Daredevil by Mark Waid HC vol. 1 (comics)

Writer: Mark Waid
Artists: Paolo Rivera, Marcos Martin, Emma Rios, Kano, Khoi Pham
Collects: Daredevil #1-10, #10.1, Amazing Spider-Man #677

About two years ago I reviewed Daredevil Reborn for Collected Editions. You can find it here. Since it was meant to clear the deck, I read it in preparation for this relaunch, which I believe was just beginning to hit the shelves in collected form at the time.

The fact that it's been two years since I've read a single thing involving Daredevil ought to tell you how well that worked out.

Part of that can probably be attributed to a lack of love or tolerance for the character. While he's enjoyed a solid decade of critically acclaimed, well loved stories, the end result is a character that is cripplingly depressing. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating; the three runs prior to Waid did everything in their power to keep things interesting, but in the process didn't pay enough attention to the consequences. Bendis - and later Ed Brubaker - left the book after some big, status quo shattering events, leaving the pieces for whoever was next to work with. Usually, said writer would break them into smaller pieces.

Eventually, they wrote themselves into a corner. The biggest events in the past ten years of Daredevils publication history were not the type you could easily undo. Even attempting it backfired. Daredevil Reborn, meant to get the house back in order, only served to make things worse. Every character in that book was a moron that made one monumentally stupid decision after another. Given the fact that Reborn seemed to want to handwave away some of the bigger issues to get to a familiar status quo, logic be damned, I didn't expect much.

Well, apparently Mark Waid is a wizard, because he found a way to fix things without getting too contrived. Not everything works the way I think they hoped - Matts way out of his blown secret identity is steadfast denial, letting the skepticism of others do the rest, even though we should be way past the point that would work - but in a world where Iron Man can just say he isn't in the armor anymore and everyone buys it, it's good enough to get you to suspend your disbelief. The Nelson and Murdock situation - a major, major issue with the end of Reborn - is addressed almost immediately. Waid managed to find a clever way around the elephant in the room with a delightfully comic book-y solution that doesn't insult your intelligence; impressive, especially considering I genuinely expected the whole situation to be glossed over.

Better yet, he manages to inject fun back into the character without sacrificing what came before or veering out of character. Murdock has his smile again, but it's abundantly clear that it isn't entirely honest; he's forcing clearly forcing it to some degree, which fits with his pattern of refusing to deal with things properly. His life isn't a series of devastating personal blows anymore, but a lot happened to him and he still isn't exactly the guy best equipped to handle the weight.

Another good idea centers around the choice to keep it brief. Most of the book consists of one or two issue stories with an overarching plot in the background. It makes for a nice contrast to many modern comics, where the four to six issue arc was adopted as the standard a long time ago. As a bonus, it feels like a lot happens in this one hardcover.

One thing did puzzle me, though. Matt comes into possession of an artifact mid-way through the book that has enough info to bury the five major crime organizations in the Marvel Universe. The book does have the decency to explain why Matt doesn't just hand it over to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four - other than the fact that it's his book, so he obviously needs to deal with it - but events at the end of the book did leave me confused as to why he doesn't just use the info to blow them all in. You'll see what I mean. It isn't a deal-breaker, though. Just odd.

I can't end without mentioning the art. It's easily the cleanest, brightest work Daredevil has been graced with in years. Alex Maleevs influence has been all over the franchise since his days working with Bendis; only now do we truly break away from it and it really, really works. It complements the tone of the book well and it's a good part of why the new direction works. Without Rivera and Martin, I'm not sure it would have the tone Waid was looking for.

Just good, good work all around. Assuming the quality keeps to this level, I may be in for the long haul. Highly recommended.

My Opinion: Buy It

Daredevil Noir (comics)

Writer: Alexander Irvine
Artist: Tomm Coker
Collects: Daredevil Noir #1-4

This book kind of confuses me. Not in a sense that I couldn't understand the story. More in the sense that I can't understand why it exists.

I know, odd statement; why does any story exist? But seriously, this book didn't exactly feel too far removed from the norm for Daredevil. I admit I'm not a regular Daredevil reader. I've only read a couple scattered stories. I'm not overly familiar with noir either, aside from enjoying a couple classics. But what I have read of Daredevil already felt immersed in noir - or at least to my admittedly limited understanding of it - which kind of makes the choice to do a book like this an odd one. If the main book dabbles in the genre semi-regularly, why bother creating a standalone alternate continuity story based around it?

I guess one could say they just felt like hitting all their icons with this noir line; actually, now that I think on it, that's probably it.

Still, it makes for an odd read. What little noir I've read tends to have a nihilistic view of the world; and to some extent, that continues here. But in trying to suss out what's different, I couldn't really find anything. This book has Matt Murdock as a blind PI with partner Foggy Nelson and Matt moonlights as Daredevil. The typical dame shows up, Matt's drawn into her world, including a coming gang war and everything just goes to hell for him. But, you know, isn't that more or less what happens to Daredevil Classic? Seems like every five minutes you hear about one of his love interests overdosing and his life literally being broken down piece by piece. Maybe it just seems that way because I don't read the book much. Regardless, that's how it comes off. I guess the biggest difference with this book is that instead of being dredged in noir like the regular Daredevil, this is soaked in it before being sauteed in the proverbial noir juices.

Regardless of all that, it's quite competently written. It read about as I expected and I generally enjoyed it, so I suppose in some regards it's a success. The inner monologues can get a bit purple, but as I understand that's pretty much how noir is done and such is done well enough that I didn't feel like it was a distraction. I suppose I could fault it for being so much like what I expected that little it did was a surprise, but there's something to be said for getting what you want out of a book. Still, I'm not sure there's anything in this story that made it a completely worthwhile exercise.

The art looks great and fits the story perfectly, but it too has its problems. I understand that a noir story is supposed to be pretty dark - lots of shadows, muted colors and so on - but there are times where I think this book goes a bit overboard. There are a couple fight scenes that contained panels where I just flat out could not discern what was going on. Did the Bullseye killer just stab him with a piece of wood in the water? Does that character have Daredevil in a headlock? Why do the limbs seem kind of off in that panel? Why does this panel look more like they're having a dance-off than fighting? What the hell is coming out of that pipe? How did that building suddenly set on fire? And so on. It's really the fight scenes that are the problem. For the most part, the book has solid storytelling through art, but it seems that when a fight scene comes about the books very genre gets in the way. I guess if nothing else, it proves a noir comic can be a bit too shadowy.

The Score: 7 out of 10

When you get down to it, I'm still not sure this book justified its own existence. It was a fairly enjoyable read, however, so it's not a total waste. It's not something I'd jump to recommend, however. I guess it depends on how much noir you like on your Daredevil. For me, it didn't dissuade me from trying others from the Noir line, but... well, it doesn't exactly inspire me to go out of my way to read any more either.