Random Back Issues #166 - Daredevil #356

When Sal Buscema's involved with the art, any object carries the force of a freight train. 

The issue opens with a gun to DD's head, while his caption box notes the day got off to such a good start. At this point, Matt and Foggy are working for famous lawyer (and Foggy's stepmom) Rosalind "Razor" Sharpe's firm. The client is Mr. Hyde, charged with murder and kidnapping of a woman named Angela Parish.

Hyde objects to the kidnapping charge, shattering the table in the prison visiting room. When Murdock points out that won't do much for a jury's opinion of him, Hyde says he just wanted to see one of them panic, and Foggy obliged. Hyde says there's a sealed letter in a PO Box from Angela, thanking him for keeping her locked up until she kicked her drug habit. So he couldn't have kidnapped her.

OK, first off, does Hyde change back to Dr. Zabo after a set amount of time, or does he require a potion to trigger that change? I've definitely seen Zabo change to Hyde by drinking something, but I'm not sure if it works the same both ways. Two, if the letter's never been opened, but he knows what's in it, how do you establish it wasn't written under duress? I guess you have to prove it was written under duress, innocent until proven guilty and all.

Matt and Foggy return to the office, where Karen Page is having a hard time dropping off a gift, because the receptionist is some scowly guy who was probably a Maggia enforcer. Matt and Karen retire to his office, with a lovely view of a brick wall, and Matt finds Karen got him a nice radio. A sign she got a job she really likes? Well, Karen won't commit to that yet. Give her a few days.. Not ominous at all.

Rosalind shows up, generally behaving like a dick. Calling Karen Matt's new secretary, bringing up Karen's rough past when she tried to be an actress. (Matt's putting up with this because Foggy really wants to work here, and Rosalind only hired them because of Matt. If he walks, Foggy's out on his butt.) Next up, a meeting with Liz Allen, currently running Osborn Chemicals (since Norman and Harry are both still dead at this point.) Angela was found in an Osborn warehouse, so Matt wonders if she was killed by someone connected to the Goblins. The warehouse was padlocked, but Liz points out Norman hid entrances into all his buildings.

As Foggy excuses himself for a call from his mother, a member of the moving crew tries to kill Rosalind. She got a senator's nephew off on a drunk driving charge, and six months later, Drunky killed the guy's sister. Matt knocks Rosalind clear, and the shooter is dropped with a fruit basket from the law firm's new neighbor, Misty Knight, hoping to make friends with the neighbors and get some work.

Which brings us back to page 1, as the person holding the gun is Misty, hired to find this secret entrance to help acquit Mr. Hyde. Misty wouldn't normally take the job, but Murdock being sure Hyde's innocent convinced her, and she doesn't think a person should be convicted for something they shouldn't do. Unfortunately, the warehouse is a mess after someone hired a Legacy Virus-infected Pyro to torch it, and he and Daredevil brought the place down.

Still, DD finds the hatch, I guess by his radar sense pinging off the odd shape, or it changed the acoustics in some noticeable way? He can't get it open, but Misty of the bionic arm can. Misty was hired to find the entrance, so her work's done, but the masked vigilante's is just beginning. Into the sewers he goes, where the tunnel is mostly collapsed, but there's silicon gel on the bricks. Could be Hyde's old partner, Cobra, but six hours of crawling through tunnels brings him to a room with several voices, including - Karen's?!

No, Karen Page's new job is not with the Enforcers, but they do have some new members. A contortionist named Snake Marston, who I've never heard of and DD thought was dead. The other, a guy named Hammer Harrision, a big mook with what looks like bricks strapped to his fists. Daredevil uses a nerve pinch to get loose of Snake and throw him into Hammer, in time for Ox and Montana to step in. Daredevil swipes Montana's lasso, but when he tries tying up Ox's wrists, he gets swung into a girder, then kicked by Fancy Dan.

The follow up karate chop hits the girder instead and gives Daredevil enough time to ask about Cobra. And get a bunch of confused and outraged responses in return. They aren't working for Cobra, but they do have one more new member. A guy that can also be slippery, and has electricity powers. Yep, it's the Eel. Please, no shocked gasps.

{3rd longbox, 96th comic. Daredevil #356, by Karl Kesel (writer), Sal Buscema (layouts, pgs. 1-13, 22-31), Cary Nord (penciler, pgs. 1-13, 22-31), Rick leonardi (penciler, pgs. 14-21), Matt Ryan (inker), Christie Scheele (colorist), Michael Higgins (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #116 - Daredevil #154

"Sinister yo-yo?" Matt's taken one too many shots to the head.

It feels like all the recent selections have been issues focused on set-up or exposition. Not this one. It's time for violence!

Daredevil's been hunting the Purple Man (rocking a cloak he must have stolen from Dracula), but Purple Man's got Matt's girlfriend, Heather Glenn under his control, along with a prison full of guards and convicts. If Daredevil doesn't play nice, Heather will shoot herself in the head.

Which leaves Hornhead up against four of his old foes: Gladiator, Jester, Cobra and Mr. Hyde. Oh come on, at least half those guys are total losers. What, the Enforcers weren't available? There's also no teamwork between the villains. Daredevil catches the sinister *chuckle* yo-yo and chucks the Jester Hyde's direction, but Hyde just backhands the moron away. Cobra tries to shoot Daredevil in the back, Matt simply ducks and lets the darts hit Gladiator.

Hyde's through fooling around and starts choking the life from Daredevil, shrugging off the best hits DD can throw. A mysterious shot knocks Hyde flat, courtesy of Paladin?! Who is also rocking a cape. I guess if you got Gene Colan drawing the book, everybody gets capes.

Paladin's after the bounty on Killgrave, but apparently he didn't read up on his target, because he gets close enough to be subject to the mind-control whammy. Still, he fights it off enough to shoot Purple Man instead of Daredevil, then seals up his costume so he's on internal air supply. Cobra and Gladiator are the only two left standing, and if they couldn't handle just Daredevil, they fold fast when the sides are even. Gladiator doesn't even get to finish saying "Great Ceasar's Gh - " before Daredevil says they've all heard that one before and gut punches him.

But Killgrave still has Heather pointing a gun at her own head. Paladin stands down, so DD grabs his gun, shoots the pistol out of Heather's hand, and now Killgrave's really up shit creek. He runs to a watchtower and tries blinding Daredevil with the spotlight. He'd learned Murdock was Daredevil, but assumed the blindness was a ruse. Realizing it wasn't, he lunges at Daredevil, screaming that he won't lose to a blind man.

Daredevil ducks and Killgrave falls into the ocean. Matt reflects it was too fast for him to save Killgrave, but also, he didn't he really try. Nor should he. Unfortunately, Purple Man would be back, repeatedly. Heather Glenn and Matt would eventually break up, and then Denny O'Neil would have her commit suicide during his tenure on the book. Because Murdock needed another dead girlfriend to self-flagellate over, apparently.

* See Sunday Splash Page #120 for a double-page depiction of the evil assemblage - Self-promoting Calvin

{3rd longbox, 50th comic. Daredevil #154, by Roger McKenzie (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker/colorist), Novak (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #104 - Daredevil #267

We looked at an issue from just before this one 2 years ago. At that point, Kingpin's plan to use Typhoid Mary had pretty effectively burned Matt's life to the ground. Now, Daredevil's going to finish the job himself.

But first he's gotta go to confession. He finds his mother telling a group of kids about how God forgives everyone, even Lucifer, which one of the kids says makes God stupid. Matt's confession is an awkward thing, as he mentions his using violence to achieve his ends, his infidelity, his desire to kill his enemies. The priest is a barely defined void on the other side of the screen, eyes just dark holes, but he tells Matt he's being too hard on himself, that he needs to control the murder urges, and that God forgives.

Matt storms out, insisting he can't control himself, nor be forgiven. Well. Never mind, then.

DD protects Lance, the son of Bullet, who recently beat hell out of Daredevil as part of Typhoid's plan, from some bullies. He comes home with him, intending to kill Bullet. But an apartment filled with boxes of food and supplies meant to sustain Lance after the nuclear war he's sure is coming is so depressing it weakens Matt's resolve. He tries focusing on the details, or "the inches", to avoid the big picture. The big picture means confronting all the fucking up he did, the ruin his life's become. The ruin this kid's life is. Better to focus on how Lance uses bubble gum to fix gun mounts.

Bullet shows up by smashing through the front door. He and Daredevil fight a bit, Matt unable to unravel the contradictions of him wanting revenge on this hired killer, who also loves his son in some strange, stunted fashion. Lance fires a gun to get them to stop, Bullet apologizes (sort of) for beating Daredevil up, but it was 'just business.' DD shrugs it off, because Bullet is ultimately just that, a bullet. The one to be angry with is the one responsible for sending the bullet his way. So, time to go after Typhoid or Kingpin, right?

Wrong. Matt buys a train ticket out of the city, again trying to focus on just what he hears and smells around him, rather than what he's doing (running away) and why he's doing it (because he fucked up.) They pass a small plane crash in a field, and Matt, without thinking, jumps off the train to help. Romita Jr. used that same wide-legged posture earlier in the comic, when Matt leapt from the church steeple. Significance of leaping into new danger, maybe?

The guy he drags out is insistent on running back into the fire to retrieve bags of junk food and radio equipment. Well, I suppose nose candy is a type of junk food. Since Matt's blind, the guy figures he didn't see the cocaine that spilled from the bag, and why not offer him a job on his farm, to be neighborly? Sure, what's the worst that could happen?

{3rd longbox, 77th comic. Daredevil #267, by Ann Nocenti (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Gregory Wright (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

Random Back Issues #63 - Daredevil #5

Oh, Matt Murdock, I bet you say that to all the girls. Wait, you do? Part of a court-ordered settlement? Yikes.

Last time we looked at Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's Daredevil, Foggy found he he had cancer. In this issue, he dies. But not of cancer!

At this point, Matt and Kirsten McDuffie are operating a law firm in San Francisco, since Matt got disbarred for committing perjury that time he insisted he wasn't Daredevil under oath. And the world at large believes Foggy Nelson is dead, but we know he isn't. This issue explains that.

Sometime before the move out west, Hank Pym's running around inside Foggy blasting any circulating tumor cells he comes across, to try and keep the cancer from spreading. Meanwhile, Matt and Foggy are walking in the park, discussing Matt's decision to admit he's Daredevil, and how this puts Foggy in danger. So Matt wants Foggy to pretend to die of cancer, and continue his treatments in secret.

Matt admits Foggy's family will hate him, and there'll be some explaining to do, but he's sure it'll be fine. Iron Man and Spider-Man are presumed dead all the time. Foggy notes they die big, while he's just going to die.

 

At which point the All-New, Fantastic Frog-Man attacks. Or is it the All-New, Leviathan Leapfrog. Either way, it's a big frog-mech now - expect the Runaways to show up and steal that thing - with mini-guns and chainsaws. And it's after Foggy. Daredevil pursues it into a crowded city street, at which point the pilot tries to bail, fighting desperately to get away. Because there's a bomb in the mech. 

Matt's already freed Foggy, and tells him he's the only one close enough to pilot the suit away and save everyone. So Foggy leaps it into the sky, and gets blown up. Or not, because Hank Pym was listening in and shrank Foggy to subatomic size, then they hitched a ride on some falling debris and drifted more or less gently onto a roof. Ta-da, instant fake heroic death!

 

The truth comes out eventually as part of a big thing with the Owl and the Shroud near the tail end of this run. Charles Soule somehow puts the secret identity genie back in the bottle, I don't know how. I was more annoyed Matt was not only back in New York, in a costume that was depressingly familiar to his '90s, Jack Batlin period costume, but also working for the District Attorney's office. Helping the city imprison people instead of helping keep them out. Delightful.

[3rd longbox, 133rd comic. Daredevil (vol. 4) #5, by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (storytellers), Javier Rodriguez (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)]

Random Back Issues #51 - Daredevil #263

Matt, you're going to get so much self-flagellation material out of this fuck-up.

It's a new year. Last year's purchases have been added to the boxes, some stuff has been culled, and things got redistributed a little bit, so let's see what we get randomly this year. First up, part of Daredevil's tie-in to Inferno!

We just missed the issue where Daredevil is nearly strangled to death by a demonically possessed vacuum cleaner, after Typhoid Mary had a bunch of people he'd fought recently kick the shit out of him. Then she took him to the hospital so she could twist the knife (figuratively) on Karen Page. Twisting the knife (literally) will be left to Mysterio. Karen flees and seems to embrace the demons' offer to fall back into her heroin addiction.

Matt gets up and running again on some instinct, after his possessed life-support equipment was either trying to save his life, or eat his heart. Maybe both. He's wrapped up like a mummy, down to his boots, part of his mask, and his costume is basically a pair of Daisy Dukes. But that's not gonna stop him, as he heads below the streets, where a subway train is possessed and ready to take a bunch of people to their next stop. No, not Shea Stadium, someplace even worse.

 

Elsewhere, Typhoid is rocking a nice new helmet and cape as she informs Fisk that Daredevil isn't dead. Kingpin's not too pleased, but Typhoid is, since she can kill him again. And, you know, she's sort of in love with him. Fisk insists she stay with him, and Typhoid just laughs. I appreciated the way that Fisk wanted Typhoid to turn Matt/Daredevil inside out, attack his heart, and while she did that, she also did it to Fisk, too. Now he wants Typhoid, the way Matt wants Mary. And Typhoid enjoys getting the reactions out of both of them.

 

She lets in a demon I don't think is Mephisto, who she describes as Wilson's boss. Fisk denies this, claiming that he's the boss. The demon counters that Fisk sold them his soul years ago. 'A small thing. A tiny soul - an intangible worthless thing - worthless to you, that is.'

Daredevil's attempt to use the controls to stop the Hell-locomotive predictably fails, so he climbs outside and tries to steer it via its horns. It works, and they reemerge on the surface, all the passengers carried gently back to Earth while the demon, a thing of 'A thousand eyes a thousand teeth a thousand horns and spikes a thousand horrors' grabs hold of Daredevil as they crash roughly in the street.

 

It spits hellfire at Matt, designed to burn the soul, little realizing the power of Catholicism means guilt only makes Matt stronger. As long as he can avoid confronting what he's guilty about, that is. DD takes it head on, his billy club growing as he does, until he hits the creature between a couple of its thousand eyes and sends it packing back below. Laying bleeding in the street, he's approached by one of the local kids, Butch, who tells him the legal clinic was closed by the cops, and that Karen's gone, her and Matt's flat burned. Butch is sure Matt betrayed her (true), and then vanished somewhere (not yet).

The next issue is unconnected to Inferno, about the Owl using a bunch of punks who think he's passe to rip off a bunch of cocaine shipments so he can get real wings, and a baby a bum found a few issues earlier getting caught up in. Drawn by Steve Ditko. I'm not doing the tonal whiplash justice, especially when they go back to Daredevil wandering New York in a haze, beating the crap out of demons in the issue after that. A couple of issue later, he does flee NYC for over a year. During which he fights the Blob and Pyro, kills the craziest Ultron ever, and fights Mephisto in Hell, among other things.

[3rd longbox, 54th comic. Daredevil #263, by Ann Nocenti (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Max Scheele (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #128

"Matt's More In the Dark than Usual", in Daredevil (vol. 4), #15, by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (storytellers), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

When Waid and Samnee's previous volume of Daredevil concluded, Matt was disbarred in New York for admitting he really was Daredevil, meaning he committed perjury all those times in the past he insisted he wasn't. But, he used to practice law in California, so they moved the new series out there.

Naturally, because this is Marvel we're talking about, they started the new series the very next month after the old one ended, and bumped up the price a dollar. Definitely a wise and sustainable strategy!

This volume started up during the second wave of Marvel NOW! I think it was "All-New Marvel NOW!", but hell if I'm going back to check. It started the month after G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona's Ms. Marvel and the Charles Soule/Javier Pulido She-Hulk book, to mention two things that came out during that stretch I also bought. It ran until Marvel canceled their entire line as part of Jonathan Hickman's lousy (also horribly-paced and constantly behind schedule) Secret Wars event.

After - or actually before, because again, poorly paced and behind schedule - Secret Wars ended, Waid and Samnee moved on to the Black Widow book we looked at for Sunday Splash Page #90. So Marvel didn't entirely dismiss the notion of giving specific creative teams their own titles and just letting them run with it, but it felt like it lost some momentum with the complete disruption of their entire publishing line for several months because of an event which didn't do anything so extreme it couldn't have been done without the aforementioned complete disruption of the entire publishing line.

The main theme of this 18-issue run seems to be "information". Or maybe "secrets", but that's information. What the value of information is, and to who. The vulnerabilities it creates, the ways it can be twisted, either with intent, or unconsciously. Waid and Samnee bring in the Owl, a man obsessed with knowing as much as possible, as a recurring threat. This is intermixed with the Shroud, who doesn't exactly fare well under Waid's pen as a broken man obsessed with trying to get back some sense of happiness. There's one particular piece of information he thinks will give him that back, and he pursues it relentlessly.

There's also Kirsten's father offering Matt a lot of money for Daredevil's life story, which will be Matt trying to figure out what he's comfortable revealing about himself. He gradually tries to lean into the fact that now everyone knows he's Daredevil, which makes him a celebrity. Starts wearing a flashy red suit (as seen above) both when he fights crime and in the courtroom. (If that page where he presents himself as "Daredevil for the defense, your honor!" with his cane leaned over his shoulder had been a splash page, I absolutely would have used it.)

Even that is just a form of him trying to control how that information is perceived, in the same way he tries to include a highly jaundiced account of his first meeting with Hawkeye in the book, only to have Foggy call him on it hilariously. It's Matt trying to act as if this isn't a huge weak spot for him. But Samnee does draw the hell out of Matt in that suit, along with a lot of good fight scenes. He tones down the Owl's weird, Wolverine-style spiked up hair look, but emphasizes his tendency to lurk above you and stare ominously. Even though I have a hard time taking the character seriously, it's not for lack of effort on the creative team's part.

Sunday Splash Page #127

"Where Do You Even Begin?" in Daredevil (vol. 3) #20, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

As Martin and Rivera were moving off the book, there's a brief lull punctuated by some random crossovers (with Amazing Spider-Man, and the a 3-part crossover with Greg Rucka's Punisher book and Avenging Spider-Man), plus a couple of issues drawn by Khoi Pham, before the book lands Chris Samnee as the regular artist. Samnee would remain the artist for most of the last 23 issues, minus roughly four covered by Mike Allred, Javier Rodriguez, and Chris Copland.

During Samnee's time as artist, Matt faces the repercussions of stealing an enormously valuable data drive from the five groups seen in last week's selection, and has his perceptions and grasp of the world around him called into doubt. The latter leads to a brief falling out between Matt and Foggy, who has been harboring suspicions Matt is faking being cheerful and well-adjusted a little too much.

At around the two-year mark, Daredevil confronts the old foe behind all the challenges he'd faced up to the point, which included an evil version of himself in a knockdown drag-out fight issue Samnee and Rodriguez illustrate beautifully. One that turned on a surprise revelation that worked as an excellent "oh shit!" moment.

After that, the creative team shift gears to a few intertwining narratives. Matt realizes the justice system is rife with members of the racist hate group the Sons of the Serpent at all levels, and tries to root them out through avenues both legal and supernatural. There's also Matt trying to help Foggy cope with his illness, and Matt and former Assistant D.A. Kirsten McDuffie trying to figure out what they want to be to each other.

(While I think McDuffie downplays the danger inherent in dating Matt Murdock, I do appreciate her desire to maintain distance so her life isn't entirely swallowed up by his life.)

I've seen Samnee's work get compared to Alex Toth's frequently, and while I'm not expert of Toth's work, from what I've seen it's not a bad comparison. Samnee has a good handle on all the necessary aspects of being a comic artist. Conveying whatever information is needed, drawing fight scenes, emotional scenes, just cool or weird shit. He incorporates sound effects into his layouts in clever ways. The shadows in his story are much deeper, heavier than either Rivera or Martin's, but he also takes over as artist at the point when Matt's attempts to remain positive run up against a series of difficult challenges. Remaining upbeat is harder when your best friend thinks you've gone nuts and you're starting to wonder yourself.

Sunday Splash Page #126

"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.

Sunday Splash Page #125

"There's a New Man Without Fear in Town," in Daredevil #360, by Karl Kesel (writer), Cary Nord (penciler), Matt Ryan (inker), Christie Scheele (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

After somehow sorting the whole mess with being presumed dead, and running around in a gritty, armored costume for awhile, Karl Kesel's brief run on the book attempted to move Hornhead back more towards what he was originally. More swashbuckling, smart-mouthed, bantering with his enemies. After so much personal disaster, it feels like it should come off as forced, Matt's own more upbeat version of the "inhuman creature" bit Jack Ryder used to pull as the Creeper. But, maybe because Kesel commits to it, has Matt keep cracking jokes and quips, and doesn't provide a lot of internal monologue about how it's an act, it doesn't feel out of place.

The costume is a lighter, if not more brilliant, shade of red. Less of a grimy feel to things. He's out in the daylight a lot more during this stretch, and the days seem brighter than they were during Nocenti's run. New York doesn't seem quite as grimy or run down as it did in Nocenti's run, although maybe that's just because Murdock has moved back up in the world, economically.

Matt's back to being a lawyer with Foggy, although they get hired onto the firm of a notorious lawyer named Rosalind Sharpe, who has a connection with Foggy. Foggy is finally in on Matt's secret, and more than a little pissed about being in the dark all those years, so Matt keeps trying to make it up to him. By working for Sharpe for one thing, since she makes Foggy's employment reliant on Matt also working there. He's managed to mostly patch things up with Karen Page (they were just starting to try during Last Rites).

This is post-Onslaught, so it's perhaps understandable Daredevil moves more outside his wheelhouse, what with most of the other heroes "dead". He's facing down the Absorbing Man, Grey Gargoyle, Mr. Hyde shows up again, Pyro appears for I think, either his last appearance, or close to it. I think he crops up one more time in X-Men post-Zero Tolerance before the Legacy Virus kills him.

Actually, this run in general provides kind of an interesting snapshot of Marvel at the moment. Daredevil teams up with Spider-Man, except it's Ben Reilly in his version of the Spider-Man costume (the one Spider-Girl would appropriate). Reilly's strangely willing to discuss the fact he thought he was a clone with Daredevil, but I guess he has memories of their earliest team-ups. Foggy starts a tentative romance with Liz Osborn/Allan, who is running Oscorp with Harry dead and Norman not yet revealed to be alive. Black Widow pops up, closer to her more professional and ruthless characterization of the last couple decades, but she's acting out of grief and guilt, thinking she's going down as the last leader of the Avengers, who let her entire team get killed.

Gene Colan comes on as artist for the last few issues, which involve Dr. Fear trying to do. . . something involving the radio station Karen is working at as a late night host. I don't remember what the plot was, probably something about driving people nuts with sub-harmonics in the broadcast frequency. Colan makes New York a murky, shadowy place, but still cleaner than it had been for the past 100+ issues. Just atmospheric.

Kesel's run ends at #364, with Joe Kelly and later Scot Lobdell stepping in as writer for the last 15 over so issues before the title was canceled, then started over for the Kevin Smith/Joe Quesada run. Which led to Bendis, then to Brubaker, and a whole lot of miserable crap. All of which I ignored, so next Sunday we'll skip over all that to the next restart.

Sunday Splash Page #124

"Wait, I've Seen This What If? Before", in Daredevil #297, by D.G. Chichester (writer), Lee Weeks (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Max Scheele (colorist), Jack Morelli (letterer)

D.G. Chichester took over as writer on Daredevil after Ann Nocenti's run concluded. He joined Lee Weeks, who had taken over as penciler on Nocenti's last story arc after John Romita Jr. left the book, and Al Williamson, who had been the main inker on the book for maybe the last 50 or so issues. Chichester wrote the book for about 40 issues, although Weeks and Williamson both left at the conclusion of the Last Rites story that ended in #300.

Last Rites is the only part of Chichester's run I still own. His time on the book might be better known for being the part where Matt fakes his own death and assumes the alias Jack Batlin, while Daredevil sports a new armored costume that's mostly black. Because it was the Nineties, and that's what you did.

As for Last Rites, it's basically Matt putting the Kingpin through his own Born Again, stripping away everything he can from Fisk. Fisk has his own TV station by this point (established right at the end of Nocenti's run, when Fisk concludes the media is important enough he should have his own company to massage the message to suit his purposes), which is financed at least partially by HYDRA. SHIELD tries to use Matt against them, Matt instead pits Fisk and HYDRA against each other. Which ends as badly as you'd expect for a crime boss going up against a decades-old, international terrorist organization with all kinds of crazy super-science. Fisk is basically pushed until he breaks, and makes a public spectacle of himself in a brawl/chase with Daredevil that covers several blocks.

Fisk ends up on the bottom, Matt gets his license to practice law back for the first time in 70 issues. of course, in less than two years, Matt's "dead", and Fisk is clawing his way back up before this story is even done. So neither of them is any good at destroying the other.I don't know what it's supposed to say that the only way Matt could "win" against Fisk is to use Fisk's own tactics against him. I kind of preferred his way of winning at the end of Born Again, which was to pick up the pieces he could and go forward from there. That still lets Fisk take away Matt's ability to (openly) practice law and help people that way, though. So maybe it was necessary to undo that to take away the last vestige of that win.

The part of the story that always sticks with me is from the issue above, when Matt removes Typhoid Mary from the picture. By responding positively to her flirtations, which throws her enough Mary reemerges. At which point, Matt gets her committed. And yes, Typhoid is a murderer, and Mary needs psychiatric help, but I'm really leery of Matt forging judge's and doctors' signatures on the paperwork to expedite the process of getting someone put in an insane asylum. Or whatever you want to call it.

There's a page at the end where Mary is confused and freaking out, and the guy from social services says if she doesn't calm down, they're gonna use the straitjacket. Then in the next panel, they're putting the straitjacket on her already.

But hey, Matt threw up in Foggy's toilet the next morning, so he feels really bad about it, guys. Look, I have this whole thing about someone else declaring you nuts, and then you're basically screwed. Because who's going to listen to you if you complain about your treatment? You're crazy, after all.

Sunday Splash Page #123

"Who Needs Avengers?" in Daredevil #276, by Ann Nocenti (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Max Scheele (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

The end of Ann Nocenti's first year on Daredevil saw John Romita Jr. take over as regular penciler for the next 30+ issues, and the series moved into a longer story of Matt falling to pieces. You could say heck, Born Again was only 20 issues ago, do we need to see that again? I think the difference is we watch the fall slowly but steadily happen, rather than an almost immediate crash, and this time, it's partially of Matt's own doing. He knows he's digging his own grave, and keeps going.

This was the first lengthy stretch of Daredevil comics I really encountered, but doing so in dribs and drabs, the scattered issue here and there, makes for an odd experience. Matt goes from "ghost lawyering" a case against a chemical company that illegally dumped waste and blinded a child, to fighting Ultron. From trying to convince a group of kids not to idolize the two criminals running around robbing and beating people up on Christmas, to being trapped in Hell.

The Kingpin makes his move, deciding if taking tangible things from Murdock - his money, his home, his license to practice law - didn't destroy him, maybe taking intangible things - love, his faith in the legal system - will. There's also an element of jealousy, where Fisk doesn't have Vanessa any longer, but Murdock and Karen Page are back together.

Ultimately, Fisk is only 1-for-2. Kelco loses their case in court, despite all Fisk's attempts to use money and influence to destroy evidence or sway jurors. But using Typhoid Mary to destroy Murdock personally works perfectly. Matt falls for sweet, innocent Mary (and vice versa, which creates its own kind of frustrating trap for Typhoid), making out with her when Karen's not around. Daredevil is equal parts repelled and attracted by Typhoid, who loves to play the aggressor, taunt and confuse the vigilante. Matt wins the case, but is too trapped in self-loathing over how badly he's fucked everything up, how he's let down people who believed in him, to enjoy it.

He spends a couple of issues of Inferno tie-ins either nearly being strangled by a possessed vacuum cleaner, or walking around beating up demons like an automaton. Even if he's not giving in to his worst impulses like many others, he's too wrapped up in his own shit to see he's not really helping anything. Because he doesn't care.

Then Nocenti sends him scurrying out of New York, rather than sticking it out and trying to fix things. Granted, this isn't a new approach. Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen as "hard-traveling heroes", Superman walking across America, Steve Rogers traveling around as The Captain. It's a thing writers do, putting the hero in new settings to explore the character. But usually the character is trying to rediscover themselves, or connect to people. Matt Murdock just wants to run away from all his failures. Romita Jr. draws Matt stubbled and dirty, withdrawn and sour. The broad shoulders he gives everyone bow under the weight of just how badly Murdock's screwed the pooch.

Despite Matt saying he's not looking to help he anyone, he keeps coming across people who need it. A young telekinetic being hunted by the Blob and Pyro, both of them drunk off the free hand working for the authorities gives them. A young woman railing angrily at her father and the world, without really grasping what she's trying to accomplish. (Her name's Brandy, so for some reason when I first read some of the issues were her in them, I thought Nocenti brought in Rom's old love interest Brandy Clark. Wouldn't have been the strangest thing that happened.)

Brandy's father has scientists trying to create the "perfect" woman for him, who is, of course, an absurd combination of traits meant solely to please him, regardless of whether it makes any sense, or suits what she wants. The Inhumans show up, looking for Medusa and Black Bolt's kid. Dr. Doom sends the craziest Ultron (he builds himself a mountain out of the heads of previous Ultrons) ever after Daredevil to try and show up the Kingpin. Mephisto creates his own son, who then drags Daredevil and his little bunch to Hell, only to decide his father is stupid and wrong and that there's no point to what he wants to accomplish. That Mephisto is crying for attention, rather than actively trying to corrupt. Matt has to stop simply reacting to only what's in front of him, stop letting himself be sucked into the madness around him, and start actually thinking about what he's doing and why.

Romita Jr. draws Mephisto in a way I've never seen anyone else do, making him just vaguely human-shaped. Long fingers, no nose, a huge mouth with no teeth, hair more like giant quills. His son, Blackheart is, again, vaguely human-shaped, but just black all over with spines jutting in all directions. Most of the time Daredevil's in Hell, it's a snowy void until he actually reaches Mephisto, at which point it becomes the more conventional caves full of pits of fire and towering rock cliffs.

It's just an intensely strange run, and I love it. Matt fights weird stuff outside his typical wheelhouse. He's not grim and angry exactly, as he would get in so many later runs. He breaks, but rather than turn evil, he becomes more indifferent and cynical. He's exhausted mentally, to the point he seems to tune out conversations and just linger in his own world. Other times, all he can do is laugh, but it's not carefree, but the laughter of someone who gave up on doing anything. He doesn't figure it's worth trying.

The run feels very of its time, with a lot stories focused on environmentalism, whether that's pollution or confined animal feeding operations, and there's a fair amount of post-Cold War concern about nukes and humanity destroying itself that way. In Romita Jr.'s first issue, Nocenti introduces a government agent/freelance hitman named Bullet, who has a son named Lance who becomes a doomsday prepper after learning about the aftermath of using atomic weapons. Lance and Bullet are recurring characters throughout, the boy only going deeper into his attempts to cope with his fears, while Bullet can't find the words to help Lance conquer them.

Nocenti's not exactly a subtle writer much of the time, like the issue where Typhoid sics a bunch of other crooks on Daredevil, and he gets the shit kicked out of him in the middle of an anti-war protest march. Which then naturally devolves into a fight between opposing sides before scaling into a full-blown riot. Matt wanted to march for peace, and instead he's fighting and swinging at anyone who comes in range. Characters make speeches about how heroes may be like nukes themselves, or how they can't be acting for peace if they're always using violence. Extremely on-the-nose kind of stuff, which I imagine could be off-putting depending on the style of writing you like.

But there's an earnestness to it that speaks to me, and stilted dialogue doesn't necessarily bother me as long as I can tell what they're talking about, and it actually interests me. Some of it's probably nostalgia, but it really feels like these are things Nocenti's really interested in and trying to sort out her own thoughts about, and that makes it fascinating to me.

JRJR's art has continued to move in that more blocky, Kirbyesque direction it started in his time with Claremont on Uncanny X-Men. The characters are probably pretty by our standards, but they don't feel superhero comic pretty, if that makes sense. And that fits. Daredevil's dealing with a lot of people who are having hard times. Drug addicts, kids from broken homes, people living in poverty. Most of his enemies aren't gods or anything, they're angry people who grabbed whatever was at hand and turned it on others. Even Bullet, for all that he may work for the rich and powerful, is just a leg breaker at the end of the day.

Devil's Critic

After Mark Waid and Chris Samnee wrapped up their run on Daredevil, Charles Soule and Ron Garney took over. They promptly moved Murdock back to New York, put the secret identity genie back in the bottle (somehow), and most relevantly to this post, made Matt Murdock an assistant District Attorney.

Not having read much of the run beyond what I've seen online, I don't know Soule's purpose behind that move, other than it hadn't been done with Murdock before. But it always struck me as a bad decision, in the same way I'm not a fan of the trend of superheroes working officially as agents of the government or SHIELD or whatever. If the state already has power, which it will deploy violently and unevenly against its people, why the hell should I want to see the state have more power at its disposal? Whether that's the Vision being part of SHIELD, with all the shady shit it does, or Matt Murdock using his legal skills to put people in jail for having weed on them or whatever.

Whatever people might say about Justice being blind, and how that's a good thing, it doesn't take much looking around our world to see Justice is blind to how often it's swayed by a great many things. Money. Influence. The color of your skin. Gender. If you happen to be wearing a badge on your chest when you shoot people. If you're lacking in some of these things, or are the "wrong" one of the others, the scales are tipped against you whether you're up against another citizen, a corporation, or the state.

Superheroes are accurately criticized as protectors of the status quo, since we don't see the super-scientist solving world hunger or curbing climate change. And for all that he isn't upending the entire legal system, one thing pretty consistent about Matt Murdock is he defends people who don't have those things in their favor, who are not benefiting from the status quo. Even if he can't act directly. During the Nocenti run, he and Karen open a clinic that, among other things, allows a disbarred Matt to "ghost lawyer", so people who can't afford an attorney of his caliber can advocate for themselves and have a fighting chance. In the Waid run, he and Foggy went back to that approach. He wasn't disbarred, but everyone thinking he was Daredevil made it difficult to try a case without it getting bogged down in a lot of talk about him being a costumed vigilante.

Point being, he worked to protect people the system wasn't serving fairly, trying to give them an advantage to even the odds. You could argue that his enhanced senses, with all the clues he can gain from them, are an extra thumb on the scale to help balance things out even a little more. That was where superheroes started at, Superman using his powers to save innocent men about to die by electrocution, or busting up slumlords the law wasn't touching for one reason or another. The system is imperfect, has flaws, has gaps. People fall through, or are otherwise ill-served by it, and here's someone with the ability to address that in at least some small way, to help this person in their time of need..

I'm guessing Soule wanted to show Murdock trying to address those gaps from within, rather than without, but maybe I'm too cynical to think he would have much luck reforming things from within. he became Daredevil in part because the system wasn't working the way he thought it was meant to, while at the same time acting as a defense attorney to protect people caught up in it. Now he's working for that system? Maybe he can argue the District Attorney's office should decline to prosecute people arrested on bogus charges, or suspect searches, or push for lighter sentences for smaller crimes, but I'm not sure he can actually make those things happen.

Sunday Splash Page #122

"Do You Know Who Your Children Are Racing?", in Daredevil #248, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Petra Scotese (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

So we hit the first major run of Daredevil for me. Ann Nocenti wrote the book for about 50 issues (#236-291, with a few fill-ins here and there). The part that gets talked about most is the ~30 issue stretch in the middle with John Romita Jr. as penciler, and we'll get to that next week. But I did want to touch on the first year this week, because of how it winds things around to where they are and where they go for that later part.

It picks up where Born Again left the character: Matt is disbarred, but living in Hell's Kitchen with Karen Page. Matt's working as a cook for a local diner, and since most of the people he encounters have no idea who Matt Murdock is, he's dispensed with playing the blind man. So as far as helping people goes, there's only Daredevil and what he can do, and none of what Matt Murdock, lawyer extraordinaire brought to the table. There's also Karen feeling torn between her love and admiration for Matt and the good he does in costume, with her discomfort at how often he's doing good by beating the shit out of people. Matt struggles with trying to talk people down, or convince them to do good, but this is superhero comics so that tends to fall through. And sometimes people don't want to be helped, or push back at Daredevil's notion he has the right to interfere in their lives at all.

Most of the stories during this stretch are one or two parters, mostly dealing with one-off threats or minor villains. A young man raised with a massive phobia of disease and toxins by an overprotective mother, who decides to try and poison everyone in his apartment building because they're so unclean. A union leader who grows so frustrated with the greed and disinterested cruelty of the wealthy, he starts killing them (which also turns into a whole argument about where the line is between reporting violent news and glorifying it for sales, as a Daily Bugle reporter tries to use this to make his name.) Bushwacker, a hitman with an arm he change into firearms, running around killing gifted people who are suspected to be mutants. Daredevil's trying to save him (mostly from Wolverine who is out to end the guy) for Bushwacker's fiance, but also stop him from killing anyone else. As with all compromises, nobody goes home happy from that one.

The book shifts through a series of artists, the title's shift in look going along with Murdock trying to find his footing, his path forward. Louis Williams draws four issues (the two with Rotgut, the man freaked out about disease, and two with a voodoo drug-running operation), and nobody else handles more than two, mostly just one. You have what I'd call more traditional superhero style artists, in the Gil Kane/Neal Adams mold like Chuck Patton and Keith Pollack, as well as fairly early Todd MacFarlane for an issue. Sal Buscema draws the second issue Nocenti writes, a Mutant Massacre tie-in, while Rick Leonardi handles the last two issues before Romita Jr.

But the first issue Nocenti writes is drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith, and involves a version of the Black Widow that's nearly unrecognizable after the last two decades of her being this entirely professional, always cool under fire, greatest secret agent ever type. When Nocenti loops back around to follow-up on that story, with Natasha struggling with the psychological toll of killing someone who had been made into a weapon, Keith Giffen steps on art chores.

Sunday Splash Page #121

"What's Red, White, Blue and Bleeding All Over?", in Daredevil (vol. 1) #233, by Frank Miller (writer), David Mazzucchelli (artist), Max Scheele (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

Starting from Frank Miller's initial run on the book, through Born Again, with Denny O'Neill's run in the middle, I have about six issues. Which is probably not enough to merit touching on, except that so much of what came after was following the same gameplan, or could be seen as a reaction to the trends established during this stretch. The ninjas, the Catholic guilt, the misery.

Oh, the misery. If Matt's not sad over Bullseye killing Elektra, he's miserable over Heather killing herself, or Karen Page has wound up addicted to heroin. Or the Kingpin is destroying his entire life. Taking his money, his legal practice, his home, his friendship, his reputation, and briefly, his sanity. Fun times.

I think Born Again does work pretty well as a single story. It's not Miller or Mazzucchelli's fault writers can't stop going to the same well, in more or less the same fashion again and again. Wilson Fisk trying to destroy a good man, while also trying to buy his own way into the rarefied air of high society. He hasn't stopped being the same criminal he was before, he just wants people to forget about that, or ignore it. it's a long where from where he started, and he wants in.

I don't know if Miller had an opinion about Matt and Karen Page as a couple, but I find the fact she's the one who ultimately sold Matt's secret identity away, interesting, given how the Kingpin's own marriage went. Fisk had to send Vanessa to Europe just to protect her from his shit, his life was poisonous to her. Karen went away, comes back feeling about as low as possible, when Matt's in about as bad a way as possible, and the two of them end up picking themselves back up together.

Mazzucchelli's art has this real focus on both Fisk and Murdock as people, outside their costumes. Matt spends a lot of time in plainclothes, and Fisk seems to spend a lot of time working out or in steam rooms. Lot of panels of him sweating. There's a fair amount of him staring at the city from his hi-rise office in a fancy suit, but even then, he's either a shadowed outline, or it's an extreme close-up of his face. Which is imposing, but also reminds that this is meant to be a human, glaring out at the world, full of spite. Maybe Fisk would have gotten the acclaim and acceptance he wanted if he just focused on that, instead of relentlessly trying to finish off Murdock every time the blind man tries to pick himself up.

As for Matt, I mentioned last week one of the first Daredevil comics I owned was issue #228. Matt spends the entire issue in regular clothes, being slightly unhinged. Mazzucchelli draws him as what I'd call "movie star scruffy" - he's got stubble, but it's even and his hair is still relatively neat, and the clothes he's wearing aren't anything special, but they're clean and whole - rather than "near-destitute and dangerously paranoid scruffy" like Matt apparently is by then.

(Honestly, Matt in that issue reminds me a little of Stallone in Cobra. Maybe it's just the big, reflective sunglasses.)

That said, the way the violence is portrayed tells the story quite nicely. That when Matt punches a guy during a fight in the subway, the guy's head cracks the glass in the subway door on impact from the first punch, to say nothing of the second. Mazzucchelli (who handles the color duties himself in that issue) uses this extremely vivid red for the blood that is startlingly bright against every surface in the issue. Including Fisk's nose when Matt hits him across the face with a nightstick.

It's not like I hadn't seen comics where a character gets punched through a building before this, but characters tend to get up from that. Even if they don't, you don't see them mangled, and I can't really process what having a building fall on you feels like. My head hitting glass hard enough to crack it is more relatable, which makes it more impactful. Same way I was more squeamish watching Evil Dead when someone got stabbed in the ankle with a pencil than I was about Ash losing an entire hand. Point being, the story makes them feel less like these larger-than-life characters, and more like just a couple of dudes who really hate each other.

Sunday Splash Page #120

"The Good Old Days Weren't So Good," in Daredevil #154, by Roger McKenzie (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker/colorist), Novak (letterer)

I only own one Daredevil comic from the pre-Miller years, and I don't remember how I ended up with this one. Someone gave it to me, but the identity of the person is lost. But hey, Gene Colan art, I couldn't pass that up, right?

I feel as though the broad strokes history of Daredevil is that he was a cheerful swashbuckler type until Frank Miller threw him into a world of ninjas and dead girlfriends, and that's largely where he's stayed ever since, minus the occasional creative team that goes against the flow in one way or the other.

Don't know if that's true or not. This issue is about Daredevil being forced to fight several of his worst foes or the Purple Man will make his girlfriend, Heather Glenn, kill herself. Daredevil spends the entire issue being desperate and furious. Paladin, of all characters, ends up coming to the rescue. It's the only time I've ever seen that guy wearing a cape. The Purple Man knows Daredevil is Matt Murdock, and deduces that Murdock really is blind after his attempt to use a spotlight on him proves ineffective. Purple Man even falls to his "death" by lunging stupidly at Daredevil, because he can't accept losing to a blind man. The enemies are more brightly colored and grandiose in their speech than Miller's, but the broad strokes are kind of similar. If there's any swashbuckling in here, it's Paladin, whose a cocky merc.

This issue does end with DD and Heather walking off together, so that's a bright spot compared to how things went with the whole Bullseye/Elektra thing.

Heather Glenn seems like the forgotten woman in the long string of Murdock's failed relationships. It's always about Karen Page, or Elektra, or maybe the Black Widow (the only one to survive largely unscathed). But I think Heather got engaged to Matt, then forced into breaking it off, and then the late Denny O'Neill had her commit suicide about 65 issues after this one. In that one, she calls Matt up, drunk, and pretends to be in trouble to get him to come visit. He ignores a domestic disturbance as a result, the woman ends up being killed, and then Matt yells at Heather when she calls again. You'd think the time a deeply depressed woman reached out to Daredevil for help, only to get shoved over a cliff instead, would get more play. More guilt for the good Catholic boy.

That comic might actually be the first Daredevil comic I owned. If not, it's the second behind the issue of Born Again where Matt loses it, tries to fight the Kingpin in plainclothes and gets his dick kicked in.

Random Back Issues #28 - Daredevil #23

Come on Foggy, Stilt-Man was last month's villain. Except not really, since that issue involved a team-up with Octavius running around in Spider-Man's body. I cannot believe they let that status quo exist for two years.

The early part of the issue is spent with someone trying to recreate the circumstances that created Daredevil. Right down to making people push a blind man out of the way of a truck hauling toxic waste. And Murdock can say what he wants about that company's poor environmental safety protocols, but we got four heroes in a half-shell out of that accident.

Meanwhile, DD is showing Foggy around town via the rooftop route. Foggy might have cancer, and is trying to learn how to confront such terrible news with courage from his friend who routinely throws himself into danger. They pause for a bit to discuss recent developments, how DD thinks all the random foes he's faced since Mark Waid took over as writer might not be so random. Especially since the last one, a guy calling himself Coyote and using the Spot's powers, pretty much told him he's in the crosshairs. Which is when Foggy jokingly suggests Stilt-Man.

Everyone enjoys a good laugh, until Matt hears trouble and runs to investigate. He finds a bunch of odd people trashing a fancy party and behaving erratically. These would be all the attempts to recreate him that actually survived exposure. But as they're new to their heightened senses, they're basically out of their minds from sensory overload.

Daredevil spends hours hunting them across town and subduing them. It's hard in some ways, since they have the same senses as him - there's a point he tries to punch a guy in the back of the head while the guy's snacking on some melon, and the dude just ducks while Matt crashes into the produce stand - but pretty easy in others since they aren't used to dealing with these senses and knowing how to block things out. He stops a bunch of them by just hitting them on the wrists and shins with his billy club, although I imagine I wouldn't want to move if Daredevil cracked me in the leg with that thing, either. Love the echo effect being centered on the guy's ear.

Matt does make it to the hospital in time to be there with Foggy when he gets his results. He picks up a rapid heartbeat, which he initially mistakes for Foggy's, but is actually the doctor. Sorry, Foggy. I was sure it would be heart disease that got you (the previous issue Matt buys him a Limburger and bacon cheesecake as a peace offering, which clogs my arteries to even contemplate).

Two issues from now, Daredevil will confront the pinnacle of the mystery bad guy's plan to strike at him. It's a really fun fight-filled issue. Foggy survives cancer, but they fake his death eventually when Matt drops any pretense of maintaining that he isn't Daredevil. Which I think gets him disbarred, and results in his moving to San Francisco when this volume is canceled, then immediately restarted the very next month with a new first issue, but the same creative team, and costing a dollar more. Marvel Comics, everyone!

{3rd longbox, 171st comic. Daredevil (vol. 3) #23, by Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}

It Wouldn't Be Daredevil If Things Didn't Go To Hell

I finished Daredevil season 2. Spoilers follow if that even matters at this point. The ninjas showed up pretty much right after I posted those comments last week. Nelson & Murdock (and Page) fell apart right around then, too. I tended to sympathize with Foggy a lot, since he hadn't even wanted to take on defending Frank Castle, Matt and Karen talked him into it, and then Matt promptly dropped out of sight, leaving Foggy holding the bag.

The stuff I enjoyed most was the part with the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) in prison. The fight between him and all of Dutton's soldiers for one, but especially his interactions with Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio). D'Onofrio is out there chewing scenery, giving all these raspy-voiced speeches about "the law of nature" or whatever, and Bernthal just looks bored and impatient. It's all bullshit, he knows it, the audience knows it. We know Fisk is trying to use Frank to his own purposes, and so does Frank. And Fisk knows Frank knows, but he also understands Frank well enough to know it doesn't matter. Frank can't pass up the chance to get a shot at yet another person involved in the death of his family, who might have leads to still others.

Bernthal did well as Frank Castle. Ennis' aged, grim engine of destruction has taken firm root in my brain, but this is a Frank just starting out. I don't think he's reached the point where it goes beyond simply getting the people who killed his family until right at the end. The point when he burns his home down, burying that man and his life, that's probably the point when he really becomes The Punisher. The pain and the fury is a lot closer to the surface.

I was excited when Stick started talking about the Hand wanting to unleash something truly horrible. I envisioned some awful creature inside that giant urn, and the idea of Daredevil fighting a monster or demon sounded pretty appealing. Actually, when he and Elektra found that deep hole, I thought all right, let's have them fight the Mole Man. I knew that wasn't happening, but it was nice to dream for a moment.

Seeing Elektra (Elodie Yung) as a sort of free-wheeling, fun-loving type was a little odd. It made sense with the idea she and Matt met when they were younger and less obsessed, I guess I'm just used to seeing her as basically humorless. Yung did pretty well, there's a sense of someone who got a lot of mixed messages as a kid, and at some point said screw it, she's make her own choices. She and Charlie Cox had decent chemistry, nothing spectacular, but the characters situation is such a mess that might be appropriate. There's one scene where they're sitting together on Matt's couch, and she says she's the one who understands him. Up to that point, the camera was shooting them together in the scene, but after that, as Matt leans forward and away, the camera only shows one of them at a time for the remainder of the scene. Her insistence that he is like her, is how she thinks he is, which is counter to everything he believes about himself, drives the wedge between them. That was solid.

Stick's a lousy parent, poor planner, too. If the people Matt found being bled were important to the Hand, and Stick's supposedly fighting them, why didn't he show up to prevent their being taken back? Shouldn't he have his ear to the ground for such developments, looking for opportunities? If Elektra is leaving the country, why try to kill her? Either ask he nicely to stay, be honest with her, or let her go. Don't turn her into an enemy. But he and Matt both make some poor choices with regards to keeping secrets.

When Clancy Brown showed up as Frank's old commander, I thought that was a relatively benign role to bring Clancy Brown in for. Ha, I was more right than I knew, but I have to get one right every once in awhile.

Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy's (Elden Henson) progressions were kind of interesting. Foggy, obviously, came into his own in terms of gaining confidence in himself. He's always had the ability to prepare, and the knowledge, but he needed Matt to sell it to a jury or a client. Now maybe he doesn't, which raises the question of whether he and Matt will remain friends. Foggy seemed to have a much lower tolerance for Matt's shit as he became less reliant on him.

As for Karen, this shift of her to becoming a reporter, a columnist was not something I expected. I can sort of see it, given her own experiences with people trying to frame her for murder, with Matt and Foggy fighting for her and others like her, and her helping them. Finding the truth, not letting people in power cover it up for their benefit, it would fit. Especially after she admitted to Matt how uncomfortable she was with some of the contortions the truth takes in the justice system, the way lawyers bend it. I'm not sure what all her time close to Frank will do. She seemed to think if she helped him find answers, Frank would stop killing, and she was very wrong. The truth she found was unpleasant to her, and while I think she will still pursue it, I'm not sure how it'll change her perspective on things going forward.

It was hard to look at the season as anything other than Matt failing on basically every level. He let his friends down on the Castle case, he didn't stop Castle. He was able to get through to Elektra, I guess, but ultimately wasn't able to keep her out of the Hand's clutches. Fisk is rebuilding his power from within prison. Matt seems to be continuing to ruin Claire's (Rosario Dawson) life by getting her involved in his problems. The moment when he decides to just hurl Nobu off a damn roof seemed significant, in light of his attempts to not kill people, and stop Frank from doing so. But maybe he figured the Hand had already died, so it doesn't count (or he was sticking to his, 'just this once' idea he pitched to Frank). He didn't object to Frank unleashing a torrent of headshots. I assume he's going to try and pick up the pieces of his practice and friendships, but he's going to have to deal with the knowledge he was ready to chuck it all in a trash can - including being Daredevil - to go run around the world with Elektra.

On the whole, there were some parts I liked, other parts (mostly involving the Hand) I didn't care for. I didn't like it as much as Luke Cage overall, but I also didn't think it was as thin in places as Luke Cage. There were enough plates in the air I didn't feel as much padding. Some of the fight scenes were pretty good, others less so. Matt fighting his way down the building full of angry bikers; Frank against all those guys in the prison, those were fun. But all the kick-flippy fights with the Hand blur together after awhile. Any one of them on its own was fine, but collectively they all were pretty similar.

Shaving's A Pain, As In It Actually Hurts

I'm working my way through Daredevil Season 2 right now. Currently five episodes in, so haven't hit the oversaturation of ninjas I remembering hearing about (and am kind of dreading since Daredevil vs. ninjas is not one of my favorite things). I have generally enjoyed the Punisher, although him opening fire inside a hospital was a little jarring. Ennis' hyper-competent, extremely methodical version had taken deeper root than I thought. I've definitely liked Foggy Nelson so far, trying to stand up for the right thing even while being terrified. And they aren't playing some triangle thing where he's jealous of Matt and Karen; rather he's working to help nudge them together.

But let's talk about shaving, or not shaving, since Matt doesn't seem to be on speaking terms with his razor. He was in the flashbacks with Elektra, but in the present day, looking kind of scruffy. Maybe that's my bias, I tend to think of people with the stubble or that are on their way to having a beard as being scruffy. Mostly because I let myself get that way all the time, and I know it's because I can't be bothered to shave more than once every 4 days. Matt has to appear in court occasionally, and I don't know if juries respond well to scruffy attorneys.

Then I considered that Matt might not shave because, with heightened senses, including presumably the sense of touch, shaving might be really unpleasant. I know it's generally portrayed that Matt has learned how to tune out a lot of what he perceives because otherwise he'd go nuts. But early in the morning, after a long night of jumping around rooftops punching people, he might not be able to focus as well, and the sensations would be much closer and harder to ignore. It's been a long time since I bothered to use aftershave, but it wasn't enjoyable when I did. There's razor burn, or actually cutting yourself if you aren't using an electric razor. Maybe the smell of shaving lotion is just too potent, makes him nauseous in the morning. Admittedly, Matt gets beat up, cut, or shot on an almost nightly basis, and New York is no fragrant rose, but he probably doesn't want to start the day with more unpleasantness. He's trying to pull himself together for another day of playing a mild-mannered, sightless lawyer.

Nobody Bats A Thousand

I've stopped picking up Black Widow. The skill of the people involved was obvious, but it didn't interest me. The Black Widow is a character I can sometimes appreciate, but isn't one I seem to have any innate affection for. I picked up the Marjorie Liu-written Black Widow series from several years ago in a back issue search, and it was much the same: Well-done, but nothing I regretted not buying when it came out.

Of course, you could say the same for my feelings on several characters, including Daredevil, but I loved Waid and Samnee's (plus plenty of other talented artists and colorists) work with old Hornhead. The difference is, there it felt like they were going against the routine. All those years of Murdock's life being an unending string of misery and woe, and they opted to instead have him fight against that. Which didn't always work, but he made the effort. Let his friends in, leaned on them when he needed to, kept smiling in the face of hardship, refusing as much as possible to let it drag him down. I've already read a run where Matt was shattered and flew from the wreckage he made with his tail between his legs - it was Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr.'s run on the title. Didn't really need to see it again, because I wasn't likely to enjoy a sequel more.

And Waid/Samnee mostly avoided falling into the same old "fights ninjas/the Hand" deal most writers since Frank Miller seem compelled to do (Nocenti being one exception). Ikari is close, but unique enough to be interesting. Instead he's fighting bizarre echoes of Klaw, or the Spot. Teaming up with the Silver Surfer, or going after the Book of the Darkhold with Satanna and Werewolf by Night. Even when he does go to the well of Kingpin or Bullseye, he uses Fisk as someone Murdock turns to out of desperation as a savior, and Bullseye as someone trying to use his gift for hitting any target to strike at Daredevil from the shadows. It's at least somewhat an inversion of the norm (although Fisk and DD have had this co-dependent do-si-do going on for years).

Black Widow felt pretty much like every Black Widow story I can remember reading. Natasha's past comes back to haunt her in some way. It's always the Red Room striking at her, or another of their products trying to exceed her, or some awful misdeed coming home to roost. Doesn't make it a bad approach to take, but it isn't one that's struck a chord with me yet, despite a number of writers and artists trying.

What I Bought 7/2/2016 - Part 2

Like I said Wednesday, I didn't find all the new comics I was looking for, Wynonna Earp #5 being the main whiff, but I found a few. So here's one comic that's four comics, which meant there are a lot of labels for this post. Times like this I regret my newfound interest in giving at least some of the creators post labels.

Deadpool #13, by Gerry Duggan, Charles Soule, David Walker (writers), Jacopo Camagni, Guillmero Sanna, Elmo Bondoc, Paco Diaz (artists), Veronica Gandini, Mat Lopes, Nolan Woodard, Israel Silva (colorists), Joe Sabino and Clayton Cowles (letterers) - Jesus Christ that's a lot of creators. Thank goodness there were no inkers involved.

Marvin Shirkley was an investment banker who made some bad choices with several criminal organizations' money, so now they want to kill him. Except they waste time fighting each other and he's able to enlist Deadpool's help, though only once he mentions Typhoid Mary is the chief muscle for the Russians. Wade is still peeved about that time Mary tricked him into thinking she was Siryn and had sex with him, which, I actually did not know about. At any rate, this desire for vengeance causes Wade to act imprudently and nearly get himself and marvin killed, so he takes his client to the D.A.'s office, and tries to get witness protection from Matt Murdock. Who refuses to help until Marvin produces a laptop he claims has all sorts of information on his clients (though Daredevil does appear to help briefly).

Except it wouldn't fit in Wade's wall safe, so he threw it in the trash. DD is having no truck with that, so Wade enlists Luke Cage and Iron Fist to help him root through a landfill for the computer. It turns up, so does Mary, she steals it, Marvin and Wade pursue, Daredevil shows up again, the laptop is retrieved, Wade chooses not to kill Mary, opting to maybe try and get her some psychological help instead, which confuses Daredevil. And then Murdock shows up to take possession of the diamonds Wade received as payment on the grounds they're stolen goods and evidence. All this is framed as Ben Urich trying to figure out how to sum it up in a story and ultimately giving up. Because Urich gets consistently shittier as a reporter the older he gets. Just like most sportswriters!

Luke and Danny felt superfluous to this whole thing. Maybe if Marvin's case had somehow been relevant to them, or they hadn't decided not to bother helping Wade and Marvin catch the escaping Mary, but they didn't serve much purpose other than padding things out with a lot of jokes about Luke's makeshift non-cursing. Much discussion of the difference in appropriate use of "icky-yucky" and "fiddle-faddle". Daredevil fit better, since it at least made some sense for an assistant district attorney to be involved in the problems of a guy who needs witness protection. Plus, Matt's whole sordid history with Typhoid Mary. Figured that would convince him to stick around longer.

Duggan brought out Mary having raped Wade in the past, something he hadn't brought up previously. He used both characters in Deadpool vs. Hawkeye, and while he alluded to some ugly history between them, he never said specifically what. But at least he did address it, and the fact Wade really wants to kill her over it (in large part because, until her deception was revealed, it convinced him he could be loved), but chooses not to actually fits well with his decision at the conclusion of the recent mess with Sabretooth. Moving past all these old grudges he kept dredging up. Granted, rape is more serious than Iron Fist saying he looked like a melted candle once, but still, it's a new approach he's taking, and he's actually trying to take steps to see she gets treatment. Maybe because he recognizes there's an innocent person in there, and he sees her as a victim of other forces the way he was, only it's other aspects of her own mind instead of sadistic scientists.

The art shifts widely from one part to another. There's no attempt to maintain a similar look or feel within the book, as they opted to focus on having the parts more closely resemble the book they're ostensibly part of. So the Daredevil "issue" features Sanna and Lopes trying to recreate the feel of the current Daredevil series, and sort of succeeding. Sanna doesn't commit to the heavy use of shadows as much as Garney does, based on what I've seen of that book, but it's within range, probably the most of the three parts, though I'm unfamiliar enough with the current Power Man and Iron Fist book to say how close Bondoc's style mirrors it. I don't think it's quite as loose or exaggerated (Luke isn't anywhere near as broad in the chest), but it mostly works.

On the two Deadpool parts, I think Camagni's is closer to the Hawthorne/Koblish styles than Diaz. Camagni's style lends itself more to the comedy aspects than Diaz' which seems to contain many more people gritting their teeth and with the serious musculature. I can't picture what the scene from Camagni's part where Mary sets Marvin's clothes on fire and he does a frantic dance out of them would have looked like with Diaz, but I doubt it would have been as funny.