Lee Weeks returns to the life of the guardian of Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil, to kick off this eight issue anthology series. Is it worth getting? Is it as good as what Mark Waid is doing on the main title? Read on to find out!
Written and Illustrated by Lee Weeks
• A gorgeous new series featuring the greatest talents in comics brings you the rest of the Man Without Fear’s story
• Legendary artist Lee Weeks returns to his favorite hero for “Angels Unaware!”
• A blizzard brings New York to a stand still — and a young patient lies on death’s door unless Daredevil can get to him in time!
Daredevil has had a lot of big, creative names attached to him over the years. From Stan Lee and Gene Colan to Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli to Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev and all the way up to Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. That’s a lot of history for one character and a lot of names of legendary creators putting their mark on the character. One of the names from over the years, though, was Lee Weeks and he returns now to write and illustrate a three issue story as part of the “Dark Knights” anthology. Does Weeks’ story have it in itself to sit up there with some of the best “Daredevil” stories around? Long story short: yes. Yes, it does.
An artist writing a script for themselves usually allows them to get rid of the dissonance between the mind of the writer and the mind of the artist when they are separate people. Weeks uses that to full effect to write a script that not only tells a wonderful story, but also plays to his strengths as an artist. The artwork on display here is some of the best artwork to ever grace the interiors of a “Daredevil” issue and that’s saying something considering the history of the artists that have worked on it. Week’s panel structure is concise, yet varied and really helps give weight to the blizzard taking place during the story by use of large, empty and minimalist panels. His pencils are so detailed and clean that every page is just a joy to look at. Every character model is succinct and, frankly, gorgeous thanks to Week’s pencils. I simply can’t overstate just how lovely this book looks. It’s worth the price of admission thanks to Lee Week’s pencils alone.
The story isn’t too shabby, either, as Weeks shows that he can work a good narration caption as well as a panel. Weeks builds a thrilling story here dealing with an amnesiac Matt Murdock having to try and deliver a young girl’s heart transplant in the middle of a snowstorm that has ground Manhattan to a standstill. Weeks really know how to pack an emotional punch with such a simple story. The page showing a family dealing with taking their son off of life support is heart wrenching thanks not only to Week’s words, but also to how he structured it with such minimalist panels. He has built a fantastic story around his artwork and it gives the whole issue a cohesive feel that just makes the whole thing so much better.
The idea for giving Matt Murdock a bout of amnesia thanks to a head injury suffered in the issue is a stroke of genius. It’s a school of thought that every comic issue must introduce the reader to the main; every issue is someone’s first issue, after all. What Weeks does here is one step further as he explores the history of Matt Murdock’s character through narration captions, his own internal monologue and character actions throughout the issue. Outside of a dedicated origin story, this might be the best introduction to Daredevil you could ever hope for. Sit anyone down with this issues and guaranteed by the end of it, they will come away wanting more.
It’s not exactly common for a review to talk about the lettering of a comic book, but here it deserves it. While comic book lettering conveys whatever is being said in any given word balloon, it’s hard for words on a page to affect how the reader translates that into sounds in their head. Yet here, the lettering is really able to convey just how loud the world is for Matt Murdock in a great scene of Matt waking up in hospital. It really shows what is so great about this issue: everyone involved brought their A-game. From Lee Weeks’ script playing to the strength of his pencils through to the wonderful colors of Lee Loughridge and the lettering of Clayton Cowles. Everything about this book is at the top of it’s game.
This might very well be the definitive introduction to Matt Murdock anyone has ever written. Instead of treading old ground by rehashing an origin story yet again, Weeks has told an original story and used that to explore the history of Matt’s character. Daredevil continues to reign supreme as the Marvel character that somehow draws the best work from everyone involved. This is not to be missed.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – If you miss this, you are a fool.
