DareDevil

[PWN3R]

Samnee's Fisk rendition was indeed gorgeous. Almost as righteous as Foggy's fat suit. Almost.

 

[Keyser Soze]

So the latest Daredevil solicit for February 2015 says it's the beginning of the final arc of the Waid/Samnee run. Bloody typical. Going back as far as Geoff Johns' Flash, it seems me jumping onto an acclaimed comics run is the death knell signalling that run is about to end.

 

[Energist]

I'm ready for it. Much like Bendis, Waid's run has been great, but I'm looking forward to some fresh talent coming to the book.

 

[runawayboulder]

So the latest Daredevil solicit for February 2015 says it's the beginning of the final arc of the Waid/Samnee run. Bloody typical. Going back as far as Geoff Johns' Flash, it seems me jumping onto an acclaimed comics run is the death knell signalling that run is about to end.

Well thanks a freaking lot you big jerk!

I guess this means yet ANOTHER volume relaunch.....

 

[CrimsonMist]

Sucks that it's probably going to get another reboot. I dropped the book when they relaunched it for a buck more. But since they're doing...something to the title again, I may as well jump back on. My comic shop is having a holiday sale so I'll probably pick up the issues currently out for half off cover price.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Well thanks a freaking lot you big jerk!

I guess this means yet ANOTHER volume relaunch.....

We're early enough into Volume 4 that I think it's unlikely. Although I don't think they ever should have left Volume 3.

I haven't read Waid's stuff yet (although I hear it's excellent). I was looking forward to it (and to finally be reading a writer who is currently writing the series). It seems I'll have to put off that goal a little while longer. I think it does make sense, though. Since the Netflix show is probably quite a bit darker, it would make sense to take the comic a bit in that direction (although I hope they don't quite go to Bendis and Brubaker levels).

 

[Keyser Soze]

We're early enough into Volume 4 that I think it's unlikely. Although I don't think they ever should have left Volume 3.

I haven't read Waid's stuff yet (although I hear it's excellent). I was looking forward to it (and to finally be reading a writer who is currently writing the series). It seems I'll have to put off that goal a little while longer. I think it does make sense, though. Since the Netflix show is probably quite a bit darker, it would make sense to take the comic a bit in that direction (although I hope they don't quite go to Bendis and Brubaker levels).

Oh cool, are you reading the whole series in order? That's pretty impressive. I started by reading Born Again, which is still to this day one of my favourite comics ever. Then I read a couple of random Miller issues, and some of Guardian Devil. Then when I wasn't reading comics regularly I read a couple of Bullseye-focused minis. Then I got back into comics in time for the Brubaker run. Then stopped reading the series when Brubaker left, and after jumping in and out of the Waid run finally got round to catching up on the whole thing. Then went back and read Miller's original run as a whole. And now I have the Bendis issues collected in those three big volumes, though I'm saving those as a Christmas present to myself. So my reading order has been a bit all over the place!

 

[Naked Shia]

I would recommend the daredevil essential volumes. Granted, it's more goofy silver age, but there is a real sense of progression, and everything is already there: matt, foggy, fixer, bullseye (even though he was introduced late). It's a lot of fun.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Oh cool, are you reading the whole series in order? That's pretty impressive. I started by reading Born Again, which is still to this day one of my favourite comics ever. Then I read a couple of random Miller issues, and some of Guardian Devil. Then when I wasn't reading comics regularly I read a couple of Bullseye-focused minis. Then I got back into comics in time for the Brubaker run. Then stopped reading the series when Brubaker left, and after jumping in and out of the Waid run finally got round to catching up on the whole thing. Then went back and read Miller's original run as a whole. And now I have the Bendis issues collected in those three big volumes, though I'm saving those as a Christmas present to myself. So my reading order has been a bit all over the place!

I started with Miller (more accurately, I started with McKenzie's run with Miller as penciler). I've also added a couple of issues that predate that. Then I read about half of Denny O'Neil, about 95% of Ann Nocenti, and the key stories from D.G. Chichester (Last Rites/Fall of the Kingpin, Fall from Grace, Tree of Knowledge). After that, I jumped to Kevin Smith's Guardian Devil, David Mack's Parts of a Hole, and am now in Bendis.

I didn't start reading it that way. The first two stories I read were Frank Miller's The Man Without Fear and Bendis's Hardcore. But I don't think I appreciated those stories as much in that order. I'm also glad I didn't read Born Again first because there's a lot of baggage that's hard to appreciate without reading other stuff first.

 

[Keyser Soze]

So, what do we think is going to happen when Waid and Samnee leave the book? Of course we'll get a new creative team. But adding it up, if February sees the beginning of the final chapter, and most arcs in this run on Daredevil have been 3 issues, then that adds up to Waid and Samnee finishing on April 2015. The Netflix show debuts May 2015. Will Marvel be able to resist the synergy of launching another new volume along with the debut of the new creative team to give us a Daredevil #1 on the same month as the Netflix launch?

And what will that new volume do, do we think? Will it carry on the timeline that Waid set out in his Daredevil #1.5 flash-forward story, where Matt Murdock goes on living in San Francisco indefinitely, and will soon begin what will become a successful campaign to become the city's Mayor? A dynamic where Matt Murdock is Mayor of San Francisco by day and costumed crime-fighter by night could be a nice evolution of the original Daredevil dynamic, but could be too far removed from the traditionally iconic Daredevil Marvel will be introducing in the Netflix show. Do you think Marvel is more likely to hit the reset button and find a way to return him to Hell's Kitchen?

 

[runawayboulder]

I hope not. NYC has enough superheroes. DD is fine in San Fran.

 

[Naked Shia]

I agree, the whole "Hell's kitchen is my turf" is getting old. I liked it when he was in frisco with black widow too.

 

[gohei_]

I would recommend the daredevil essential volumes. Granted, it's more goofy silver age, but there is a real sense of progression, and everything is already there: matt, foggy, fixer, bullseye (even though he was introduced late). It's a lot of fun.

Volumes 2,3,5 and 6 of Essential have been sitting in my bookshelf for many months until finally today I got a hold of volumes 1 and 4.
I started with Miller's run and after that I decided to start from the beginning and now I can finally start to read some

 

[JewishHobbit]

I stopped reading daredevil over the summer but might go ahead and finish it up since Waid and Samnee are finishing up. I like darker Daredevil tales better and hope that the show will encourage that to return.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Could it be that Mark Waid's NOT leaving now?

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=57471

 

[Mike Murdock]

He's being coy. I'm seeing a lot of announcements that say it's the last story for the team. I wonder if Samnee is the only one leaving. I suspect they're passing the torch to someone else, but I think we'll only know after they announce a successor.

 

[Naked Shia]

Volumes 2,3,5 and 6 of Essential have been sitting in my bookshelf for many months until finally today I got a hold of volumes 1 and 4.
I started with Miller's run and after that I decided to start from the beginning and now I can finally start to read some

so how do you like it so far?

 

[gohei_]

so how do you like it so far?

I'm really enjoying it, even without the color
I just finished the first volume (25 issues) and just as a comparison I am reading through the first issues of Spider-man as well and even though they have the same writer and are written almost at the same time I am finding it hard to read through Spider-man. Daredevil though is much more interesting.
Not sure if it's the quality of the writing or just that I am enjoying DD more as a character.

 

[Naked Shia]

Maybe it's the school stuff you're not fond of? Matt being a lawyer and all makes for different stories indeed.

 

[gohei_]

Yeah, perhaps. Anyway I'm really enjoying every issue so far, even the ones who are kind of silly.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I recently finished the Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev DAREDEVIL run, having bought the three Ultimate Collections and having started reading at Christmas. Really excellent. On the surface, very different from the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee DAREDEVIL stuff that got me back into the character, but not as different as some would have you believe. I think the Matt Murdock in this run is recognisably the same great character as the Matt Murdock under Waid's pen, albeit in a different phase of his life. Which is probably what makes Matt Murdock one of the all-time great comic characters: he has grown and evolved organically over the decades, while for the most part still remaining true to who he is.

I think one of my favourite aspects of how Daredevil is portrayed by Bendis is his compassion and flashes of kindness. In his dealings with criminals, he's a bit like Batman, terrorising those who would terrorise others, and this run really pushes that to the limit in terms of making Daredevil a force of nature that underworld types really don't want to cross. But what we also get, which we don't often get with Batman, is seeing how he interacts with decent, law-abiding folk: hugging the traumatised boy and telling him everything will be okay, or apologising to Milla for upsetting her day the first time he meets her by saving her from a truck, or the way he can't quite conceal his smile when onlookers on the street start cheering him on. It humanises him, and makes him feel more heroic.

The run, as a whole, is an excellent overarching story, with the FBI kinda acting as the Big Bads and the noose steadily closing around Matt Murdock's neck as their investigation into him moves inexorably forward. And on top of that, in true selfless style it both builds organically out of plot developments that happened before the run began, and finishes off setting the stage for the run that would follow. But within that there are a series of smaller story arcs, each one of which is strong and rewarding in its own way...

- "Wake Up" came before the Bendis/Maleev run, and saw Bendis writing a story drawn stupendously well by David Mack. It's largely a Ben Urich story, with Daredevil mostly an off-panel presence, as Urich tries to peace together the events that left an abused young boy in a catanonic state and his father missing, trying to work out how Daredevil is involved. Mack's work is surprisingly experimental for a Marvel superhero comic, but it works really well, giving us some beautiful tableaus. And the resolution is surprisingly powerful and emotionally resonant.

- "Underboss" really works as a mission statement for what the Bendis/Maleev run as a whole is going to be, showing how Daredevil can fit into this gritty crime saga where he is just one of an ensemble of players on both sides of the law. Some great, chilling stuff with Vanessa Fisk here, too.

- "Out" is where the Bendis/Maleev DAREDEVIL truly takes to the skies. It's all about how Matt Murdock's secret identity gets outed to the tabloid press, and as such it was a very divisive story at the time of its publication, a lot of longtime fans HATING it. But I feel it's been vindicated by history, as looking back now, it works fantastically as a nuanced analysis into what the reality of being a superhero might be, and the real-life costs that might factor into a secret identity being compromised. Also works as a satire into rolling news coverage and the media obsession with celebrities, particularly in tearing them down. And by the end, the story boldly underlines that in situations like this the genie can't just be put back in the bottle for the sake of restoring status quo.

- The story that follows wasn't drawn by Maleev, so maybe doesn't get mentioned as much when discussing this run. But it could be one of my favourite storylines of the whole Bendis run, and one of my favourite Daredevil stories, full-stop. Former vigilante White Tiger is wrongly accused of murder, and Matt Murdock represents him in court. And that's it, setting up three issues of courtroom drama. Daredevil barely shows up. If memory serves, the only time we see Murdock in the Daredevil costume is when he shows up to meet Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and they're like, "Umm... actually we were looking for legal advice," and he's all like, "Oh, I better go change then." But even without the superheroics, it manages to be gripping, thrilling, and by the end, devastating. At the NYCC panel I went to for the Netflix TV show, actor Charlie Cox singled this out as his absolute favourite Daredevil story, and I can see why.

- "Hardcore" is probably the closest this run has to big, widescreen superheroics on a large scale, with Daredevil fighting through most of his most famous foes - Owl, Typhoid Mary, Bullseye, Kingpin - gauntlet style. But even then, it subverts expectations in just how dark it goes, particularly in the frightening, despicable portrayals of Bullseye and Kingpin. The story seems to be all about Wilson Fisk's inevitable return to the role of The Kingpin - that's what always happens whenever he loses his throne, after all - only for the story to zag when you think it will zig and give us the next big status quo upheaval of the run. In a lot of ways, the point of this storyline feels like it might be to suggest that Daredevil has evolved past his old foes, and has become something more dangerous than before.

- The next arc jumps forward a year, with Matt Murdock entrenched in his new status quo, and it's handled really well. I got a "Season 3 of THE WIRE" vibe off of the moral dilemma laid out for Murdock. And this storyline also features one of the best comic fight scenes ever, as an out-of-costume Murdock faces an army of Yakuza on a rain-soaked street.

- The following story features the welcome return of Black Widow, in perhaps my favourite of her comic book appearances. In her interplay with Murdock, Bendis does a great job of simultaneously showing why they made such a great couple back in the day, and why they can never really be a couple now.

- The next story, going into Alexander Bont, "the first Kingpin," is another delight. I love "hidden history" type stuff like this. Bont is a compelling villain. And the storyline is also notable for giving Melvin Potter, AKA Gladiator, a meaty role.

- "Demagogue" seems to be the widely-derided chunk of the Bendis/Maleev run, but I actually really liked it. I love the notion of seeing how all these ordinary folk have had their lives touched by Daredevil in various ways, and even the supernatural element that strangely gets worked in from an askew angle was handled well, I thought, and at times was genuinely creepy.

- "The Murdock Papers" was the grand finale of the arc, and is really a textbook example of how to do a "last arc" in an extended comic run. The cast is huge, with most of the key players from throughout the whole run coming back for resolution, and the whole storyline crafting this "chickens coming home to roost" sense of escalating dread. There was sense of crushing finality while reading, like this great story I'd immersed myself in was coming to an end, even as - like I said above - the stage is set for what came next. This story was also great in how, after Kingpin was somewhat undercut earlier in the run, this firmly establishes that Fisk still has teeth, and just when you've started to underestimate him, THAT'S when he'll reveal a whole new way of ****ing up your life.

So, overall, amazing run of comics. I'm genuinely struggling to decide which out of this and the Waid/Samnee run I like more, since they're both so great in their own way. Now I don't know what to get next: the first volume of the Brubaker/Lark Ultimate Collection (I remember jumping on for the single issues about halfway through this run, but that means I never read the beginning) to see how the story continues, or skip to DAREDEVIL: END OF DAYS to get more Bendis on Daredevil?

 

[Mike Murdock]

I went from Bendis to Brubaker. I have the first volume of his ultimate collection. Those stories are quite good. A little more noir than Bendis was, but lots of interesting things. I can't comment on after that because I haven't gotten to it yet. But that's my recommendation.

But I will admit I'm biased when it comes to flashforwards.

 

[Naked Shia]

This is probably Bendis best work. It makes you care for Matt and his pals. I especially like his take on Foggy.

That said, End of Days is tragically bad, nad I don't think it's an interesting ending for his run. Luckily, it's not in continuity.

I just bought the Lone Stranger TPB, and the 6 issues I needed to end Nocenti's run. I think her run is really underrated. The Typhoid Mary arc is really powerful, and it makes you incomfortable. It's not my favorite to read because of that, which is an indication of how powerful it is.

The whole loner walking the roads of America is really interesting here, unlike Daredevil Reborn. Nocenti's biggest strength is how she's not afraid to talk about social issues, and she manages to make it work, even though Matt is not a lawyer anymore in most of the run. It makes sense for him to be part of this.

It can be surprising to read Thypoid Mary, then to have the whole Mephisto/Black heart stuff, because the surnatural is not something you would instantly link to DD. But it's really clever and thought provoking. The issue where DD is in a bar speaking with Mephisto is pure gold for instance.

All of this Hell stuff makes his return in New York even more triumphant, and there are some really solid interactions with Bullseye.

Art wise, it's a young Romita Jr. It's not as good as his 90's stuff, but it's way better than his 2000's stuff. Then you have Lee Weeks for the last part of the run, and boy can he draw.

I really think Nocenti, who is today a really disliked writer for her run on catwoman, is not given enough credit for her work on DD.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Yeah, her run in Daredevil is extremely underrated. That being said, it is certainly flawed. I don't think her social issues are her problem, it's her weak endings that bother me the most. The very end of DD's journey to hell was fine (there was a shocking twist that made Mephisto seem even more evil), but some of the journey before that was just too convoluted and metaphysical for a comicbook (and you could tell JRJr was exhausted by the time it was over). Plus, it was kind of resolved through a Deus Ex Machina. But I think the final arc - with Matt losing his memory and all that - was one of the strongest arcs of Daredevil I had seen in a long time. It's a solid story throughout leading up to a strong ending.

Her politics never bothered me because she was smart enough to either put the words in flawed characters (so you never got the sense that it was the "true" answer) or done in a way that it was said somewhat jokey or un-seriously (such as Daredevil acting like a hippy with Karen mocking him for it).

 

[Naked Shia]

I pretty much agree with everything you just said. I think Matt losing his memory was a symbol of how he had lost himself all this time, and how he need to get back to the basics.