DAREDEVIL Vol. 2, No. 99 (Brubaker / Lark; Marvel, 2007)

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Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box07): Finally, a trip off the DC track and on to the Marvel one for a spell, relief that it's a good one – not that I'm partial to DD or anything, this particular issue being part of a set I repurchased (DD Vol. 2 1-106) after my entire Bendis / Brubaker DD set, the last runs that I picked up in single issues, vanished at some point in the last ten years (though I swear I've seen them around) but anyhow the comic itself.

Another reminder of why DD is one of my holy trinity, Stan’s best (co)-creation, the truest blank slate in the Marvel Universe, in some hands a swashbuckling do-gooder, in others, like the team here, a crime book / legal drama with a blind ninja martyr in red tights trying to do the best he can and, thanks to his own not-inconsiderable issues, screwing it all up (and getting the shit kicked out of him) before turning the same somewhat around, leaving broken people (especially Milla, good god, Milla – Bendis and Brubaker were just brutal with her), physically and emotionally, in his wake – and feeling crap about it but still doing the same thing night after night after night.

VERY cool to see Mr. Fear and The Enforcers (the latter having debuted way back in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 10) as the main antagonists: nothing like a little turning of comics lore into something new and exciting and terrifying through a stark noir palette. Speaking of: can't get enough of Michael Lark's work here – much as I love the Brubaker/Phillips team, there's something about the Brubaker/Lark pairing that grabs me in ways the former doesn't (or, rather, hasn't in awhile). Maybe it's the fondness I hold for their work (along with Rucka) on GOTHAM CENTRAL (which I want to complete in single issues) that clouds my judgement here, but jesusfuck look at the panel quartet pictured above, the tiny changes from panel to panel, especially Chico's expressions – that's just perfection.

Such an excellent issue of such an excellent series which makes me want to revisit all of Bendis and Brubaker's work on the title (Bendis, especially, has never again reached the heights he reached during his time on DAREDEVIL) – but I've got a few of the issues in the shortboxes, so I'm sure they'll turn up in this space...

DAREDEVIL (Johnson, 2003)

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(Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson; starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell, Jon Favreau, Keith David, and Ellen Pompeo. Released 14 February 2003; (re)watched 2023w23 via Max)

Bit late on publishing this one (rewatched it a week ago) but given that I haven't seen DD since its first DVD (or maybe even theatrical) release 20 years ago – and I still need to see Johnson's director's cut – I'll forgive my tardiness. The good news is that I enjoy it as much as I did the first time(s) through: the action scenes thrilled and hurt; the relationship between Foggy and Matt was better, I think, than the Netflix series (Foggy's perpetual Karen-ness, particularly in seasons two (loathed) and three (loved), grated and diminished an otherwise excellent performance from Elden Henson); Affleck – contrary to his own opinion – is a far more effective Matt Murdock / DD than Batman (though I do dig his Batman and wish we had gotten more of his Bats and Jeremy Irons's Alfred) and yes, I love the costume – even have the Marvel Legends action figure; Jennifer Garner, while remaining woefully miscast as Elektra, does her best with it (even making the hokey Matt/Elektra relationship scenes tolerable though apparently the director's cut diminishes the romance angle?) – a shame that her solo film was such an atrocity as she deserved far better; Keith David brought heartache and tragedy to Matt's origin as Battling Jack Murdock; and Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP - can't believe he's been gone for 11 years) and Colin Farrell were fantastic villains who I wanted to see more of – though I wish Farrell hadn't opted for the Tommy-Lee-Jones-as-Two-Face mode of supervillainy as it diminished much of his menace.

Next up: watch the director's cut and write about it sometime within the next 20 years.

the collection: foci

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As I seem to have shifted my collecting (re-collecting?) interests back to comics, finally starting my third era – the first being the early-mid 90s and the second being mid-late 2000s – thought it might be useful to share a few brief thoughts on why I've chosen to add what I’ve added to The Collection in this third era if only to solidify said choices for myself.

  • Early Silver Daredevil: easily my favorite Marvel character; I have a fascination with the yellow suit and the transition to the red and how haphazard his early issues felt: unlike other Marvel creations, there didn't feel like there was a grand design behind him and they were making it up as they went along (I know this was generally the case with the early Marvel, but it feels really pronounced with Daredevil). As I now have issues 2-7, my willpower on holding off on issue one is waning. Also have AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 16, featuring a Ditko DD in yellow suit AND Spidey - what more could I ask for?

  • (PS Electro would have made a fantastic full-time Daredevil villain.)

  • The Question: "Created by Steve Ditko" has a wonderful ring when you open up a comic. I just love the character – from Ditko's objectivist meanderings to O'Neil's left-wing eastern mystic / Kaine in KUNG FU to Rick Veitch and Tommy Lee Edwards's poetic ass-kicker (in one of my favorite representations of Metropolis ever) to the Timm-verse JLU iteration to Rucka's genius transformation of Montoya into the second Question: the character is one of the most elastic – a blank face and a suit tend to lend themselves as such – ever created; that he seems to be languishing again is more than slightly heartbreaking.

  • Early Silver Marvel in general: this was prevalent during my first era of collecting, largely guided by cheap back issues of early MARVEL TALES. In this present iteration, I've amassed a pretty solid collection of Lee/Ditko Spideys and the aforementioned Daredevil, but I'm also grabbing up important issues in the development of the Marvel Universe: the first Cap story in TALES OF SUSPENSE No 59; the first issue of the Hulk's own ongoing series, No. 102 (having spun out of TALES TO ASTONISH); STRANGE TALES ANNUAL No. 2, just because it includes a weird Kirby Spidey tale (I have a thing for Kirby drawing Spidey). Speaking of:

  • Kirby's Fourth World: have the omnibus, love the insanity behind all of it. NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, and FOREVER PEOPLE first issues are in my possession as is Kirby's first DC work, SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN 133. Not an active pursuit, but I'll always pick them up should the opportunity arise.

  • Complete runs of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (historical import and Perez art); BATMAN: YEAR ONE (Mazzuchelli Bats); Andreyko's MANHUNTER (several holes in my collection of one of DC's best series ever – which would be a perfect candidate for Max series adaptation: it screams for a merging of GOLIATH and PEACEMAKER, maybe a bit of ELI STONE thrown in); Bendis / Brubaker DAREDEVIL runs - had them all, lost them all in one of the moves; the Moench / Jones BATMAN run (still my favorite run in the whole of the character); I also need to get my hands on ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 12, as I have the first 11 issues then moved and all of it went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

  • Outside of comics-comics: 1939-41 Superman merchandise – the early Siegel and Shuster iteration and the Fleischer cartoon version remain my favorite incarnation of Supes, the cornerstone of my collection being my 1939 Ideal composition doll as well as a first edition 1942 Lowther/Shuster ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN book and a 1940 Valentine’s Card featuring Superman about to punch a puppy because apparently that was a prerequisite for pre-war romance, IDK.

  • All foci above are, of course, in concert with the forever interests of The Shadow (I even have a complete run of the eight-issue Archie series coming because, in my passion for historical completion, I'm nothing if not a glutton for punishment) and Dick Tracy, though both tend to be more towards toys, radio premiums, and Big Little Books, but I still snap up comics whenever I see them.

Do I have any idea what I'll do with all of this? Not in the slightest: I did, after all, run a half-marathon distance with no desire to run an actual half-marathon (with numbers and people and such) and now seem to have opened my own comic shop / museum with no customers or intention to sell anything so who knows.