Written by Mark Waid
Illustrated by Paolo Rivera– Mole Man returns, fresh from his battle in Avenging Spider-Man!
– Jump on to the book that EVERYONE is talking about!
Well, there’s not much more to say before the cut that the solicitation doesn’t already tell us, is there? It’s short and to the point, and at this point anything I could say would just be redundant. So why don’t you follow the cut for my thoughts on this week’s issue of Marvel’s best new book?
For a book about a blind hero, Daredevil is a very visual book. As a veteran of the industry, Mark Waid understands that comics is a visual medium. Many writers these days create comics that are carried entirely by dialogue until the one or two fight scenes in the issue, but Waid’s scripts for Daredevil avoid talking-head syndrome, allowing the wonderful artists on the book – whom we’ll get to them later – to shine. The rule “Show, don’t tell” is constantly shoved down writers’ throats, and – even though it isn’t as universally applicable as some people make it out to be – Waid and company follow that rule almost to the letter in this book. Even the recap page has an almost equal balance of showing and telling, which is almost never seen (though that may primarily be attributed to artist Paolo Rivera, but I already told you we’ll get to him later). As Waid is working on making this book as visual as possible, he has been experimenting with a variety of visual storytelling techniques in this book. We see a few writerly techniques that have been used before, but there’s one particular inversion of a visual trick from the Amazing Spider-Man that sticks out in this issue, and that is sure to make the reader grin – if you read the crossover, of course.
Waid also deserves acclaim for preserving Matt’s character, despite the shift in tone from the past few decades-worth of Daredevil. This might not be a bleak, unforgiving noir take on the character, but this is still Matt, with all of his flaws and shortcomings. Matt has always been a bit self-centered – not necessarily in a mean, selfish way, but just in how he sometimes focus primarily on his problems. Let’s be honest, if your life sucked as much as his used to, you probably would do the same thing. In the latest issue, it is this flaw that kicks off this issue’s conflict, but in a way that doesn’t make it an overbearing theme of the issue; if Matt had been paying attention, perhaps this whole underground fiasco could be avoided.
Let’s also take just a brief moment to applaud Waid further building to the upcoming crossover in a way that doesn’t distract from the story at hand; rather, the scene with Felicia makes Matt’s portion of the comic all the more tense because we know he’s missing out on something important.
One of the primary reasons why I was looking forward to this underground arc in particular was because of how much I enjoyed Paolo Rivera’s portrayal of Matt’s radar sense in previous issues. Fellow Daredevil artist Marcos Martin does a great job as well, but there’s something about Rivera’s radar that just looks so smooth. While it wasn’t used quite as much as one might have expected in this issue, that doesn’t mean that Rivera doesn’t shine. Nearly every page set underground is pooled with black negative space, but no matter how dark each panel gets, it is still completely decipherable and unambiguous. This also really shows off the rest of the artistic team; Paolo’s father, Joe Rivera, is not at all sloppy with his inking, allowing his son’s lines to breathe and not be suffocated by the surrounding blackness. Colorist Javier Rodriguez, on the other hand, has perhaps the hardest job of all in this process. With all the black on the page, a careless choice in colors could make this comic a horrible eyesore, but – as in every issue of the series he’s been on – Rodriguez choices in saturation and gradient are impeccable. While some people criticize the penciler/inker/colorist model, it really is something when the three artists are in sync.
Continued belowThe new volume of Daredevil has garnered plenty of critical acclaim since its debut, and this is just one more positive review to add to the pile. It’s an entertaining book where the writer and artists are in almost perfect harmony, and stands as the prime example of how to do an ongoing superhero series. If you haven’t been reading it, you better hunt down those back issues before it’s too late.
Final Verdict:
Third base (8.5) – Buy it!
