Written by Mark Waid
Illustrated by Marcos MartinMatt Murdock begins his new career–one that will expose Daredevil to crime and evil in a whole new way! If you thought the odds were against Matt as a trial lawyer, you won’t believe the challenges his new job brings–and what they’ll do to his private life!
Can Daredevil sustain its momentum into arc (and artist) #2? Blindfold yourself, choose your favorite text-to-speech reader, and listen to me talk about it in a robot voice after the jump.
Daredevil is, believe it or not, probably the most controversial book at Multiversity Comics. This is because our Editor in Chief hates it while everyone else loves it, and whenever a new issue or review rolls around, the e-mails start up, bantering about whether the series is great or boring. I’ll spoil the rest of the review for you now: it’s great. It might even be really great. Sorry, Matt.
One of the crucial advantages Daredevil has over the rest of the comic-book world is its rotating artist set, Paolo Rivera and (on this issue) Marcos Martin. The two have very different approaches to how Daredevil’s world should be illustrated, but those approaches dovetail so nicely — and are linked tightly by the excellent coloring — that the contrast isn’t blindingly (ha) obvious. Rivera tries to make his view of the book more immediately immersive, littering the landscape with SFX and sensory cutaways. Martin’s look into Daredevil’s goings-on is far less literal — instead, he exaggerates everything, creating striking compositions that are as boldly fun as they are unrealistic. It works, though — the stylized visuals suit a hero who can’t see his own escapades.
There is also the Waid factor. Mark Waid is as close to an ideal superhero writer as anyone can get — he’s respectful of the past, never going out of his way to stomp on or ignore the precious thread that is continuity, but he’s not afraid of taking risks, either. In an industry full of exposing the dark secrets behind stories we read ages ago, Waid pushes forward into something new, while retaining the classic feel that’s far more vital than any continuity cause-and-effect. Sometimes, he wanders a bit too far astray: the bit in this issue about Daredevil getting his suit delivered was an answer to a question no reader in their right mind was asking, and felt like too broad of a stage wink. Still, the sting of that criticism is diminished, because it’s trying to call Waid out on… having too much fun with these characters? Being too engaged with them? If those are crimes, more writers should break the law.
The current status quo is that Nelson and Murdock are now freelance legal coaches for people representing themselves in court. Matt Murdock can’t practice law anymore without his opponents making reference to that whole “Daredevil” scandal and getting a mistrial — so he helps those who need it another way. This includes a blind kid who’s suing for wrongful termination — an aspect that made me twitch a little at first, because the “Matt and a younger blind guy” thing has been done. (Not recently, mind; Ann Nocenti used it to help the readers see that Daredevil was a bit of a scumbag thanks to all of his, you know, crippling emotional problems.) The case, though, is solid gold. It utilizes sensory details (Daredevil stories without good use of those are like CSI episodes without CGI effects), real-TV-world legal entanglements, a good mystery, and the Marvel Universe atlas.
Mark Waid has rescued Daredevil from the jaws of mighty-Miller-manner miserablism before it could descend into total self-parody. The unsavory qualities of Matt Murdock’s character remain — as he chides Foggy’s eating habits or deals with just about anyone, it’d be fair to mark him as a bit of a smug prick — but they’re not being stressed to the breaking point. Not every good Daredevil story is Wagnerian operatic melodrama; this issue helps set a perfect precedent. And come on, seriously — what a great cliffhanger.
Final Verdict: 9 – Buy two copies, one for you and one to send to Matt to piss him off
