Daredevil #31 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Chris Samnee (art), Javier Rodriguez (colors)

The Story: Hot town, summer in the city, bad verdict out—not looking pretty.

The Review: A couple months ago, I voiced my suspicion that by using the bigoted Sons of the Serpent to manipulate the courts Daredevil holds so dear, Waid was picking at the overtones of racial injustice underpinning the Trayvon Martin case.  Clearly, I spoke too soon.  The real-world connections in that arc were painted with broad strokes, reflecting more subtle and pervasive problems in our justice system.  Here, we get far more specific references:

“[The defendant] stands accused of following and shooting a ‘suspicious-looking’ Black teenager in her building.”  If Waid wanted to be any more obvious, he’d have to name the young man “Trey.”  Fortunately, he realized that for his story’s purposes, he couldn’t credibly make the facts too close to the bone.  To provoke the reaction he needs from the fictional public, Waid has to drive up the motivating injustice a bit: the defendant has a “long and recorded history of bigotry” and the victim “was an honor-student tutor visiting a neighbor’s kid.”*  That said, Waid may push too far once he has cops shouting, “He’s resisting, Charlie!  Get the taser ready!”