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
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