I'll readily admit it seems a bit prosaic to write something like this, considering I'm hardly the first person ever to come with a "top ten" list, but so thoroughly have I enjoyed the work of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee on Marvel Comics' Daredevil title that I cannot simply let them go without doing a little more than just eking out reviews of their last few issues. No, these guys fully deserve a proper paean to their creative glory, and as inadequate as this effort may be, it's worth taking just the same:
1. Kirsten MacDuffie - Strictly speaking, MacDuffie is a creation of Waid's and Paolo Rivera's. However, Samnee has really put his own stamp on easily one the most interesting non-superhero characters, male or female, appearing in a superhero book that I have seen in a long, long time. I have to say I am fairly disappointed that she hooked up with Matt, as I think the playful sexual tension could have played out a while longer, but considering that Waid held off on it for years I guess he waited long enough. The beauty of her character is that, even if they break up, there's still a way to keep her in his life (as she is, like him, a lawyer, after all) and the playful banter could go on and on. Kirsten is hardly a sidekick, and it is so gratifying that Waid has introduced such a powerful (and empowered) female into Matt's world. Kirsten is like an intellectual Elektra, really.
2. Classic characters and Some Interesting New Ones - Stilt-Man? Check. Leap-frog? Check. Jester? Check. Bullseye? Check. Elektra? Check. The Owl? Purple Man? Check. Kingpin? Double check! The duo's thirty-odd issue run reads like a virtual who's who of Daredevil's rogues gallery and his supporting characters. Samnee admitted in an interview that he and Mark really wanted a crack at all of the classic characters,and the nice thing was how organic all of these appearances were to the stories they were telling. I was particularly impressed by how Waid was able to handle Bullseye, a character who was apparently dead at the end of the last creative team's run on the book, and while I'm obviously spoiling things a bit by revealing that he wasn't dead, it's still worth checking out what Waid and Samnee did with him. The introduction of a new character, Ikari was pretty cool, too.
3. Smiling Matt - It was stated at the very outset that Waid's run would mark a return to a more lighthearted approach to the character, but the fact that Daredevil spent so much of the arc with a smile on his face was a welcome change for a character who had spent so much of his life enduring one ordeal after another. I have two of Frank Miller's seminal stories, Born Again (with David Mazzucchelli) and Man Without Fear (with John Romita, Jr.), and most of Brian Michael Bendis' run with Alex Maleev, and I'm pretty sure I could count on one hand the times Matt has smiled in ALL of those stories. The thing is, Daredevil has endured a lot in his life, but he's got a lot to be grateful for, and quite honestly, happy about, and it's nice to read a creative run that finally reflects that.
4. Hello San Francisco - I have never been to the United States, so one American city is the same to me as another, but the vast majority of Marvel comics I have in my collection has stories that take place in New York City, so it really did make for a refreshing change of pace when Waid and Samnee relocated Matt and his supporting cast with the relaunch of the title last year.
5. Ready...Fight! - When I read Man without Fear I had an inkling of how incredible a fighter DD was, but as much as I enjoyed his work, I felt a little let down by Romita,Jr.'s depiction of this fighting skill, which either didn't look very dynamic or resorted to the cheat of having close up panels of his foot or fist in someone's face. It didn't look terribly graceful. Some years later, Alex Maleev attempted to depict DD's fighting skills and they did look impressive sometimes, but they also looked extremely static. Fast forward to Samnee's run, and lo and behold, not only did he show Daredevil showing some serious martial arts skill, but also made it look quite dynamic, possibly the best-looking choreography seen in the book since Miller's days.
6. No More Questions, Your Honor - I have said this before, but one thing I really enjoyed about this book was the impression I got that Waid went to some effort to show that Matt is as comfortable in a court room as he is leaping across the New York City skyline. I may not be licensed to practice law in the United States but I certainly recognized citations of international law and rules of evidence, and appreciated both Waid's dialogue and Samnee's depiction of the inside of a courtroom. Also, this facet of Matt's character shows that he isn't all about recklessness and gambles; Waid emphasizes that at the end of the day, Matt is one smart cookie.
7. A Little Help from My Friends - although Daredevil has never been a completely isolated character from the rest of the Marvel Universe, he has been a bit of a loner. Even though he joined the Avengers for a spell a few years ago he didn't suddenly turn into a team player. It was nice, then, to see Matt getting a regular helping hand from a more "mainstream" Avenger in Henry Pym. The story introducing the cooperation was well-written, too: Dr. Doom had introduced nanobots that negated Matt's hyper-senses. Even after that story, Pym stuck around until Matt packed up and left for SF, and was even crucial to a story in which Matt had to fake Foggy's death. Also, there were quite a few Avengers who helped Matt out in his extended battle with Bullseye.
8. Waid's Crusades - I don't usually get or expect social commentary from my comic books, and the little I get often feels a tad heavy-handed, like Mark Millar's full-on diatribe against the Patriot Act in Civil War, but Waid's preaching is a little easier to digest. He has had things to say on racially-charged killings, gay marriage and even processed food, with this last one being a running commentary given Foggy's diet. In fact, having Foggy battle cancer, which was a new twist on the Foggy-in-peril trope that many writers have leaned on over the years, was a subtle way to rail against the evils of having so many chemicals pumped into today's foodstuffs.
9. Records will Show - One aspect of this story that I also liked was how, no matter how buoyant the tone of storytelling was, there was always an acknowledgement of where the character had come from and what he had been through, which made the storytelling on the whole that much more effective by adding that element of tension. The running question throughout the run was: how long can this last? How long will it be before Matt's life spirals out of control and he hits the skids again? Waid and Samnee didn't just let these questions linger; they answered them, and I was happy to see that they were kinder to Matt than most creators since the character's creation have been. They also demonstrated for their entire tenure that to tell great stories does not always mean having to be unbelievably cruel to the lead character. Sure, Matt's adventures under Waid and Samnee certainly involved a fair share of tribulations, but nothing on the level of having his girlfriend murdered in front of him or having his apartment blown to pieces.
10. Look Ma, No Gimmicks! - For better or worse, 2013's extended Spider-Man story arc called "Superior Spider-Man," in which Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker's body, had readers hooked; sales were better than they had ever been. I can admit that I am one of the people who was sucked in; I have every single issue of that series. The thing was, the main hook for me was finding out how and when Peter Parker would come back so one could say that, with all due to respect to Dan Slott and his rotating roster of artists, my devotion was, in part, due to a long-running gimmick. This was not the case with Waid and Samnee. Apart from DD's moving to another city, there was no radical shift of status quo to keep me coming back, so my being hooked was just a case of two creators turning in their best work, month after month (though Samnee took occasional breaks) to give the best stories of the character that I had ever read.
I am happy to note that Waid and Samnee are already at work on their next project together, but it's entirely possible that this is the last time readers will see them together on Daredevil, and if that is indeed the case I would like to give them a heartfelt thanks for making Daredevil a book I just had to pick up every month for three years!
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
Every Party Ends: A Review of Daredevil #18
written by Mark Waid
illustrated by Chris Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson
lettered by Joe Caramagna
edited by Sana Amanat
Matt Murdock finds himself having to summon every ounce of skill and guile at his disposal to get his two friends, Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie, out from under the clutches of Wilson Fisk, the deadliest foe he has ever known. Ironically enough, the key to his victory and even his very survival may be the man whose reckless actions put him at the mercy of the Kingpin in the first place, Max Coleridge, the Shroud, who has taken control over the digitally-enslaved Leland Owlsley. Coleridge has an interest in seeing Daredevil prevail as Fisk is also holding his estranged girlfriend, Julia Carpenter, hostage. The question is: will it be enough to save the day?
While it is quite sad to see the end of the tenure of this creative team on one of my very favorite comic book characters, considering how much I have savored their run, it truly gratifies me to see them end their stint in such fine style. Without giving away too much I think it's fair to say that Waid and Samnee really end this series on a high note, which is not the most common thing for this character, for whom tragedy seems to be a rather inescapable reality. Well, at the risk of sounding a little "spoilery" I think it's fair to say that Mark and Chris cut Matt some slack this time around.
I feel I must commend Waid for his pretty sneaky misdirection all throughout this rather large storyarc, which dates all the way back to the first issue of this new volume. He clearly had something big in mind for the Owl when he basically plugged him into every single digital device in the world, but it played out quite differently from the way I had thought it would. Likewise, it seemed as though Waid was setting up a status quo in which Matt would be beholden to Fisk, but again, Waid subverted expectations, but all in service of some really fantastic storytelling. Waid may have a lot of years and books under his belt, but to my mind this is his very best work, and that's really saying something considering that this is someone whose work includes the likes of Kingdom Come, and a rather definitive run on Fantastic Four a few years back with the late Mike Wieringo. I was quite happy to learn that Waid was as happy about his work on this title as fans like me were.
This issue wasn't quite the high point of his run (and truth be told I'd be hard pressed to name a single issue I like more than any of the others) but it was a great way to close out a run that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best remembered in the history of this title, even if it did feel like a few loose ends were tied a little too neatly. But one thing that Waid really seems to get about this character, arguably more than any other author since Frank Miller, is that as a man without fear, Matt can be quite reckless (after all, we're talking about someone who, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, once attacked the Kingpin only to get flattened and dumped in a river strapped into a rusted taxicab).
It's not that Matt never has a plan, because the truth is, he usually does, even in this situation when his back is against the wall, but for these plans to work there's always some element of risk that he accepts. He isn't Batman; he doesn't have all the angles figured out before everything happens, but he does read the situation remarkably well, plan for it, and adapt if things don't quite go as planned. As I observed when reviewing the first issue, Matt's strength is how he can think on the fly, and while on at least one occasion Waid has depicted Matt as a little too reckless, on the whole his characterization has really been spot on. Bendis had more than a few moments of brilliance when he handled this book over ten years ago, but Waid wrote his stories on a whole other level, though to be fair, the character Waid had to work with had a considerably richer history thanks to Bendis' stories. Mark, you will definitely be missed.
For me, though, the real find of this entire run was Chris Samnee, whose work I actually already enjoyed coming on board. The irony for me, as I may have said in a past review was that I actually thought he was a poor fit for this particular title given his forties-style artwork that clicked so well with the "period" books he worked on like The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Captain America and Bucky. Not only has Samnee proven to be supremely versatile, his work has put a lot of other artists, including a few who have even worked on this book, in the shade. His fight choreography, for example, only highlights how static the fight scenes drawn by Alex Maleev (during Brian Bendis' tenure) used to look. His skill as a visual storyteller is easily on par with John Romita Jr., whose Man Without Fear limited series written by Miller remains one of my favorite stories about this character, and while he isn't the flashiest of artists in the mold of a Jim Lee or David Finch, he is, to me anyway, far more effective at making the pictures on the page jump out at me. He and the likes of David Aja, Jamie McKelvie, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez represent a new generation of artists who are just fantastically talented but whose sensibilities are finally emancipated from many of the visual tropes that have crystallized over the years, especially after the comics book boom (and crash) of the 1990s. Great comic book art is about so much more than cross-hatching and pin-up poses, and thanks to Samnee and those like him, this generation of fans can see it as clear as day.
It thrills me to know that the Waid/Samnee tandem are off to their next big Marvel book. The fact that it has yet to be announced fills me with hope that this is going to be something big. I can hardly wait!
8.5/10
illustrated by Chris Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson
lettered by Joe Caramagna
edited by Sana Amanat
Matt Murdock finds himself having to summon every ounce of skill and guile at his disposal to get his two friends, Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie, out from under the clutches of Wilson Fisk, the deadliest foe he has ever known. Ironically enough, the key to his victory and even his very survival may be the man whose reckless actions put him at the mercy of the Kingpin in the first place, Max Coleridge, the Shroud, who has taken control over the digitally-enslaved Leland Owlsley. Coleridge has an interest in seeing Daredevil prevail as Fisk is also holding his estranged girlfriend, Julia Carpenter, hostage. The question is: will it be enough to save the day?
While it is quite sad to see the end of the tenure of this creative team on one of my very favorite comic book characters, considering how much I have savored their run, it truly gratifies me to see them end their stint in such fine style. Without giving away too much I think it's fair to say that Waid and Samnee really end this series on a high note, which is not the most common thing for this character, for whom tragedy seems to be a rather inescapable reality. Well, at the risk of sounding a little "spoilery" I think it's fair to say that Mark and Chris cut Matt some slack this time around.
I feel I must commend Waid for his pretty sneaky misdirection all throughout this rather large storyarc, which dates all the way back to the first issue of this new volume. He clearly had something big in mind for the Owl when he basically plugged him into every single digital device in the world, but it played out quite differently from the way I had thought it would. Likewise, it seemed as though Waid was setting up a status quo in which Matt would be beholden to Fisk, but again, Waid subverted expectations, but all in service of some really fantastic storytelling. Waid may have a lot of years and books under his belt, but to my mind this is his very best work, and that's really saying something considering that this is someone whose work includes the likes of Kingdom Come, and a rather definitive run on Fantastic Four a few years back with the late Mike Wieringo. I was quite happy to learn that Waid was as happy about his work on this title as fans like me were.
This issue wasn't quite the high point of his run (and truth be told I'd be hard pressed to name a single issue I like more than any of the others) but it was a great way to close out a run that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best remembered in the history of this title, even if it did feel like a few loose ends were tied a little too neatly. But one thing that Waid really seems to get about this character, arguably more than any other author since Frank Miller, is that as a man without fear, Matt can be quite reckless (after all, we're talking about someone who, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, once attacked the Kingpin only to get flattened and dumped in a river strapped into a rusted taxicab).
It's not that Matt never has a plan, because the truth is, he usually does, even in this situation when his back is against the wall, but for these plans to work there's always some element of risk that he accepts. He isn't Batman; he doesn't have all the angles figured out before everything happens, but he does read the situation remarkably well, plan for it, and adapt if things don't quite go as planned. As I observed when reviewing the first issue, Matt's strength is how he can think on the fly, and while on at least one occasion Waid has depicted Matt as a little too reckless, on the whole his characterization has really been spot on. Bendis had more than a few moments of brilliance when he handled this book over ten years ago, but Waid wrote his stories on a whole other level, though to be fair, the character Waid had to work with had a considerably richer history thanks to Bendis' stories. Mark, you will definitely be missed.
For me, though, the real find of this entire run was Chris Samnee, whose work I actually already enjoyed coming on board. The irony for me, as I may have said in a past review was that I actually thought he was a poor fit for this particular title given his forties-style artwork that clicked so well with the "period" books he worked on like The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Captain America and Bucky. Not only has Samnee proven to be supremely versatile, his work has put a lot of other artists, including a few who have even worked on this book, in the shade. His fight choreography, for example, only highlights how static the fight scenes drawn by Alex Maleev (during Brian Bendis' tenure) used to look. His skill as a visual storyteller is easily on par with John Romita Jr., whose Man Without Fear limited series written by Miller remains one of my favorite stories about this character, and while he isn't the flashiest of artists in the mold of a Jim Lee or David Finch, he is, to me anyway, far more effective at making the pictures on the page jump out at me. He and the likes of David Aja, Jamie McKelvie, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez represent a new generation of artists who are just fantastically talented but whose sensibilities are finally emancipated from many of the visual tropes that have crystallized over the years, especially after the comics book boom (and crash) of the 1990s. Great comic book art is about so much more than cross-hatching and pin-up poses, and thanks to Samnee and those like him, this generation of fans can see it as clear as day.
It thrills me to know that the Waid/Samnee tandem are off to their next big Marvel book. The fact that it has yet to be announced fills me with hope that this is going to be something big. I can hardly wait!
8.5/10
The Penultimate Chapter: A Review of Daredevil #17
(w) Mark Waid
(a) Chris Samnee
(c) Matthew Wilson
The stakes have never been higher for Matt Murdock as he learns that Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin of Crime, has no interest in cutting a deal to help Matt out of the mess that the actions of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, have made of his life; rather, Fisk simply wants to end Matt's life, and he has a capable ally in Ikari, the similarly enhanced Ninja who almost killed Matt the last time they fought. The lives of Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie hang in the balance. Matt fights for his life and those of his friend, but there may yet be a wild card that could shift the balance. Whether for better or worse remains to be seen...
I will say this right now, and with utter conviction: there will come a time, if it has not already, when this creative team is mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, John Romita, Jr., Bill Everett, Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis, and other creators who left an indelible mark on this character. In short, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these guys will go down in history as all-time greats. It's hard to find new superlatives for a book that I consistently lavish with praise in almost every review I write, but with one issue to go in what is certainly destined to be remembered as a "fabled" run, Waid and Samnee truly are pulling out all the stops. As DD bad guys go, they went for the biggest one of all in their last arc with the Kingpin.
What really impresses me about this issue, as it did last issue, is how Waid and Samnee managed to turn Fisk into a truly credible menace to Matt again, both through circumstance and through their masterful depiction, through dialogue and imagery, of this truly formidable character. After all, this was not the Kingpin who made Matt's life a living hell back in the days of Frank Miller. He's been broken and stripped of power, and is basically a shadow of his former self. Waid quite cannily recognizes, however, that this can actually make him even more dangerous.
The highlight of this issue is the DD-Ikari rematch, and just when one thinks that we'll be subjected to the sight of Matt fighting a climactic battle in his three-piece suit, which he's been sporting since issue #15, he does quite the bit of prestidigitation and changes costume with a simple tear-away motion, even managing to put on his mask in the same gesture.
As egregiously late as this review is, given that I've already read issue #18, which I will naturally review next, I couldn't close out my love of this run without acknowledging this issue.
These two guys really will be a hard act to follow, so for my part, I have decided to follow them to wherever it is they're going (and Samnee has already intimated that he, Mark, colorist Matt Wilson and even letterer Joe Carmagna will all work together again very soon on a top secret Marvel book)!
9/10
(a) Chris Samnee
(c) Matthew Wilson
The stakes have never been higher for Matt Murdock as he learns that Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin of Crime, has no interest in cutting a deal to help Matt out of the mess that the actions of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, have made of his life; rather, Fisk simply wants to end Matt's life, and he has a capable ally in Ikari, the similarly enhanced Ninja who almost killed Matt the last time they fought. The lives of Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie hang in the balance. Matt fights for his life and those of his friend, but there may yet be a wild card that could shift the balance. Whether for better or worse remains to be seen...
I will say this right now, and with utter conviction: there will come a time, if it has not already, when this creative team is mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, John Romita, Jr., Bill Everett, Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis, and other creators who left an indelible mark on this character. In short, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these guys will go down in history as all-time greats. It's hard to find new superlatives for a book that I consistently lavish with praise in almost every review I write, but with one issue to go in what is certainly destined to be remembered as a "fabled" run, Waid and Samnee truly are pulling out all the stops. As DD bad guys go, they went for the biggest one of all in their last arc with the Kingpin.
What really impresses me about this issue, as it did last issue, is how Waid and Samnee managed to turn Fisk into a truly credible menace to Matt again, both through circumstance and through their masterful depiction, through dialogue and imagery, of this truly formidable character. After all, this was not the Kingpin who made Matt's life a living hell back in the days of Frank Miller. He's been broken and stripped of power, and is basically a shadow of his former self. Waid quite cannily recognizes, however, that this can actually make him even more dangerous.
The highlight of this issue is the DD-Ikari rematch, and just when one thinks that we'll be subjected to the sight of Matt fighting a climactic battle in his three-piece suit, which he's been sporting since issue #15, he does quite the bit of prestidigitation and changes costume with a simple tear-away motion, even managing to put on his mask in the same gesture.
As egregiously late as this review is, given that I've already read issue #18, which I will naturally review next, I couldn't close out my love of this run without acknowledging this issue.
These two guys really will be a hard act to follow, so for my part, I have decided to follow them to wherever it is they're going (and Samnee has already intimated that he, Mark, colorist Matt Wilson and even letterer Joe Carmagna will all work together again very soon on a top secret Marvel book)!
9/10
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