10 Criminally Underrated Marvel Comics You Must Read
1. Widowmaker
Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye was a mega-hit when it launched back in 2012, introducing new readers to the character and proving that he was so much more than his Avengers membership in doing so.
In 2014, Nathan Edmonson and Phil Noto would do a similar thing with Black Widow, taking a look at her off-time as a mercenary who only targets bad guys to atone for her past sins. It too is underrated and overshadowed by the Mark Waid and Chris Samnee series that released two years later, but before all that, there was this wondrous story that ran between the Hawkeye & Mockingbird book and the then-ongoing Black Widow solo series between 2010 and 2011.
The story is almost a basic globe-trotting action-adventure, teaming up Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Dominic Fortune and Black Widow on a mission to stop an evil organization run by a new Ronin, one of the old monikers Hawkeye had, who also happens to be someone important from Black Widow's past.
What makes the book so compelling is that it works both as a stand-alone feature and as a story that revels in previous continuity. It delves deep into the past of the series' leads, has plenty of charm and, between Jim McCann and Duane Swierczynski handling writing duties, the story is superb.