Daredevil is Marvel's most human character because he's a goddamn mess. He can't win, at least not for very long. He is, at times, his worst enemy. And he can't sin even a little bit without it coming around to bite him on the ass. Yes, he's a goddamn mess, and it can be argued that he may even be a bit God-damned.
Blessed/cursed with yet another #1, this time Daredevil's descent into hell is written by Chip Zdarksy and drawn by Marco Checchetto, with brilliant colours by Sunny Gho. It's a beautiful book, although unnecessarily expensive. And yes, I know how capitalism works, but here in Canada we get bit hard by the exchange, and even a dollar extra is something that will make me put a book back on the shelf.
Still, Daredevil!
This time around, the hard rules for a Number One (introduce the character, explain a bit of back story, end on a cliffhanger) are thankfully shaken up. The origin is left to a line of dialogue and visual cues. The references to Charles Soule's run form the launching point for this series, so that's back story dealt with. And the cliffhanger is the best one thus far in 2019.
As is to be expected, Matt's not in a good place. He's recovering from the deep physical trauma inflicted at the end of the previous writer's run. (It's a thing for Daredevil writers to leave Matt Murdock in a tough spot for the next writer to deal with. Writers are dicks.) For a good Catholic boy, Matt is hitting the booze, picking up strange women in bars, and exacting bone breaking vengeance on scumbags who cheat the legal system. Zdarsky questions why exactly Matt is exacting vengeance: is it because he believes in justice? Or is it something darker? More addictive? Just what is going on with Daredevil now?
Matt's need to be Daredevil--is it to do good or just to beat the living shit out of people?--is a big question in this comic. As a result, this need--could it be a sin?--has consequences. Big consequences.
Zdarsky has set up an interesting premise for the first story arc, one that genuinely surprised me, that had me going back and re-reading pages and feeling that horrific dawn of realization. I appreciated that. I also liked the little comic at the end of the book, written and drawn by Zdarsky himself. It was a nice bit of comic book craft.
Daredevil #1 is a good comic about a messed up hero. But it didn't need to be a Number One, and it didn't need to be this expensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment