It’s entirely possible to play and enjoy Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch as nothing but a fun and colorful hero shooter. However, the franchise has expansive background lore fleshed out in various Overwatch comics, videos, and other sources.
These stories inspired one Overwatch fan to create a short but brilliantly drawn manga about the character Widowmaker. The seven-page comic emphasizes the sadder side of Widowmaker’s backstory, reminding fans that there’s more to the blue-skinned sniper than cold one-liners and some light fan service.
Created by Reddit user Nebcrafter, the fan-manga seems to draw inspiration from a panel in the Overwatch comic Tracer: Reflections, published in 2016. At one point in the volume, Widowmaker visits her husband’s grave on Christmas, leaving a single red rose. The fan-made manga is expertly drawn and shows a similar event. It begins with Widowmaker visiting her husband’s grave during a storm, where she contemplates her husband’s death and the cold assassin she’s become. However, Widowmaker realizes that she’s lost the ability to cry along with most of her human emotions and that her work is the only thing she still cares about. Ultimately, Widowmaker walks away, deciding that the old her has been dead for a long time.
For anyone unfamiliar with the details of Widowmaker’s backstory, she was once a Parisian ballet dancer named Amelie Guillard. Her husband, Gerard Lacroix, was a senior Overwatch agent leading their operations against the terrorist group Talon, one of the narrative’s main antagonists. After multiple failed attempts on Gerard’s life, the organization kidnapped Amelie and brainwashed her to act as a sleeper agent. After assassinating her husband, Amelie returned to Talon, where she received the training and biological augmentations that transformed her into Widowmaker. The side effects of her augmentations and indoctrination were Widowmaker’s blue skin and the numbing of her emotions.
Nebcrafter’s comic is something of a highlight reel of this story. Through flashbacks, the reader sees Widowmaker’s old life as a dancer and her relationship with her husband, followed by her indoctrination and the aftermath of Gerard’s murder. Nebcrafter’s expertly crafted artwork also conveys the horror and tragedy of Widowmaker’s situation. While the panels depicting her brainwashing and the aftermath of her husband’s murder are disturbing and sad, the real tragedy comes from her lack of emotions. In Nebcrafter’s interpretation, Widowmaker wants to feel something about her husband’s death and what Talon did to her. However, she doesn’t have enough humanity left to do that.
Overwatch fans can check out Nebcrafter’s full manga on Reddit. Anyone interested in more of their work can also follow @nebcraftart on Twitter and Instagram or NeB-nebojsaobradovic on DeviantArt.
Overwatch is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.
