Amazing Adventures #4
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAmazing Adventures #4 (January 1971) is the concluding chapter of the first-ever sustained Black Widow solo feature in Marvel Comics history — a run that Wikipedia identifies as the company's first series to lead with a female superhero. The issue closes out Gary Friedrich and Gene Colan's socially grounded Young Warriors storyline, in which Natasha Romanoff resolves a community-building standoff through negotiation rather than force, a deliberately progressive narrative choice for the era. Simultaneously, the Inhumans half delivers Jack Kirby's final complete Inhumans arc in the title, pitting the entire Royal Family against the Mandarin in a team-action story that showcases each character's distinct power set. Together, the two features make this issue a bookend to the title's original creative configuration, just before new creative teams arrived with issue #5.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 19 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
CGC 9.6 ▾ $190–$290 2 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $5.85–$700 14 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The issue arrived on sale January 10, 1971, under editor Stan Lee, as the fourth entry in Marvel's second Amazing Adventures series — a split anthology launched in August 1970. Jack Kirby had been writing and drawing the Inhumans half since issue #1, though contemporary commentary notes his Marvel work of this period felt transitional, given his imminent departure to DC's Fourth World project. The Black Widow half shifted art teams mid-arc in issue #3, when Gene Colan and Bill Everett replaced John Buscema and John Verpoorten; by issue #4, Mimi Gold is credited as the scripter on the concluding Black Widow story 'Deadlock,' while Gary Friedrich retains the writing credit on the earlier chapter 'The Widow and the Militants,' making this a rare mid-issue writer handoff within the same storyline. Stan Lee is listed as editor throughout.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Contains two complete stories: Inhumans — 'Pawns of the Mandarin' (script and pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Chic Stone) and Black Widow — 'Deadlock' (script by Mimi Gold, pencils by Gene Colan, inks by Bill Everett), concluding the 'Widow and the Militants' arc begun in issue #3 by Gary Friedrich.
- The Black Widow story is the concluding chapter of Marvel's first female-led solo feature, in which Natasha brokers a peaceful resolution to a community-building standoff — securing a legal building for the Young Warriors' breakfast program — rather than fighting her way to victory.
- The Inhumans story is the final Jack Kirby-written-and-drawn Inhumans arc in the title; with issue #5, Roy Thomas and Neal Adams took over, significantly changing the creative direction of that feature.
- The Mayor of New York City depicted in the Black Widow story bears a likeness to real-world Mayor John Lindsay; the Marvel Database notes this is treated as a topical reference under Marvel's sliding timescale.
- The issue introduces a new letters page called 'Amazing Mails'; among the published letter-writers is Paul Levitz, who later became a prominent DC Comics editor and writer.
- The Inhumans story from this issue was reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: The Inhumans Vol. 1 (2009) and The Inhumans: Beware the Inhumans (2018); the full Black Widow run from Amazing Adventures #1–8 was collected in Black Widow: The Sting of the Widow (2009) and the Black Widow Strikes Omnibus (2019).
- Cover art is by John Buscema (Inhumans side); the issue is part of a series that ran the Black Widow feature for eight issues total before dropping her so the Inhumans could have full-length solo stories, which themselves ended with issue #10.
Cast · 13 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Il Mitico Thor #53 (1973), Frankenstein #2 (1975), L'Inattendu #3 (1975), Black Widow: The Sting of the Widow #[nn] (2009), Marvel Masterworks: The Inhumans #1 (2009), Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #8 (2014), The Inhumans: Beware the Inhumans #[nn] (2018), Marvel. Официальная коллекция комиксов #114 (2018), Black Widow Epic Collection #1 (2019), The Black Widow Strikes Omnibus #[nn] (2019), Daredevil Omnibus #3 (2024), Marvel Limited Edition TPB. Los Inhumanos #1 (2024)
Key issues in Amazing Adventures
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.