The Story I've Been Waiting For: A Review of Daredevil #17

written by Charles Soule
drawn by Ron Garney
colored by Matt Milla

Two years ago, Mark Waid ended one of the longest runs on Daredevil that had been seen in the character's recent history, having relaunched the title scarcely a year before with artist Chris Samnee and colorist Matt Wilson. He left the character on a high note; Matt had just defeated the Kingpin, his relationship with Kirsten McDuffie was going strong, Foggy Nelson's cancer had gone into remission, and Matt had secured an eight million dollar book deal. At the end of the book, he was basically living it up in San Francisco. It was as close to riding off into the sunset, happily ever after, as a character in an ongoing series could ever get.

Months later, the book was relaunched in the hands of Charles Soule, with all of that having been completely wiped away. Matt was back in New York, working as an assistant prosecutor (and not a very effective one, it must be said), his relationship with Foggy was a cold one, while his relationship with Kirsten was a thing of the past.

What intrigued me as a reader, though, was that writer Soule constantly teased at how this status quo came undone. Was it a deal with the devil, Spider-Man style? No, Soule asserts quite quickly in this story that finally, finally answers the questions I've had since this book rebooted two years ago.

Matt narrates what happened to the warrior-priest he met in the last story-arc, and Soule is quite thorough in revisiting this era. He explores the implications of the fact that Matt has been outed as Daredevil, taking pains to point out the fact that, though Matt may be authorized to practice law in San Francisco despite his disbarment in New York, he no longer can as it compromises all of his cases. Basically, his new status quo as a rich and happy swinger with a beautiful woman on his arm is everything a reader would imagine it would be, until it isn't, and starts to get a tad boring. It is at this point that Soule ends the issue on a twist, with a teaser as to why things really started to unravel.

Interestingly, though, Soule frames the narrative through a Catholic confession, which is interesting because even though Matt technically isn't confessing his sins, clearly what has happened to him has burdened his conscience somehow, which makes the story all the more intriguing.

Garney departs from his scratchy noir-inspired style to picture Matt as he was at the end of Waid's and Samnee's run, surrounded by bright, vibrant colors. It's a welcome change from his usual style, and while I still much prefer Samnee's art, Garney does a commendable job of capturing the atmosphere that Waid and Samnee, with their "happy" take on Daredevil created.

This is a story I have been patiently waiting 16 issues to read, and I have to give credit to Soule and Garney for getting it off to a very, very good start.

9/10

Destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. Again? A Review of Black Widow #11

written by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid
drawn by Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson

This series' penultimate issue plays out in much the same way that the first one did, with the invasion of a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. In the first issue it was a helicarrier, here it's a top secret installation somewhere. In the first issue there was but one invader, Black Widow herself, here it's the six lethal students of the new Red Room, now led by Widow's rival Recluse.

Chris Samnee's and Mark Waid's take on Marvel Comics' most popular superspy started with a bang and is ending, unfortunately, on a bit of whimper as this issue seems to recycle not only imagery and action beats from the first issue (probably by design) but also the somewhat done-to-death plot device of putting S.H.I.E.L.D. on the brink of destruction.

Samnee's art is as outstanding as it has been all throughout this series, but really, when story feels like a retread of so many others before it, there's really only so much wonderful illustrations can do.

When the dialogue tried to impress how urgent the situation depicted in the issue was by saying that S.H.I.E.L.D. was at stake, I couldn't help but think to myself: there's still a S.H.I.E.L.D.? Samnee picked the wrong organization in the Marvel Universe to imperil.

I'm still coming back for the last issue, but what I really want to know at this point what Samnee will be doing next, with Waid along for the ride, if possible. This guy is a certified A-lister, and his prodigious talents are clearly wasted on what has degenerated into a somewhat mediocre title.


6/10