Daredevil #7 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story) Javier Rodriguez (art), Alvaro Lopez (inks)

The Story: It’s a jungle out there. Daredevil and confusion everywhere.

The Review: I tend to dread it when writers—specifically comic book writers and superhero writers especially—bring in political dimensions to their stories. Politics are an impenetrable morass of complications and the higher up you go, the worse it becomes. Once you get to the international stage, forget it; you need to be committed to understanding this stuff 24/7 before you can truly understand it. Superhero writers invariably oversimplify things and it almost always reflects poorly on the story.

Not even a great like Waid is immune. I confess I’m not up to speed on Wakandan politics, this being the side-effect of not being a total Marvel devotee. But I really don’t understand why, if Wakanda is the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, it would need to outsource its research to the U.S. at all. Even setting that aside, the plan to extradite the three protesting nun who didn’t actually expose Wakanda’s doings strikes me as overly complicated. Shuri justifies herself thusly, “Those women risked embarrassing Wakanda. If I declare that to be a crime, then it is.” She’s the Queen of Hearts in full-body black spandex.

Daredevil #6 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story) Javier Rodriguez (art), Alvaro Lopez (inks)

The Story: It’s a whole new low of villainy when nuns are your victims.

The Review: Even though I’ve picked up quite a few Marvel titles in the last year, I can’t say I’ve decamped altogether from my DC leanings. Case in point, I’m always up-to-date on the major going-ons in the DCU even if I’m not reading any of the relevant titles. Not so with Marvel. Lately, I’ve seen Original Sin stamped all over the place, but I still have almost no idea what it’s about. Something to do with somebody blabbing crucial secrets that makes everyone miserable?

Fortunately, Waid gives me just enough to understand the spark for this current arc, in which we reverse course from Matt’s bright, bouncy adventures in San Fran back to the grim, soul-sucking investigations of New York City. Actually, in terms of crossover premises, Original Sin is very promising in that it allows each participant to deal with the ramifications of their personal revelation on their own, no interference or collaboration with extraneous characters necessary. Now, that’s a crossover idea I can get behind.

Daredevil #5 – Review

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

The Story: When Daredevil isn’t enough to save the day, we need Foggy Nelson!

The Review: In the superhero world, much as in real life, it’s the lot of the supporting characters to be overshadowed, overlooked, marginalized by the heroes they support. The heroes can’t get along without them; how often do you see our costumed protagonists triumph thanks to the timely save or quick thinking of their faithful companions? Yet these brave men and women are rarely gratified by public admiration, even though they take relatively greater risks in involving themselves.

No one exemplifies this hapless lot better than Foggy, the very definition of everyman: average looks, flabby, intelligent, prone to fear and bravery in equal measure. As if he hasn’t already suffered enough as Matt’s best friend, now he faces the prospect of having to completely abandon his normal life for one as a hidden invalid. That’s a raw deal, any way you look at it.

Daredevil: Road Warrior #1 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Peter Krause (art), John Kalisz (colors)

The Story: If you can get in trouble in winter Milwaukee, you can get in trouble anywhere.

The Review: Because we all love to discuss writing technique on this site, let’s talk about first-person narrative. Frankly, outside pure prose fiction, the first-person very rarely works. As a delivery mechanism for exposition, it’s largely unnecessary in any medium with visuals, and as commentary, it’s mostly redundant and distracting if the dialogue and acting is good enough. The only reason you’d keep a first-person narrative in these cases is because the audience really, really wants to hear it.

As Waid proves with Matt Murdock, you can only get that if the narrator himself is just that charismatic. Matt’s internal voice is crafted with such natural, likable care and he blends humor and sensitivity in near perfect measure. Best of all, Waid uses it to capture things that the spoken word and visuals can’t, which is saying a lot when you consider how strong his dialogue and artistic collaborators are. The joy of Matt’s narration is he only grows richer in character rather than wearisome over time, and his personality always comes through even when he’s essentially just dropping essential information:

“[I]f I could see the things that come at me in this job the way sighted people see them…they’d probably stop calling me, ‘The Man Without Fear.’ Or even ‘Daredevil.’ They’d probably go with ‘Matt Murdock, the idiot who keeps picking fights in really dumb places.'”

Daredevil #4 – Review

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

The Story: Owlsley discovers a technology more wonderful than Google Glasses.

The Review: I suppose it can’t be helped, for a genre that sustains itself on the clash between hero and villain, that characters in superhero stories somehow always fall neatly on either side of the divide between good and evil. It’s rare to find characters who truly straddle that line. I’m not talking about your antiheroes, whose methods are questionable but whose moral alignment is rarely in question. I’m talking about characters who really don’t know where they stand.

As you may expect, it’s the most insecure people who usually land in this category, and Max definitely fits that profile. Besides the jealousy and resentment he has for Matt, the unexplained disappearance of his girlfriend keeps Max unhinged, willing to make deals with the devil—or, in this case, the Owl—just to bring a little more stability to his life. There’s no question he’s decent at heart; as predicted, he never intended to let Matt go down in flames. But it’s that willingness to compromise, to set his needs over the greater good, that takes him into gray territory.

Daredevil #3 – Review

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

The Story: Matt learns not to include a known backstabber as part of his big plan.

The Review: For a superhero writer, I imagine that there can be no greater, more joyful challenge than reinvigorating a character that everyone else already considers a lost cause. This particular task does embody the very essence of creative power, doesn’t it? Taking something that seems dry and infertile and giving it new life just with one good idea? But writers claim to deconstruct characters all the time; very seldom do they actually manage to do so.

Even for a writer as gifted as Waid, finding new dimensions to neglected or exhausted characters is no easy task. At best, what he’s done with the Shroud and what he’s currently doing with the Owl is strip them down to find what makes them, if not original, then at least unique. As far as the Owl goes, his physical alterations and more bestial presence make him campier, if anything (watch him swoop from tree bough to tree bough as he demands to know “Who” is in charge). It’s his unflappable—pun intended—reaction to having his life threatened that gives him street cred.

She-Hulk #4 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Javier Pulido (art), Muntsa Vicente (colors)

The Story: So is there a union for superhero-lawyers, or no?

The Review: I was fine with She-Hulk committing itself to be a legal drama/comedy for as long as it chose, but I also expected it to commit itself equally to the superheroics once the time for legal ball-busting came to an end. Soule seemed to be setting up the title for just that kind of confrontation when Doom made a direct attack on American soil—in a federal courthouse, no less—to pluck his son from Jenn’s grasp. A She-Hulk v. Doom battle seemed inevitable.

And this issue gives it to us—but… Well, it’s just not the big blowout we’ve been waiting for. Instead, it winds up being yet another sequence of Jenn destroying robots, which is about the only costumed action we’ve had since this series began. Doom doesn’t even go out to deal with her personally; he simply sends out a bigger robot as his proxy, and even that comes to nothing. Apparently, Jenn takes the trouble of sneaking into Latveria in order to settle the case, not fight it out.

Daredevil #2 – Review

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

The Story: This town ain’t big enough for two blind superheroes.

The Review: The exciting thing about moving Daredevil out of New York, where he and several dozen superhero pals are taking down the same army of villains day in and day out, is the chance of encountering new enemies—or, at least, not the usual suspects. For San Fran, this could be a mixed blessing. On the plus side, their ordinary crime rate is sinking fast. The minus is that now all of the city’s exotic threats are coming out of the woodwork.

The one that’s weight most heavily on Deputy Mayor Charlotte Hastert’s mind is actually not a villain, but a vigilante. Unlike the sunny Matt, Maximillian Coleridge (a.k.a. the Shroud) embodies all the worst qualities of the modern superhero, “[v]iolent, sociopathic, defiantly uncooperative with the law.” Not coincidentally, he’s modeled in no small part after Batman (“Saw his parents gunned down by a mugger when he was a boy…”), although in other respects, his skills and strengths parallel Matt’s.

Daredevil #1.5 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Daredevil narrowly avoids having a mid-life crisis.

The Review: It’s good thing to be fifty years old and still popular enough for people to notice. If you can get an actual commemorative issue out of it, even better! There may have been other peaks for Daredevil in earlier years, but right now he’s in one of that rare, enviable position of being both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. There’s greater joy to celebrating his longevity at a time when it looks like his greatest years are still to come.

That feeling of confidence is in no small part due to Mark Waid’s fabulous work with Daredevil for the last few years, which is why it’s so fitting that he kick off this showcase issue with “The King in Red,” a look at the life of Matt Murdock literally at age fifty. These future glimpses are tricky things because you’re projecting how certain beloved characters will end up, which is always a volatile thing to do—anyone seen the series finale of How I Met Your Mother lately?* Fortunately, with comics, readers know better than to take these future stories as anything more than potential.

Daredevil #1 – Review

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

The Story: A tale of two cities and their superhero.

The Review: I won’t say that the last volume of Daredevil really needed a relaunch, but I always felt it, like many critical darlings, deserved far more attention than it got.  In such a case, I can approve of a new #1, even if it’s not strictly necessary.  For good or ill, nothing brings in readers like that big, shiny digit on a cover.  It’s true; I had to go to a completely different store to get this issue because my usual comic book shop had sold out.

Annoying, but encouraging, because I can’t imagine a more deserving series or issue for a sell-out.  An opening is essentially a balancing act between a story’s immediate and long-term needs.  You got to have an immediately arresting plot that also models what the story will look like long-term.  You also need to introduce your audience to your characters without making it feel like a series of introductions.  And somehow, you have to make it all flow together as if this is your fiftieth issue instead of your first.  Writing an opening is an art, and Waid proves that he’s mastered it.

Daredevil #35 – Review

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

The Story: In the case of Matt Murdock v. Daredevil.

The Review: Even though I know it’s a folly to expect fictional characters to live up to our ideas of how real people should act—heck, it’s folly to expect real people to live up to our ideas of how real people should act—I’m only an overweight human beneath the critic.  If a character does something crazy or stupid, I’m going to get judgmental about it, just like anyone else.  I usually manage to set my prejudices aside, but it happens, nonetheless.

While Waid’s Daredevil has been one of the most convincingly human characters I’ve seen in recent superhero comics, the one quirk that almost always draws my ire is Matt’s constant denials of being Daredevil.  It’s a bit like the guy who insists he’s not gay even though you’ve seen his Judy Garland film collection: farcical and not a little pathetic.  It also invites a lot of uncomfortable logistical questions as to why his enemies haven’t bitten the bullet and simply bumped off Matt to see what would happen to Daredevil.

Daredevil #34 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Javier Rodriguez (art), Alvaro Lopez (inks)

The Story: Daredevil dips a toe into the world of radio broadcasting.

The Review: Superheroes, as we’ve seen, are best directed towards obvious, rampaging foes, the kind that present a visible target for them to punch/blast into submission.  It’s the covert, unseen threats that superheroes aren’t equipped to deal with.  Look at Batman trying to respond to the Leviathan invasion in Batman Inc.  Despite a global network of master vigilantes and resources to beat the band, even he only managed to limp his way to victory.

Daredevil faces a similar scenario here.  True, it’s on a much smaller scale, but then he’s also more limited in his means and support network.  Nevertheless, he’s compelled to call upon their help, as the Sons of the Serpent have become too widespread and too well-concealed for one Daredevil to deal with.  While he doesn’t strike a mortal blow to the organization, he does sap a lot of their power, a feat made all the more impressive by his choice of allies.

Daredevil #33 – Review

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

The Story: One devil gets tempted by another.

The Review: If there’s one area where the mainstream superhero genre falls short and will always fall short, it’s in achieving a sense of fatality.  Comic book resurrections are so ingrained in the business now that pretty much no one takes a superhero’s death (or, more accurately, the appearance of it) seriously anymore.*  Nowadays, you don’t encounter such occasions with emotional interest so much as curiosity as to how the inevitable recovery will come about.

Not even the apparent deaths of fully mortal heroes like Daredevil can elicit much reaction.  Indeed, if you were actually inclined to wait on tenterhooks to see his ultimate fate, you’ll only suffer a greater feeling of anticlimax as Matt’s chest wound gets magicked into submission within the first few pages.  It’s a funny thing when the protagonist’s near-death experience becomes the least important part of a story, but that’s the modern comic book for you.

The Trial of the Punisher #2 – Review

by Marc Guggenheim (Writer), Mico Suayan (Artist), Sunny Gho (Colorist)

The Story: The trial of Frank Castle goes on as the mystery behind why he got himself captured in the first place is solved.

The Review: This mini-series is a rather strange little thing. With only two issues to tell its story and to give readers a conclusion and a certain message, it is perhaps a bit too optimistic of me to hope for a good resolution to a story that did start up rather nicely. With most of the setup already in place and the mystery about Frank Castle and his current predicament being firmly established, can this second and last issue provide a neat bow as it connects everything together in a good way?

The short answer is not really. While it do try in bringing a certain resolution to the mystery of why Frank got himself caught to begin with and does use the courtroom setting to provide some interesting points, not everything connect seamlessly. This is the kind of comics that could have indeed been a bit better if it had a bit more space in order to tell its story with more details.

The main reason why the issue is perhaps not as good as it could have been lies very much in how it conclude and the explanation that follows everything Frank did, so here’s what it means.

Daredevil #32 – Review

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

The Story: Daredevil refuses to engage in a monster mash.

The Review: By now, everyone’s heard the news that Waid’s run of Daredevil will all too soon come to an end, right?  It’s a bit unclear what brought about this dismaying change, and even Waid’s own remarks on the matter don’t enlighten us much.  Whatever the reasons, it’s a blow to anyone who’s been enjoying the back-to-basics approach Daredevil has been taking to superhero stories, traversing across a whole range of genres: mystery, sci-fi, adventure, and human drama.

Now you can add comedy to the list, as Waid subverts the rather dark ending of last issue into a farce, with the Jester being the appropriate butt of the joke.  It’s rather brilliant that the Jester does wind up making us laugh, though not, perhaps, in any way he intended.  His attempt to prank Matt in the most painful way possible results in nothing more than puzzled amusement (“What were you trying to accomplish here.  Fail.”), while Jester shrieks in fury, ignorant of his own arrogant presumptions:

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!”

Daredevil #30 – Review

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

The Story: Nothing like a nighttime surf in New York City.

The Review: Last we heard of Kirsten McDuffie, she was breaking things off with Matt in assertive, “I am woman, hear me roar” style, declaring that she “can’t be a supporting player in ‘The Adventures of Daredevil.’”  Admirable, of course, worthy of deep respect—but far too sensible and ostentatious to last.  Normalcy is an anathema to comics, so it was a matter of time before Kirsten reappeared to inject fresh, romantic drama into the series.

It’s easy to think cynically and see Foggy’s current predicament as a tailor-made opportunity for Waid to insinuate Kirsten back into Matt’s life.  You’re not quite sure you totally believe her excuse that she left her previous position due to an unsavory boss.*  However, there’s no question she brings some much needed experience and command back to the law offices of Murdock and Nelson (“—always, always put Judge McNider’s calls through but not Judge McKnight’s—”), which means she can take the lead on legal matters while leaving Matt free to do his “Daredevilling,” as she calls it.

Daredevil #29 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Javier Rodriguez (art), Alvaro Lopez (inks)

The Story: Daredevil can safely say that this whole courtroom is definitely out of order.

The Review: Part of the critic’s game is trying to read the creator’s intention, to figure out what went through his mind as he was writing.  This is obviously a tricky task, given that writers quite frequently don’t know where their own ideas come from.  The seeds of a story may have been planted by some passing experience so long ago that by the time it manifests as a piece of fiction, it practically comes from the writer’s subconscious.

In the case of this issue, it’s pretty hard not to see the Sons of the Serpent, a white supremacist group who has taken over the courthouse (and perhaps, as Matt suspects, the New York City justice system as a whole), as some kind of comment on the Trayvon Martin controversy.  It’s possible that Waid simply drew from generalized problems in the real world’s system of criminal prosecution, but the timing seems too coincidental for that.  Even assuming he wrote the script months earlier, there’s no escaping the Trayvon connection.

Daredevil #28 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Javier Rodriguez (art), Alvaro Lopez (inks)

The Story: Remember, kids—bullying only gets you shot by your own judge.

The Review: As someone who doesn’t read as many Marvel comics as he should, I don’t have the right to opine too broadly about their style and purpose.  I think it’s safe to say, however, that Marvel likes to emphasize the humanity of its characters, portraying them as deeply flawed and frequently petty people.  It might not fit the noble, saintly profile you might expect from DC superheroes, but if anything, it makes their virtues even more admirable.

That seems most clear in Matt’s care for Foggy as he finally undergoes cancer treatment.  In a brilliant use of Matt’s powers to develop story, Waid opens on our fearless hero nauseated and heaving from the enhanced smell of Foggy’s treatments.  “I know he needs me, but I can’t go back in that room.  I just can’t,” he thinks.

From inside, Foggy’s weakened voice calls out, “Matty…you there?”

Slowly, Matt straightens his back, puts on a big grin, and strides right back in.  “Where else, buddy boy?  Turn on the TV.  I wanna know how Hulk is doing on ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’”  It’s a joke, of course, but it’s also a commitment to stay in there, enduring his aural torment for as long as it takes.  In that scene, we get a moment that’s at once funny, but also heartbreakingly tender, such that you might chuckle through your tears.

The opening is so powerful that you remain intent on the issue even as it reaches its more complicated later stages.  Confronted by a figure from his distant past, Matt must not only relive one of the most painful periods of his life, but also grapple with the idea that some of his pain wasn’t entirely undeserved.  Matt as a young boy may have had his problems, but some of them were his and his alone, like the total, even mean, arrogance he had in regards to his dad and his own intellect.  Even as he tries to defend himself, there’s a hesitation in his voice that suggests he realizes the truth of his childhood jerkiness.

Daredevil #27 – Review

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

The Story: Bullseye learns to hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil.

The Review: You know, until Daredevil joined the New Avengers just a few years ago, I hadn’t realized how much of an untethered lone wolf he was in the Marvel Universe.  Pretty much every other superhero on the planet has been part of the X-Men or the Avengers one way or another, yet Daredevil remained a man unto himself.  That doesn’t mean, of course, that he never made super-buddies before, and those friendships have only grown stronger with his Avenger status.

It makes perfect sense to me that if you have other friends with superpowers, you’d rely on them for help during a personal crisis, even if your pride as a vigilante has to take a backseat.  While you certainly wouldn’t want Daredevil to use his pals as a crutch all the time, under these circumstances—by which I mean he’s one beat-up man trying to protect all his loved ones against a gang of formidable enemies—asking his most trusted “agents” to keep an eye on home while he takes cares of unfinished business is just smart.

Thus in the end, despite the best-laid plans and meticulous attention to detail, despite having no choice but to focus on his endgoal, Bullseye remains “a hitman, not a mastermind.”  Even trapped in his own incapable body, our villain thinks only in terms of targets, centering upon one object.  While people like Foggy, Milla, and Kirsten naturally fall within range of Bullseye’s sight, he fails to see beyond his usual scope and this, more than anything, leads to his downfall.

That doesn’t mean that Daredevil didn’t have something to do with his archnemesis’ downfall, however.  His opponents continue to challenge him to the very end, and in his weary state, he has no physical advantages left.  That leaves him with only two weapons: his ability to improvise and his always-get-back-up attitude.  These are not cheap tricks Waid has written for our fearless hero; all the pieces have already been set in place for Daredevil to put to use, from his telescopic club to the drums of radioactive substance in Bullseye’s warehouse.

It’s really no one’s fault that our villains don’t see their problems coming, other than their own, of course.  Terrible as Bullseye’s ultimate fate in this issue is, you can’t say it’s undeserved.  Now a broken man, deprived of his movement and most his senses, he believes that he’s already hit rock bottom and thus has nothing left to lose.  What happens to him at the end of the issue proves him wrong in the cruelest way, stripping him of everything, leaving him a “living brain in a flesh-and-bone coffin.”

It’s not a perfect issue, however.  Bullseye’s labored explanation of how he formed his master-plot against Daredevil is largely redundant, as we’ve known much of it for a while.  It’s one of those climactic monologues villains are always so fond of having right before they slide down the path to defeat, and between that and his arrogant tunnel-vision, he winds up losing much of the credibility he’s built up during this arc.

Samnee faithfully drives up the suspense that Waid encourages, preventing you from seeing Daredevil’s own tricks before they’re sprung, giving them maximum impact.  I do have to say, however, that Samnee gives himself a good start by fudging things a little bit.  On the opening page, when one of Matt’s employees enters his office, you see a silhouette of someone (suggesting one of Bullseye’s henchmen) who later turns out to be Iron Fist.  But this silhouette had a sai in his hands, which disappears once Iron Fist is revealed.  I see this as a bit of a cheat, but a minor flaw against Samnee’s otherwise strong work.

Conclusion: A very strong conclusion to a gripping arc and an even more gripping storyline, though overall, it doesn’t quite capitalize on all the potential drama it could have.

Grade: B+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I love how those two therapists at Milla’s asylum are giving Matt crap for being trouble to his wife.  As if they didn’t look at Black Widow wheeling Milla around and didn’t immediately sense trouble.

Daredevil: End of Days #8 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack (Writers), Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack (Artists), Matt Hollingsworth (Colorist)

The Story: Timmy, Ben Urich’s son, has to learn how to cope with his father’s death as he tries to piece out just what his old man had been working on.

The Review: How easily could everything have failed…With the scope of this series and just what everything Bendis and Mack tried to do here, it could have been a dud, yet this is some splendid stuff. In short, if you believe yourself to be a fan of either Daredevil or Brian Michael Bendis, you need to read this issue, plain and simple.

What we get here is a love letter to the whole mythology behind Daredevil, referencing the story of the character, the influential run that cemented what the character is about and just how it could very well have ended. Bendis and Mack do their best in bringing in what people loved about Daredevil and they succeed, taking risks such as killing arguably the most important characters in the mythos: Ben Urich and Matt Murdock themselves. Yes, Ben Urich is dead and the story is told with Timmy’s viewpoint, who has been revealed to be the new Daredevil, the one that had been trained by Matt himself.

Daredevil #26 – Review

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

The Story: To defeat his opponent, Daredevil will need to make a change of heart.

The Review: I imagine that for any person, one of the lowest moments of his life has to be the moment when he runs away from a problem.  Wrapped up in that decision are all the feelings which eat away at your dignity: humiliation, cowardice, inferiority, etc.  Under those conditions, the maxim, “Discretion is the better part of valor,” proves to be of little comfort.  It’s hard to tell if survival is worth the cost of your peace of mind.

Matt is certainly learning that lesson in this issue.  His complete ownage at the hands of Ikari last month leaves him on edge and downright paranoid.  Everything, from the buzz of his cellphone to the appearance of strangers, visibly sets off his nerves: he’s jumpy and sweaty; he’s constantly looking over his shoulder; even his physicality has been affected, leaving him clumsy and unbalanced.  In short, he has become the opposite of his persona.

Daredevil #25 – Review

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

The Story: Hm.  “The man with fear!” just doesn’t have the same inspiring ring to it.

The Review: I’ve never really reflected on the tagline attached to this title before, but with this issue, it feels appropriate to think about what Daredevil’s nickname really means.  “The man without fear!”  That’s a challenge if I ever heard one.  It’s a cocky kind of declaration, the kind you’d associate with people who love to cheat death, as if doing so proves their invulnerability.  Essentially, the man who fears nothing is the man who isn’t concerned about loss of any kind.

So what can drive such a man to be afraid?  By neutralizing the things that gave him courage.  For Daredevil, that would be both his fighting skills and prodigious senses.  In his flashbacks to training under Stick, we see him face a sudden freefall with first surprise, then total command of himself, making a perfect landing with the help of his internal radar.  But if he can’t depend on these senses to help him in a pinch, would he have that same conviction and confidence?

Daredevil: End of Days #7 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack (Writer), Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz (Artists), Matt Hollingsworth (Colorist)

The Story: Ben Urich follows some more leads for the mystery behind the Mapone mystery and the secret of the newer Daredevil.

The Review: If there is one character that I always love to see Bendis write, it has to be Ben Urich. I do love how he always seems to go out of his depths in search of a story, while he seems to be always relatable and just plain interesting. This is a man that always get involved in the adventures of Daredevil, throughout the happy times, but mostly through the harder perils of the life of Hell’s kitchen protector.

Daredevil #24 – Review

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

The Story: And this is why you never see Daredevil with a seeing-eye dog.

The Review: If you read superhero comics, it is absolutely crucial that you have the ability to stamp down uncomfortable questions before you even ask them.  Reading these things requires a major suspension of disbelief and even one seemingly innocuous question can throw the whole thing out of whack.  The one that comes most naturally, of course, is: if these people have that kind of power, why don’t they use it to help people beyond beating down costumed villains?

Whenever I read Marvel comics in particular, that question pops up a lot.  Between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, and Tony Stark, you’ve got some of the most brilliant minds in their known universe at work, and yet none of them seem to devote much time to, say, curing cancer.  As if to apologize for this strange disconnect, Hank remarks in this issue, “Some things are beyond all our powers, aren’t they?”