has no identity. He's the last hero anyone should want tied into a complex espionage operation, but the Widow is stuck with him, much as Writer Liu was.                                                                   

The menace of Leviathan is so badly constructed that the group is responsible for two separate threats to world peace: one involving a super-soldier serum and the other some mind-control technology. The evil org's master, one "Orion," is a nothing villain, and since Natasha can't get any human reactions out of Punisher, the script works in a secondary threat: Elihas, an agent of Leviathan with whom Natasha was romantically involved. Elihas and Natasha still harbor deep feelings for each other, but it's never clear as to why Elihas faked his death and allied himself with an evil conspiracy. There's a loose implication that Elihas had a deep inferiority complex toward the Widow and wanted to become a super-soldier so that she would be proud of him-- though all this psychologizing is minimal at best. Punisher for his part wants nothing but the chance to take out more criminals-- though very briefly, he considers offing himself when he accidentally kills some innocents. But he gets over that little impulse.                                                                                   

  I must admit that even with the lack of substantive drama, even at the level of a good action-movie, CONFIDENTIAL is never dull, for there are a lot of battles counterpointing the unlikely duo's progress until the big fight in Leviathan's sanctuary, and Black Widow gets her best, and sexiest, animated incarnation here. In contrast to the toxic feminism of the MCU, which forbids the depiction of nubile femininity, Madame Natasha looks really good. Frankly the movie would have been better focused only on her, though I did like her initial fight with Punisher, in that once they throw down, Castle shows no compunctions against shooting the Widow dead if she doesn't get out of his way. Liu's script may have been influenced by productions like CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, given that late in the film it's revealed that Fury has been less than honest with his agents-- which is a surprise only to one of the duo. But Liu doesn't make the Punisher's credo of "personal vengeance above all" resonate, and even with the revelation of Fury's skullduggery, SHIELD's more organized campaign against evil still makes much more sense in terms of the world's complexities. A last complaint about Natasha's self-involved Lover-Boy is that Liu evidently gave him the name of "Elihas Starr." In the comic books this was the regular name of a criminal named Egghead, though the MCU used the name for a different character. But neither character was anything like the one to which the name is attached here, which seems to be a pointless bit of non-continuity.