written by Charles Soule
illustrated by Ron Garney and Marc Laming (issue #19)
colored by Matt Milla and Miroslav Mrva (issue #19)
As much as I wanted to review each of these issues as they came out, life kind of got overwhelming and the hobby had to give way to my obligations. In any case, I write this for anyone contemplating picking up the inevitable collected edition of the "Running with the Devil" story line, which to my mind was one of the very best that Charles Soule has given us since he took over this book nearly two years ago.
The story kicked off with issue #17 (which I reviewed) in which Matt goes to confession to Fr. Jordan, who is basically a sort of plot device that enables Matt to explain to us readers how he went, at the end of the Mark Waid run, from living in San Francisco with a beautiful girlfriend, a multi-million dollar book deal, and a publicly-known superhero identity, to New York, working for government wages in the District Attorney's office, with no more girlfriend, and no one even knowing who he is except for Foggy Nelson.
The good news is that there's no out-of-left-field reason for this happening like a deal with the devil or something equally ludicrous; it's just some good old-fashioned storytelling, using characters right out of DD's library, like the Purple Man, who featured prominently during Mark Waid's run, and his kids, whom Mark Waid and Chris Samnee actually created. While I won't go so far as to spoil what happened in the story, suffice it to say that amplified mind control was involved, and as a result, nobody remembered who Daredevil was anymore, absolutely nobody, including people he didn't necessarily want to forget. Still, as subsequent events have made clear, Daredevil took the opportunity to start off with a clean slate.
I waited a year and a half for this story, and if I may be honest it was worth the wait. The fact that the reason for the status quo change was nowhere near as radical or outre as I thought it would be actually came as a relief, and the story was written with such fealty to the tone that Mark Waid had established in his old run that it may as well have been written by Waid himself.
Garney, who leaves behind the noir setting he's established in the few issues he's drawn for this book, acquits himself quite well, though with full color I find myself missing Chris Samnee quite a bit. Fill-in artist Marc Laming, who steps in for issue #19, one of the more crucial issues of this four-part series, does a solid job, albeit one noticeably inconsistent with Garney's jagged lines, which makes for a slightly jarring reading experience. I quite enjoyed the sequences in issue #19 that take place inside Matt's head, though, and I think Laming nailed that quite well.
Overall, though, this is some really fine work by Soule, with a great conclusion, which sets it apart from his "serial killer" storyline which ended on a distinctly anticlimactic note. The good news is that I think his very best story is yet to come, as my next review will show.
8.5/10
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