For decades, Daredevil
and his alter ego, blind lawyer Matt Murdock, has been the whipping
boy of the Marvel universe. Ever since Frank Miller tore his life
apart with the “Born Again” storyline, The Man Without Fear has
had his life torn apart, rebuilt, and torn apart again. Brian
Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker turned Daredevil's life into hell by
outing his secret identity, sending him to prison, and a host of
other dark, depressing stories. That isn't to say that these stories
were bad. But everything, down to the gritty, noirish art made the
book compelling but in no way fun.
This is why Mark Waid's take on the
character is a breath of fresh air. Waid famously re-invented Wally
West as the Flash and I get that same kind of vibe from his
Daredevil. The tone, the stories, even the color pallet show
a marked change from his predecessors. Matt Murdock has reopened his
law practice and is trying to get his life back together. This is
difficult because even though he denies it, most people think he is
Daredevil. It therefore makes it impossible for him to litigate
cases in court. On top of this he has people scrutinizing his every
move, forcing him to constantly re-enforce his supposed shortcomings
Clark Kent style.
But Matt Murdock tells his trusty law
partner and friend Foggy Nelson that he has decided to enjoy life.
And that is very evident in the book. Daredevil swings from rooftops
with a smile. He plays chicken with Spider-Man, makes out on
rooftops with Black Cat, and soaks in the sensory rich city of New
York. When he doesn't resist Black Cat's amorous advances, she seems
surprised. His response is “Who am I? Spider-Man?” (much to
the Wall Crawler's chagrin). That isn't to say that this book lacks
seriousness. Underneath this new and improved Daredevil, all of his
past wounds fester under the surface. There is an inescapable
feeling that the laughs are there only mask the tears. And we want
Matt to be happy. The heart of drama is tension, which is one of
reasons why Daredevil books have has such a high level on
intensity After all the crap that has been flung his way over the
years, I as a reader openly embrace the fun tone of the book. It
doesn't disregard what has come before it, but it is smart enough to
take the story in a different direction.
Also, after so many writers have had a
hand in shaping the Daredevil mythos, you would think that the
exploration of his powers would be exhausted. But Waid does the same
thing he did with the Flash: he looks at a character who sees the
world in a way that is uniquely different from everyone else and then
proceeds to show us how they see the world. With Wally West, we saw
the world from the perspective of a man who lived lifetimes between
heartbeats. With Matt Murdock, we explore the depths to which his
heightened senses define his world. It is delightful to the
imagination when he smells a basket of strawberries and says that
each one has a slightly different fragrance. When fighting Captain
America, he grabs his shield and says that it is the most perfectly
balanced thing he's ever felt. “Like touching a Stradivarius
Highlight of my evening.”
And Waid takes this newfound
personality and places him in great peril. He is building to giant
conspiracy that will no doubt soon engulf our hero. But he smartly
lays out the groundwork through smaller self-contained stories with
only nuggets of the larger picture. This makes the one to two issue
arcs simple, sweet, and enjoyable.
Waid won an Eisner award (the Oscars of
comic books) for best writer this year, deservedly so. Issue #7 of
Daredevil won best single issue. Matt Murdock is stuck in the
wilderness with a school bus full of dysfunctional children during a
blizzard. His senses make his more sensitive to the cold, and the
weather essentially disables his hearing and his radar sense. As he
treks through the Catskills with hope fading, our hero notes, “This
is a gargantuanly stupid way to die.” And yet the peril is real
because we feel Daredevil's disability. It is often forgotten
because of his powers that he is still handicapped. Waid takes makes
that trait front and center, but makes sure to show that it is not
his limitations that define him but his ability to overcome them.
This issue also touched my heart as Matt searches for a lost child in
the snow and finds him huddled up praying the “Hail Mary.”
As I've made abundantly clear, I am a
DC man. I collect very few Marvel books.
But that short list has now been
increased by one.
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