(writer) Mark Waid
(artist) Javier Rodriguez
(colorist) Alvaro Lopez
In the months that I was unable to purchase any new comic books due to a heavy work schedule, being away from this title was the most difficult for me to endure. This title is, hands-down, my very favorite on sale today, and not being able to follow it was an honest-to-God bummer.
These two issues constitute the title's tie-in to Marvel's "Original Sin" event which wrapped up a couple of months ago. The premise is that Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil is given a memory from his past involving his mother and father. It's an unpleasant image that suggests that his father physically abused his mother, but it is not a complete memory, and as a result, Matt hunts down the enigmatic nun known as Sister Maggie, whom he also knows to be his mother. Much to his shock, however, she is in jail for reasons that no one seems willing to disclose to Matt, but which involve the sovereign nation of Wakanda.
Sending Daredevil on international adventures isn't exactly a new thing; a few years back he was in Monaco during Ed Brubaker's run and only a few years ago, under the tenure of Mark Waid, he paid a visit to Doctor Doom's native Latveria. This story is a little less ambitious than those were, as it only spans two issues compared to the four or five issues, but it does contain Waid's patented dynamite storytelling ability, which hinges on Matt's hero worship for his dad, and how this fragment of a memory comes close to shattering that mental and emotional image he has of his father. It's a pretty potent story, even if it isn't all about shifting the status quo or anything like that, and has something fairly interesting to say about post-partum depression. Also, it answers the long standing question of why Daredevil's mom left his dad in a way that is neither cloying nor judgmental.
Regular artist Chris Samnee takes a break for these two issues (though he is back for the next two with a vengeance), and Javier Rodriguez, his usual fill-in guy, does an admirable job illustrating this compact tale, though he isn't quite on par with Samnee's regular work. I chuckled at the realization that Samnee is probably not Catholic, though; his cover of issue #6, which features several nuns in prayer, depicts one of them holding what is supposed to be a rosary, one which is incorrectly drawn. Well, research into religious iconography isn't one of his strong points, then. It's not exactly a deal-breaker for me, especially considering the work Samnee turns in for issues #8 and #9. But that's another review altogether.
Yet again, Mark Waid delivers!
8.5/10
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