Daredevil, New comics

New comics!

Nightwing 91

Cute second part of the team up with Wally West.

Nice of Wally to ask.

Lion and the Eagle 3

Standard Garth Ennis war fare.  

Catwoman: Lonely City 3

This is so freaking good.  It’s as definitive a last story for Catwoman as DKR is for Batman.  It’s not quite as classic, but it feels that final and epic.  Cliff Chiang has totally leveled up here.

Daredevil 1-8

The start of the Marvel Knights era.  Who would have thought that entrusting a new imprint to those guys who created the firefighter superhero would have such lasting repercussions?

I never read Ash.

This arc, written by Keven Smith, has a better reputation in my mind than it really deserves.  It’s super wordy, Matt Murdock is really played for a fool here, and it’s not a good sign when the writer points out all the flaws in his own story.  Eight issues is way too long, and the Mysterio reveal is a major letdown.  

Joe Quesada’s art is what keeps this above average (though I’m still partial to his work on Sword of Azrael and X-Factor).  That and the excellent Bullseye fight scene in issue number five.  That one sticks in my head.

Yeah, it's a booty call

Great tag.

Sadly, I can't help but think of...

Damn you, Sarah Silverman

I hate the "hedging your bets" argument.

Love the art deco Dr Strange.

What is it about that last phrase that's so eerie and evocative?

Teeth!  So cool.

Didn't see this coming the first time around.

That image of Gwen is shorthand for so much.

Yeah, he doesn't listen.  Milla's coming up.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good.  Good for issue 5

Daredevil

Daredevil 227-233

So.  Good.  Kingpin’s destruction of Matt Murdock’s life is exquisitely horrendous and brilliant, but at the same time reveals that Wilson Fisk is not infallible.  His lack of discipline, his need to keep picking at the scab that is Daredevil, is what ultimately leads to his defeat here.  It’s also what leads to a third act that really shouldn’t work - The introduction of Nuke to the mix, the explosive finale, the appearance of the Avengers, the weird exploration of patriotism - It’s all so out of place in a very street level story.  But it’s all wonderful, all of it.  Still one of my favorite comics ever.

Dave Mazzucchelli is an artistic god.

Gorgeous cloth draping.

Then I noticed the sleeping motif.

So disappointed that it didn't extend to the last three issues.

What a way to start the story.  The colors by Christie Scheele!

Such a cute moment.

Glori's huge eyes should be grotesque, but they're beautiful.

Great narration, great art.

Obvious much with the Pieta posing?

Lovely shadows, chilling last panel.

Great addition to the canon.

My favorite drawing of Thor ever.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pure joy

Daredevil: Man Without Fear 1-5

Frank Miller fleshes out the bits of Daredevil’s origin story that he’s built up over his previous runs on the title.  Some of the scenes are pulled practically word-for-word from instances he’d already written, just redrawn by John Romita Jr.  Others are complete retcons - College Elektra is a completely different character from her original appearances.  Here, she’s a femme fatale with a wicked, sinister streak that doesn’t jive with her depictions either before or after her father’s murder.  It’s really off-putting.

The other thing of note is Joe Kelly’s future retcon of a pivotal scene here into the origin story of Typhoid Mary.  It’s pretty inspired.

I'll get to this when I review Deadpool.

Still, this is good stuff from Miller, I enjoyed myself thoroughly.  And this is one of the good Romita projects.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Daredevil: Ninja 1-3

Brian Michael Bendis takes a pass at Daredevil before his run on the main title.  It’s a complete waste of time - Daredevil fights good ninja in the first issue in New York.  He fights good ninja and bad ninja in Japan in the second.  He returns to New York in the third and fights more bad ninja.  There’s no plot to speak of until the last two pages, which is handled most anticlimactically.  (The baby from the Kevin Smith run is the reincarnated Stick.  Really.)

From what I can tell, Rob Haynes gets a lot of crap for his art here, and Bendis has gone on the record about their disagreements leading to an inferior story.  But I like his shadowless cel-shaded cartoon style.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Miller Daredevil

Daredevil: Love and War

Bill Sienkiewicz is one of the best artists in the business when he does work like this.  It’s just so freaking good.

Best Kingpin ever.

The story by Frank Miller is pretty good too.  He brings some closure (until the next writer picks it up) to the uncommunicative Vanessa Fisk thread from his original run.  The hilarious bit is that Daredevil does very little in this comic.  Sure, he rescues Cheryl from the psycho kidnapper in act two, but he has nothing to do with the final resolution of any of the storylines at the end of the story.  He does a poor job of breaking into Kingpin’s building while all the action happens around him.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Elektra Lives Again

Before I forget, this book smells amazing.  It smells like comics should.

I’d forgotten just how beautiful this comic is.  Miller’s pencils, Lynn Varley’s colors, and the oversized pages combine to make this a super special experience for the eyes.  Each page is truly a work of art in a manner that stands apart even in this medium that revolves so much around the illustrations.  This has to be apex mountain for Miller and Varley.

I've always loved this page.

The colors!

The colors!!!

I want this bathroom.  I love that in a book full of action, it's the brownstone that I love.

That's...a throwing star attached to her nipple?

No one does silhouetted rooftop chases like Frank Miller.

As with Love and War, the plot doesn’t live up the art.  It’s a surreal exploration of Matt’s obsessive need for Elektra to not be dead.  The whole thing is more likely than not the fever dream of a man operating on zero sleep.  It really doesn’t matter when it’s this gorgeous.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Miller Daredevil

Daredevil 183-191

I totally didn’t realize until today, having read these issues for thirty years, that Klaus Janson was the artist for most of them; Frank Miller handed off penciling duties starting with 185.  I console myself with the fact that Janson-inked pencillers often look a lot like Janson-penciled art.  

Miller finishes his run on Daredevil with some really strong stories: A Punisher two-parter, Matt’s senses going crazy, and the possible resurrection of Elektra.  (The following panels have almost nothing to do with them, they're random things that tickled me.)

He's off to take the law into his own hands.  

That guy in the foreground is TOTALLY in Miller's later Sin City style.

Hooking up with Matt is the capper to that list?  Fury is such a sexist.

Miller understands how to write Kingpin.

I have to devote just a few lines to the insane relationship between Matt and Heather Glenn.  It’s messed up in so many ways: Heather’s completely useless as a functional human being, no matter how much she protests;  Matt is a complete dick to her, a completely controlling, emotionally abusive asshole. 

And then there are his so-called friends; Foggy and Natasha don’t think twice about breaking up their engagement.  I don’t know which is more disturbing - that they had zero misgivings about doing it, that they were totally right to do so, that they were able to accomplish it so easily, or that literally on the next page, all related parties have totally moved on with their lives.

Yeah.  Two forged letters.  That's all it takes.

By the way, that all takes place in less than five hours.

Turk continues to be hilarious.

I'm amazed Kingpin knows Turk well enough to have an opinion of him.

Thus ends his brief career as Stilt-Man

Turk's final Miller appearance.  Never change, Turk.

I still don’t know what to make of the last issue.  I get Matt questioning what he does, that part makes sense.  But what’s with playing Russian Roulette with an empty gun with Bullseye?  Is he trying to scare him?  Admitting that his resolution to not kill is a weakness?  An acknowledgement of the futility of what he’s doing?  I don’t get it.  

Regardless, this run totally holds up after forty(!) years.  Miller will obviously go on to do even greater things, but this is rightfully a classic.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good to Really good for 190

What If 28, 35

These would be totally forgettable if Frank Miller hadn’t done the art.  As such, they still don’t leave much of an imprint in my mind.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck