Review: Daredevil Vol. 3 by Mark Waid hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

The third trade of the current incarnation of Daredevil wastes no time in introducing its core narrative. Upping the ante from the previous volume, not only does Spider-Man return, but the Punisher becomes the third component of the “Omega Effect” crossover. One of the central ideas of this run is that Daredevil is in possession of the Omega Drive, a database containing the financial information of numerous villainous groups. It’s built from a Fantastic Four costume and is thus made of unstable molecules, making the information on it both vast and very hard to destroy. Spider-Man wants Daredevil to hand it over to the Avengers for safe-keeping; the Punisher wants it to get ahead of his enemies for an easier slaughter.

There are few comic book characters I dislike more than the Punisher. His very presence in the main Marvel Universe causes a conundrum: either the villains are made incompetent so that he can kill them, or the other heroes are made incompetent so that the Punisher looks good. When I read the Welcome Back, Frank trade, which many consider the ultimate Punisher story, I nearly threw it across the room when it came time for Frank Castle’s interactions with Daredevil. It was clear that Daredevil was being intentionally put down by Garth Ennis so that the Punisher could save the day. Many Punisher stories are also clouded by reams of angsty caption boxes about how much Frank hates the world.

I mention all of this because the “Omega Effect” storyline is one of the few times I’ve ever liked the Punisher. He’s gruff and just this side of being fully psychotic, but he’s also willing to negotiate with Daredevil and Spider-Man to defeat the criminals who want the drive. I credit this to storyline co-writer Greg Rucka and his refusal to indulge in “Punisher worship.” Frank also has gotten a redesign; he sports a beard and his left eye is bandaged, making him look quite a bit like Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4. The faux-philosophical captions have been replaced by someone to talk to: Rachel Cole-Alves, a Marine whose husband and family were killed at her wedding. She’s become the Punisher’s new apprentice; Spider-Man spends some time trying to figure out a good nickname for her, like “Punishini” or “Punishella.”

The plan, rendered beautifully across three issues by Marco Checchetto, naturally falls apart as Rachel hasn’t quite learned about the line between justice and vengeance. There’s a glorious scene in which Rachel claims that people who haven’t had a major loss in their life aren’t as driven as those who have lost a loved one. Daredevil’s response is to chew her out for insulting the thousands of police, soldiers, and firefighters who save lives without going through their own loss. It’s a pitch-perfect moment that makes me want to find out more about Cole-Alves’ character arc.

Waid uses the JSA Cooldown Method -- a fun one-shot story bridging darker arcs [bless you for using this metaphor! -- ed.] -- to slow the pace down a bit in issue #12. Matt Murdock takes his new love interest, Assistant DA Kirsten McDuffie, to the fair and tells an “Untold Tale of Daredevil” about his college life with Foggy Nelson. There’s been an arc building for Foggy throughout the series; while it won’t pay off until after this trade, it does provide some great character-building for Foggy, Matt, and Kirsten. Foggy was a rich slob, and a professor who hated Foggy's privileged life claimed Foggy plagiarized a paper; it takes Matt’s brash judgment and Foggy’s newly-developed courage to come out on top. There’s even a possible cameo from a young Elektra (she’s jogging on page eleven of the issue).

After this, Daredevil appears to lose the Omega Drive to the Black Spectre organization. I’m not going to ruin the twist because it’s very fun -- unexpected yet set up carefully if you look for the clues afterwards. This leads to Daredevil getting teleported to Latveria. Despite the cover (fun fact: the rivets on his mask spell “DOOM” in Braille), Doctor Doom sadly does not appear in this trade. Instead, Daredevil is charged with theft by the head of Latveria’s banks, Beltane (who seems to go to Virman Vundabar’s tailor) because of Daredevil's possession of the Drive.

Daredevil’s punishment comes in the form of nanoprobes which strip away his senses ... including his radar sense. You can imagine how distressing this is to a superhero who relies on his perception more than most in his field. There’s a key scene where Daredevil, while going blind and deaf and losing feeling in his limbs, tries to jump over a fence. He thinks he succeeds. Unfortunately, as we see at the end of issue #14, he’s gone the wrong way and landed back in Latveria. It may be too late for him even when the Avengers show up to rescue him. (It’s interesting how quickly the status quo in the Marvel Universe can change. When the Avengers show up in issue #13, they’re the Bendis-era New Avengers. By issue #15, they’ve already transitioned into the Hickman version, as indicated by the new model of Quinjet and Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel.)

This book marks Chris Samnee’s transition into the role of the series’ official permanent artist, and I can safely say that this was a great move. Samnee continues the cartoony yet detailed tradition set by Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera. Khoi Pham draws issue #13 and maintains a similar style. Consistency in the writing, art and overall tone are what made Daredevil one of the best titles of the last few years, and with the upcoming relaunch keeping Waid and Samnee in place, we can look forward to even more great adventures. I just wish Rucka’s Punisher title had lasted longer ...

Next week, we go to Hell and back with Deadpool. Guest-starring drunken Tony Stark!

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Review: Daredevil Vol. 2 by Mark Waid hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

There’s a tradition amongst Daredevil creative teams that you keep going until you’ve made a name for yourself. Frank Miller did it twice, followed by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr. More recently, first Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev had a lengthy run, and then they were followed by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark. Mark Waid has taken a different approach, relying on multiple, highly-talented artists and shorter stories versus longer and ever-more-depressing arcs. The strategy has been a runaway success: not only did Waid win an Eisner, but his artists led the company into the Marvel NOW! initiative, one of the best company-wide reinventions in years.

Marcos Martin is out of the art rotation for the second volume of Daredevil by Mark Waid, except for the new single-page intro at the start of the book and the cover of issue #10.1 (the second volume collects Daredevil #7-10, 10.1, and Amazing Spider-Man #677). Paolo Rivera is now the main artist for the trade, followed by Emma Rios’s standout work on the crossover with Amazing Spider-Man. Kano and Khoi Pham each drew a single issue as well, and all four are going to be on “Best Artists of 2013” lists. To add even more great art into the mix, there are alternate covers by Alex Maleev for the Eisner-winning issue #7 and Lee Bermejo for issue #8 and Amazing Spider-Man #677.

Speaking of Spider-Man, this is possibly the last issue I’ll read of his individual title for some time until the Doctor Octopus mess is sorted out. The crossover hinges on the Black Cat, who becomes much closer with Daredevil over the course of the story. Mark Waid writes both issues and Emma Rios draws both of them, and the only way to tell the difference is that the Spider-Man issues use a different type of speech box. As a result, there’s no abrupt switch between creative teams like there was in Captain Marvel: In Pursuit Of Flight, enabling Rios’ artwork to be more easily appreciated.

Continuing from the crossover, Paolo Rivera returns to the art duties as Daredevil takes on the Mole Man. Like the Klaw fight in the first volume, this adds a brilliant new rogue to Daredevil’s gallery, and it’s all because of an error! The Mole Man draws Daredevil’s ire by accidentally destroying the coffin of Battlin’ Jack Murdock while hunting for the body of his dead beloved. Waid creates the encounter so that both sides have a point: Daredevil has every right to be angry, but there’s nothing he can really do to fix the situation. If any bad guy holds grudges for insane lengths of time, it’s the Mole Man, and these blind titans will have a rematch one day. (Make your own jokes about the “blind beating the blind.”)

Many of the plotlines from volume 1 continue here, including Matt’s attempts to deny that he’s Daredevil and his guardianship of the Omegadrive. The final issue collected here, #10.1, sees both of these storylines intersect as Matt defends a criminal who tried to kill him. This villain, Pyromania, isn’t quite as interesting as Klaw or the Mole Man, but he’s humorously arrogant and in over his head. It also sheds some light on Agence Byzantine and Black Spectre, the lesser-known member organizations of Megacrime.

But what about issue #7, the Eisner-winning story at the start of the book? Well ... actually, it’s one of the weaker stories. That’s not to say it’s bad ... it just doesn’t seem special. Matt and a bus full of blind kids crash in a blizzard and barely make it out alive. There isn’t too much more to it than that; to be honest, I would’ve given the Eisner to the crossover or to issue #10.1.

That minor quibble aside, Daredevil by Mark Waid Vol. 2 lives up to the high standards set by the first volume. If you look at the timeline of events, Marvel NOW! is simply the company doing its best to get its books up to this level of quality. In the next volume, Waid and Greg Rucka will attempt to get me to like the Punisher, and if anyone can do that, it’s those two.

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Review: Daredevil Vol. 1 by Mark Waid trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who's just launched a new Tumblr, Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

Daredevil is the rare hero whose adventures are more depressing than Batman. He’s constantly followed by grim darkness and death; his most famous story involves his identity being sold by his drug-addled ex-girlfriend, allowing the Kingpin to ruin his life. A few years ago, he cracked and took over New York’s underbelly during the Shadowland event.

Shortly thereafter, Mark Waid accepted the task of writing a new Daredevil series, bringing a lighter tone (the first six issues of which are collected as Daredevil Vol. 1). Waid’s mission statement is that he wants to read a Daredevil story that “doesn’t drive you to drink afterwards.” His take has been widely praised and won a couple Eisners. But how can the dark, brooding, occasionally murderous Daredevil have such a change in personality without it coming off as contrived?

Most stories would use the obvious “out” and note that Daredevil was possessed during his time as a crime lord. Instead, Waid has Matt acknowledge this and the other darker points of his life while at the same time moving past them. Matt is the same person; he's just trying to have a happier view of life. The only person convinced is Matt himself; his supporting cast, his allies (such as Captain America), and even his foes don’t believe he’s changed, which makes this version of Daredevil seem much more authentic. The cover even adds “Here Comes…” back to the title, bringing classic Daredevil influences back into play.

In the first issue, Waid addresses that Daredevil’s secret identity hasn’t been “secret” for years. It’s been publicly revealed, revoked, and at one point Matt even pretended to be his own brother to get away from it. A prosecutor brings up his unmasking in court, causing a mistrial. No one can legally “prove” that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, but this won’t stop them from using it to produce reasonable doubt that he’s a vigilante who has killed in the past. It forces Matt to think of new ways to practice law, and it gives his partner, Foggy Nelson, no end of trouble. A flirtatious DA adds a whole new angle as the Nelson and Murdock firm starts to rebuild towards the end of this volume.

On the superheroic side, Daredevil takes on Captain America. In his own title, Cap’s partner, the Winter Soldier, was on trial for his past actions undertaken while brainwashed, giving Cap’s desire to arrest Daredevil a personal edge. In my favorite moment of the entire trade, Daredevil points out how long both he and Cap have been heroes, citing some of their early '60s adventures as proof. From here, Daredevil picks up the trail of a man who is intimidating an Arab client of his. There’s some great misdirection about the identity of the man and his motives, giving the book a nice twist.

Would you believe that a hero with super-hearing and radar senses had taken on Klaw, the Master of Sound, only one time before their battle in this trade? That battle was the start of Steve Englehart’s abortive Daredevil run, and only now has Mark Waid picked up on the brilliant idea of having them be recurring foes. This isn’t technically Klaw, but rather one of his “echoes,” a copy he produced as part of a scheme and which kept on existing after Klaw’s capture.

Waid begins to reveal a plan to resurrect Klaw, but most of the book's plot centers on a blind computer programmer, apparently fired from his job for his own protection after discovering an innovative villainous conspiracy. Hydra, the Serpent Society, AIM, and other criminal organizations have banded together to funnel their money through Latveria, making their proceeds untouchable.

To stop them, Daredevil must fight the Bruiser, one of my favorite new villains. His costume features the logos of the many criminal organizations who sponsor him. Mark Waid simultaneously gives him a unique superpower -- the ability to shift his center of gravity to make him unable to be toppled -- and provides Daredevil with a clever way to defeat him. In the end, Daredevil gets away with a database of the villains' information, setting up the book's later issues.

Much of the praise Daredevil has received is due to the artwork. Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin both have a cartoony style that's a complete opposite of the darker, moodier art of their predecessors, like Frank Miller and Alex Maleev. It’s incredible how dynamic the story can get when you can see what Daredevil is doing. Even with this lighter style, there’s an incredible amount of detail. Paolo and Rivera establish an incredible way of showing Matt’s powers in action, using pink detailing, diagonal lines, and numerous shadows. There’s an image of B-list villain the Spot, whom Daredevil fights in the opening pages, and for the first time, we see just how terrifying he looks as a walking spatial anomaly.

A back-up story demonstrates this new style, along with beautiful new sound effects provided by Joe Caramagna. A two-page spread of a walk through New York follows Matt as he simultaneously notices birds flapping their wings, stops Foggy from falling through an open grate, and determines the specific shampoo of a woman in front of them, all depicted in lush detail.

Mark Waid’s Daredevil feels like few other superhero books on the shelves outside of Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye (the two books have similarities). The art just bolsters great storytelling, excellent dialogue, and a sense of fun that the Man Without Fear has been lacking for some time.

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Number 1282: The Claw and the Clawites

The Claw, here making his appearance from Daredevil Comics #27 (1944), was billed as “The World's Worst Villain.” The thought struck me when looking at him, he may not have been exactly the world's worst, but he was the tallest. I'm sure that if the Claw was around today some sharp sports agent would find a way to get him a multi-million dollar contract playing professional basketball.

I also like the little devils that do the Claw's bidding. But someone, for lack of a better name, came up with “Clawites.” It has a certain ring...the Claw and the Clawites. Could've been a rock band from the era in which I grew up.

Artwork on this tall tale is by Bob Q. Siege, who also worked for editors Charles Biro and Bob Wood on Crime Does Not Pay.

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Number 1199: Homicidal hobo

Frank the Tramp is so bad he doesn't know how many people he's killed. “I guess hundreds —” he says to himself. “I kinda forgot —” Whew. Now that’s a bad guy. Frank avoids detection for a long time the way real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas reportedly did, by traveling around and varying his methods of dispatching victims. As Frank puts it in his final attempt at murder, “I've killed people all sorts of ways, but never with a live wire!”

In my opinion this story from Daredevil #22 (1943) is really only interesting because of Frank, not because of Daredevil, who just steps in when necessary. Certainly not by Daredevil’s kid gang, the Little Wise Guys, even though Frank’s crime spree is stopped because of their suspicions. Frank’s two wives are there to build up the story and provide Frank with victims. The critics of comics, crime comics especially, were sensitive to this sort of thing. Biro followed a criminal’s career, right up until the criminal’s bad end. That wasn't anything new in fiction, but in four colors, sold to children, it caused alarm.

This story is by Charles Biro* and drawn by Norman Maurer.

*According to David Hajdu in The Ten Cent Plague, Biro also used Virginia Hubbell as a ghost-writer, but the Grand Comics Database credits this story to Biro.

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Review: Daredevil: Reborn hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Continuing our trio of Marvel guest reviews, Damien Lockrow has some strong feelings about this one ...]

It’s interesting to compare and contrast Marvel and DC’s takes on the "Rebirth/Reborn" story. While DC typically uses it to denote the start of a new status quo, if not necessarily a completely fresh start -- Green Lantern: Rebirth, Flash: Rebirth, Batman Reborn, etc. -- Marvel seems keen to use the “Reborn” moniker for the end of long-running storylines. Or in the case of Daredevil: Reborn, the end of an era.

Daredevil has been immersed in crime noir for so long it’s almost difficult to think of a time when he wasn’t. Certainly seems like it’s been forever since we haven’t seen him falling into dark depths, clutching dead lovers; Murdock’s record of dead love interests nearly matches Mobile Suit Gundam, a series known for the rule of “you hook up with a Newtype, you will die in the next few episodes.” You can’t destroy your main character's life forever -- I’m amazed they managed it this long -- so Andy Diggle is left to clear the deck for a more optimistic take on the character.

After the events of Shadowland -- where our hero “lost his nut” and killed a villain or two -- Matt’s wanted by the Feds, so he does the logical thing: grows a beard and leaves New York for the mid-west on your typical “quest to rediscover himself.” Inevitably, he blunders into some trouble. Seems a town he runs across had a nice arms trafficking thing going on. Cue lots of angst about how he shouldn’t get involved due to royally screwing things up with that whole “leader of the Hand” business. It goes without saying that he finds himself involved anyways.

It’s all fairly unremarkable. The story is meant to get Matt over his hangups before Mark Waid takes over, but I’m not sure it needed to be quite so generic. It seems like it’s copied right from the “reluctant hero cannot walk away” playbook; while it’s perfectly fine to start with that, you expect something new. Here, we’re pretty much going through the motions; despite Murdock's inner monologue telling us otherwise, he only half-heartedly tries to keep his nose out of this mess.

But man, even if he was making a concentrated effort to keep out, it’s not like they gave him much choice. The town itself has to be populated with the most rock stupid criminals I’ve seen in a while. It’s like they’re trying to arouse suspicion. Random stranger blowing through town? Have the local good-ol'-boys rough him up; it’s not like it will throw up any red flags or anything. Send him on his way out of town before he’s suspicious? Good plan, until the sheriff finds out he was a superhero once and decides to send a couple normal, small town cops to stop him. That’s not going to come back to bite them in the ass or anything; I’m sure they can handle Daredevil. Find him trying to put a stop to your drug running? Knock him out and throw him in the back with all the guns; nothing to worry about, it’s not like he killed Bullseye recently or anything.

The villains are incompetents of the highest order. It’s amazing that the Murdock -- complete with his own variation of Ghost Rider's "Penance Stare" -- looked twice at these guys, much less decided to work with them. Then again, it’s not like Matt is the sharpest knife in the drawer either: he’s wanted by the FBI -- who know his real name -- and his superpals are kind of sore at him for Shadowland, so clearly the intelligent thing to do is waltz right back to New York City -- superhero central -- and re-open Nelson and Murdock. That won’t raise any eyebrows at all! Unbelievable

As dark as Daredevil's adventures got over the long years, they were still of high quality, so this is kind of a cruddy way for that era to go out. Reborn is not out-and-out horrible, but even given how lenient and forgiving I can be, I can’t really find many reasons to recommend this book to you. Not even for the art, which is admittedly pretty damn good. It’s all fairly disappointing.

But hey, it does have some pretty spiffy covers by Jock, so that’s something, right?

[Contains full covers and cover concepts, half the script for issue #1 included]

I’m not particularly fond of being down on things or overly negative, but Daredevil: Reborn is sadly not worth your money. It’s far from the best and far from the worst Daredevil story, meaning it’s probably destined to end up forgotten. Feel free to skip this and jump right into Mark Waid's Daredevil if you want. I doubt you’ll miss much.

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Number 1129: Charles Biro and Bob Wood's eye a-peel

As I mentioned a few days ago, Bob Wood, who partnered with Charles Biro to create and edit Crime Does Not Pay, a few years later was convicted of killing a girlfriend. The story is told in the trade paperback, Blackjacked and Pistol-Whipped: Crime Does Not Pay, from Dark Horse Comics, along with over 200 pages of crime comic book stories from that magazine.

These two stories predate Crime Does Not Pay. They're from Daredevil #11 (1942), which was published soon after war was declared against Japan, and I've included a centerspread board game called "Slap the Jap." Sorry for the racist content, folks. It was wartime, and it's interesting, an elaborate game for a comic book.

Biro's early stuff was as lurid as he could make it. He knew what got attention on newsstands, and he hewed to primary colors to make his stories stand out. Quality Comics was doing much the same thing. Someone once commented that coloring like this is "like taking a potato peeler to your eyeballs." Even so, for emphasis I've given the coloring a little extra push to make it really bright. If any eye damage occurs, well, sorry. You've been warned.

I have shown both these stories before, a few years ago, but these are brand new scans.

Bob Wood's story of The Claw, despite his drawing, has a lot of energy to it, though, just as Biro's tale of a murderous horror movie star does. That kind of energy went into Crime Does Not Pay when that publication began with a date a month later than this issue of Daredevil, July 1942 to the Daredevil date of June.

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