Daredevil
Over the last year, I’ve read a lot of Daredevil; I’m sure there are a lot of people who read a lot more Daredevil than I did and I’m sure there are people with more informed opinions than I have and with better supporting arguments for what they’re trying to argue, but that’s life right there, isn’t it?
It took me a little bit to settle in with Marvel Unlimited—as an aside, the new interface is terrible—and to figure out where to begin. To be honest, there Is so much content it’s a little bit intimidating and a bit confusing when it comes to figuring out where to start. I fired up the Danny Ketch-era Ghost Rider I read as a kid, and I went through a lot of the 2099 books, and I went through Neil Gaiman’s peerless work in 1602, and I really dug into the Fear Itself series—that’s another story for another day—and then I read a bunch of Punisher and Black Panther and it was Black Panther’s turn in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen that put me onto The Man Without Fear. I had grand designs about going through a bunch of mutant books—Old Man Logan is at the top of my list—and Guardians of the Galaxy and some of the cosmic stuff, but after reading about T’Challa holding it down during Daredevil’s absence I found myself really drawn to the character who seemed to be held in such reverence by a neighbourhood in the middle of all the grandiosity of the Marvel universe. So, into Daredevil I went.
Since I didn’t—and still don’t, to be honest—want to get into a series from like, I don’t don’t, 1964 with hundreds of issues and try to figure out just where start and go, I got into the limited issue series. The 6-, 8-, 10-issue sort of thing. Call me lazy. Call the comic police on me. The funny part is that I really questioned myself with the decision: am I shortchanging myself? Am I taking the easy way? Am I faking it all? Totally hilarious and what a fuckin crock, right? As if I was gatekeeping myself. Haha. That’s ALSO another story for another day. Anyway, once I got through my own comic-related bullshit, I really felt okay about reading a ton of Daredevil. As, Dear Reader, you can tell, this is going go to be a bunch about Daredevil, so buckle up or see you later.
The series I most enjoyed were Daredevil: Love and War, Daredevil: Yellow, and the entire Shadowland series—Shadowland, Shadowland: Blood on the Streets, Shadowland: After the Fall, as well as the adjacent Shadowland books. A few things came to bear as I read and, primarily, was the tension existing within Matt Murdock: a lawyer during the day and trying to do things “the right way” within “the system” and masked vigilante whooping the absolute shit out of people in the night and disregarding “the system” and “the right way”. Some of the other series I read, the internal dialogue and exposition was a little overbearing; the constant religiosity in some cases was a nuisance; and sometimes it was just like, goddamn bro I GET IT YOU’RE CONFLICTED. Sometimes the deus ex machina of the comic world gets a little too much for me. As an aside, I read an article the other day about Ironman’s suits being too overpowered, and I realized we’re basically in the Adam West Batman—may you be free from rebirth, Adam—world where it’s a good thing I have my (insert whatever) pill/gadget/blah blah blah, and there were moments I picked that up with issues of Daredevil, for sure. And it’s cool, to a degree, I guess. I mean, I get it, because what is a world with superheroes if not a world of deus ex machina, right? I don’t think it’s worthwhile getting into which comics I didn’t love, because whether I loved them or not doesn’t have any bearing on the books themselves; lots of people dig them, and lots of people love the heroic atmosphere, I just don’t always connect with it.
In looking back at the last few blog posts I’ve written, I’ve been in a real superhero mode the last few weeks, and it’s clear I gravitate towards the books that try and look what exists beyond the superpowered nature of the characters, hero and villain alike. Love and War was amazing: I loved the artwork, the writing, the look at Kingpin, and the way Daredevil didn’t really superhero his way through the story. Similarly, I loved Yellow because of the origin story, the way Matt/Daredevil’s relationships with Foggy and Karen developed; more than anything, however, there’s a veil of melancholy hanging over all six issues and the whole story arc comes off more as doomed romance/doomed love than anything else and it just hit me in the guts; as much as there are the superhero tropes coming and going, it’s about love. The Shadowland books were a lot more straight-up superhero schtick, but the bleakness of them and the descent of Daredevil from someone considered to be a hero to someone who is anything but a hero, and one who holds deadly rule over Hell’s Kitchen. To see someone change so dramatically is a real trip, and as much as I loved Shadowland, I think the bleakness of the story arc isn’t necessarily the most appealing out there. But, as I said, I loved it, and I loved reading about the struggle for one’s soul. What a treat.
The last year of plague has given me a lot of time to read comics, and the Marvel Unlimited subscription is some of the better money I spent in a month, and it’s felt really good to be able to dig into comics and characters I never really paid much attention to as a kid. I’ve come to really appreciate The Man Without Fear, and I have a whole bunch of books centred around him to read.
