Yes, Black Widow still has her symbiote - and that means she must choose a side when Venom War breaks out

Cover art for VENOM WAR: VENOMOUS #1
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Marvel is launching a new symbiote saga this August with Venom War by writer Al Ewing and artist Iban Coello, which sees Eddie Brock and his son Dylan face off to finally determine who will be the "one true Venom". A number of additional comics will be spinning out of this epic focusing on different characters caught up in the conflict - and we've got the first look at one of them right here.

Venom War: Venomous from writer Erica Schultz and artist Luciano Vecchio is a new three-issue limited series focused on Black Widow (AKA Natasha Romanoff) who has been bonded to a symbiote of her own in the comics for some time now. Picking up where this July's Black Widow: Venomous one-shot (by the same creative team) leaves off, the series will see Natasha come face-to-face with an old Secret Avengers team-mate while investigating the sinister Alchemax.

Here's the cover followed by Marvel's official solicitation text for the first issue.

Cover art for VENOM WAR: VENOMOUS #1

Leirix's cover art for Venom War: Venomous #1. (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

VENOM WAR: VENOMOUS #1 (OF 3)

Written by ERICA SCHULTZ

Art by LUCIANO VECCHIO

Cover by LEIRIX

THE VENOMOUS BLACK WIDOW!

Black Widow and her newly trained symbiote are jumping into the Venom War and picking a side! Fresh off their new understanding from the BLACK WIDOW: VENOMOUS one-shot, Widow starts looking into horrific experiments Alchemax has been running based on their symbiote program…but she isn’t the only one! Natasha's old teammate from her Secret Avengers days, now known as Agent Anti-Venom, is also on the case!

"Don't ask me why it's called Venomous instead of Black Widow...I don't know these things," said Schultz in a statement to Newsarama. "What I DO know is that Luciano Vecchio is INCREDIBLE, and this series is going to kick all kinds of butt! Luciano and I have been working on Natasha for a while now, and when you see what she and her symbiote are up to, you'll be impressed!"

The Black Widow: Venomous one-shot is published by Marvel on July 31, with Venom War: Venomous #1 following on August 21.


Check out our picks for the best Black Widow comics of all time.

Will Salmon
Comics Editor

Will Salmon is the Comics Editor for GamesRadar/Newsarama. He has been writing about comics, film, TV, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he has previously launched scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for over a decade. He sometimes feels very old, like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places and he runs the micro-label Modern Aviation, which puts out experimental music on cassette tape.

Read more
Web of Spider-Verse: New Blood #1
Spider-Hulk, Spider-Prowler, Count Parker, and more are the latest Spider-Man variants as the Spider-Verse and Venomverse prepare to go to war
Avengers #23
Black Cat and Kang team up to steal from Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Avengers #23 preview
Spider-Gwen: The Ghost-Spider #12
Gwen Stacy and Loki team-up for a cosmic adventure in Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider #12
Dark Gwenpool slashing someone's head off
The original Gwen Stacy is coming back as Dark Gwenpool, a violent, Deadpool-esque mercenary with "Weapon-X abilities"
An alien attacks.
Xenomorphs have taken the island as Alien: Paradiso nears its endgame
Spider-Man and his many foes.
All the new Spider-Man comics and collections from Marvel arriving in 2025
Latest in Marvel Comics
Close up on Emma Frost's face as she sits on a throne on the cover of Emma Frost: White Queen #1
"Bow down to the White Queen" as Emma Frost gets her own X-Men solo comic that flashes back to her time as a villain
Spider-Gwen: The Ghost-Spider #12
Gwen Stacy and Loki team-up for a cosmic adventure in Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider #12
An alien attacks.
Xenomorphs have taken the island as Alien: Paradiso nears its endgame
Doombot and the Runaways.
4 years after Marvel's Runaways ended, the gang is back – and Doctor Doom is coming for them
Kamala Khan holds Jean Grey's body in an homage to the cover of Uncanny X-Men #136
45 years after the original Dark Phoenix Saga, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan will travel back in time to save X-Men history
Doctor Doom facing off with the students of Doom Academy
Doom Academy #5 brings the series to a close with a confrontation between Doctor Doom and his students
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip