"Secret Empire to the Left of Me, HYDRA to the Right," in Daredevil (vol. 3) #6, by Mark Waid (writer), Marcos Martin (artist), Muntsa Vicente (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)
So, after Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis, and Ed Brubaker spent years dragging Matt Murdock through an unending of misery, woe, ninjas, and girlfriends either killed or driven insane, Matt got himself possessed by a demon and used the Hand to take over Hell's Kitchen. And then after that bullshit, Mark Waid took over writer chores, and teamed up with Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin to try and break the character out of his rut.
They had Matt regain a little of his old swashbuckling spirit, making with the banter, flirting, being a bit of a ham, both in the courtroom and in the costume. And, because that might seem an odd turn after everything he'd experienced recently, they made it a conscious decision on the character's part. Matt was going to essentially force himself to be positive, to fight his depression. This becomes more of an issue later, which we'll look at next week, but suffice it to say like isn't going to make it easy for Daredevil.
From the writing standpoint, what I enjoy is the approach to everything. Matt being kind of cocky is funny. There's one moment in issue 5 where a team of guys charge into his client's apartment. Matt thinks to himself, "Oh no, six armed mercs wearing night vision goggles! What will I do?" Then he flips on the lights and blinds them. Matt has to return to coaching clients to represent himself, but not because he's been disbarred. Even though he denies it, everyone thinks/knows he's Daredevil and this gets turned against him in the courtroom. Different problem, but there's still that avenue available.
Beyond that, they bring in some different villains. Just in the 10 issues or so Martin and Rivera draw, Daredevil tangles with the Spot, Klaw, all the assorted organization in the picture above, and the Mole Man. Each of them in ways that fit with Daredevil. Mole Man doesn't try to attack the surface world, he steals all the bodies from the graveyard where Matt's father is buried. The Spot is a hired gun trying to kidnap a mob boss' daughter as part of an internal struggle in the organization.
The art is, fantastic, even if Martin and Rivera aren't on the book very long (Martin draws about 4 issues, Rivera 6). Martin seems like he's having a lot of fun with portraying how Matt perceives things through his senses. The way sound effects are written as part of a wall to show how they rebound off it. Sound effects originating in one panel, traveling into Daredevil's ear in the next panel, then carrying the eye back to the original panel because the source is moving. I just love the creativity of that kind of design.
Rivera doesn't go that route, but he opts for a neat depiction of the radar sense. Historically, it gets represented as a bunch of concentric circles originating at Matt's head, and you see a black outline of something. Rivera and Javier Rodriguez as the color artist go with more of a contour map view, where there's a lot of pink lines against black backgrounds showing you the shape of what he's "seeing". Which can be an especially cool visual with someone like the Spot, where the holes on him don't register as anything to the radar sense (presumably whatever Matt's brain is generating is simply swallowed up by them).
I think this is the book that convinced (reminded?) Marvel they could have successful titles if they paired talented writers and artists and just let them do their thing for the most part. Books that might not top the single issue sales charts like the big events, but would sell consistently well, and probably have a decent lifespan in the trade paperback market. Even if Martin and Rivera didn't stay past the first year. Fortunately, Marvel pretty quickly landed on another good artist for the book, who stuck around the rest of the way, and that's next week.
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