Daredevil: End of Days 8, Daredevil Dark Nights 1

Daredevil: End of Days 8
Bendis and Mack (w) and Janson and Sienkiewicz w/ Mack (a) and Hollingsworth (c)

Books like this one make me feel like maybe I've lost touch with myself as a comic reader. Well, books like this one and Twitter. On Twitter, I follow both Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack and I love one of those men very much because I think he's an incredible talent who helped me realize just how much art can go into comics (the other one I nearly constantly sigh/yell at in my comic blog). David Mack particularly has been retweeting a lot of positive things about Daredevil: End of Days as a whole and the twist ending which surprised so many readers. So I had to ask myself "is this just because he tracked down the positive reviews/that only people who loved the book are taking the time to write to them about it or am I wrong about this series?" Of course, liking something is a rather objective definition whereas reviewing something should come from a neutral place and based on knowledge about what objectively makes something good or not. I know that by claiming this is a review blog, I'm kind of inherently saying I can do that but sometimes I'm not sure that's accurate. Maybe I've lost track of comics over the years and now I'm jaded and cynical. I just didn't care for this series. That's coming as someone who loves Daredevil and loves David Mack and, in the right circumstances, can appreciate an alternate reality-esque future. But I just didn't care for this series. I think, again, it kind of stems from the fact that this series was eight issues long. After issue three or four, I was annoyed by the mystery of Mapone more than I was curious about it. It kept coming up and it was clear it wasn't going to be answered in any quick way and the writing prodded the reader to keep asking "WHAT IS MAPONE," a question I was already sick of asking and I, in turn, begin to resent the fact that they wanted me to care. You know what it's like? It's like that scene in Wall-E where Eve asks Wall-E what his directive is and he shows her how good he is at compacting trash, then when he struggles through the word "directive?" she turns away from him and says "Classified." It's a great little moment in the film and would have been SO awful if he had kept asking her and she had kept saying "classified" but kept prodding him to ask anyway. Okay, maybe it's only like that if you're me.

Timothy, the little boy that Daredevil rescued once upon a time is the new Daredevil and we get a few scenes of the two of them as Matt trained him late in his life (in fact, just before he died). He explains that someone will appear to him to guide him when the time is right, just as Stick did for him, and that he'll know it when he sees it. Now, with Timothy's father Ben and his mentor Matt dead, he's desperate to find out who his "Stick" will be. He runs into people from Matt and his father's past, including Foggy Nelson, Punisher, Peter Parker, and Nick Fury, but none of them are his Stick. Fury offers him the secret of Mapone but Timothy, angry that Fury didn't give this information to Ben when he had the chance, throws the file in a trashcan fire. He returns into a bar he was visiting with Peter Parker (who attempted to help him work through his grief in a scene that can't help but have some SNAPPY DIALOGUE) to find that the red-headed woman playing pool with a bunch of hoodlums is in trouble as the hoodlums feel she's been conning them. Timothy jumps into the fight and takes out a couple of the guys before being critiqued by the woman for his fighting style. She then reveals that she's blind, the only thing her father left her, and that she can help train him to fight. Her name? Mapone Romanova, the daughter of Matt and Black Widow. If anywhere, this is where I'm jaded and cynical. The things I've read on Twitter make this seem like a huge and shocking reveal but is it? I mean, we saw Ben investigate all of Matt's former lovers and each one of them had a red-headed child. He couldn't track down Widow but should anyone be surprised she also had a child with Daredevil? Also, and I hate to be that guy, but Mapone is a stupid name.

Daredevil Dark Nights 1
Weeks (w and a) and Loughridge (c)

Daredevil Dark Nights is an eight part series that will feature three adventures for Daredevil written and illustrated by three different creative teams. Lee Weeks is heading up the first arc, a three issue story called "Angels Unaware," which focuses on Matt Murdock trying to deliver a heart to a little girl waiting in a hospital during a massive snowstorm. Matt fell asleep in the office reading the bible (getting back to Matt's Catholic roots) and wakes up to find the city effectively shut down. He decides to walk home, as his office is just a short walk, but the snow messes with his radar sense a bit. When a few muggers accost him on the empty streets, he makes quick work of a pair of them but doesn't sense the third one behind him, who knocks him unconscious and steals his money, leaving his wallet out, to be covered by the snow. A man (possibly homeless?) carries the unconscious Matt to the nearby hospital where he wakes unsure of who he is and startled to find that he's blind and everyone appears to be screaming (he doesn't remember his senses). Eventually things come back to him as he rouses himself and incapacitates the three muggers, who have turned up in the hospital lobby to ransom the people there. His doctor returns Matt to his bed and asks who he is. He asks her about the little girl who needs a heart transplant and is waiting for the helicopter that is trying to brave the snow to bring it to her. He informs the doctor that he heard the helicopter go down (the city is just about silent in the snowstorm so he could isolate the helicopter pretty easily) and that he can go get the heart. The homeless man had brought a suitcase that had been with Matt to the hospital and a member of the hospital staff had been trying to open it in the hopes it would reveal his identity (with his wallet buried in the snow). He gets it open and reveals to the doctor that the man is Daredevil. She brings him to the roof so he can try to retrieve the heart and hopefully save the little girl. He stumbles a bit in the snow as he dives off the roof so this may not be as easy as it could be for Daredevil.

This is definitely an interesting spin on Daredevil. It's very religion-laden, which could turn some readers off. That's always been a kind of interesting facet to Matt's character for me, even if it occasionally gets ignored or gets heavy-handed. Here I'd say it's more heavy-handed than maybe it needs to be, but it certainly illustrates the themes of this arc and the fact that Matt is religious. If you were picking up this Daredevil book and the only things you'd read had come from the last few years of Daredevil, you'd likely be startled to find him so engrossed in the bible and holding a chain with a cross on it. Still, it's not out of character, just a little different than what we've seen. The story is already engaging and the art varies between good and great at times. Weeks' three issues should be a good read on Daredevil's character and give us some thing to talk about before David Lapham takes over writer and artist duties for the two part "What a Day, What a Night" and Jimmy Palmiotti and Thony Silas give us the three issue arc "The Trip" to end the series.

New Avengers 1 and Daredevil: End of Days 4

New Avengers 1
Hickman (w) and Epting (a)

Wow. Yes. That's the way I'm starting this review. Because I'm a professional. I've been looking forward to this book since they teased it as the Illuminati's return. I have been pretty vocal on here already as to my distaste for Bendis' run on Avengers and New Avengers. Still, he did some things well and the guy's smart and clearly can be a good writer. One of the things I liked from his run, perhaps the thing I liked most, was the Illuminati. I like it because it's exactly what those characters would do; each one of them would consider himself worthy of making decisions for the world's behalf. Some might even be right in that assumption, not that they necessarily should do it. Black Panther walking out on the team upon his invitation was ALSO within character. It doesn't hurt that I'm particularly fond of Black Panther, and I like the rest of the team very much (Reed Richards not withstanding). So when Marvel showed that New Avengers would focus, at least to start, on the Illuminati returning, I was very excited. Excited enough that this could have been a big disappointment to me.

It's not. I mentioned the book in my top ten anticipated series list for 2013. One thing I didn't mention because I kept forgetting and I get a new wave of delight every time I remember is that Steve Epting is drawing the series. His run on Captain America was incredible and I have nothing but compliments to give. He does not disappoint here. Frank D'Armata does a great job as colorist, great enough that I noticed it instantly. There are only a handful of colorists that I really notice (I'm sorry, I'm usually focused on writing more than art and that makes me a bad fan for plenty of artists), like Bettie Breitweiser and Jordie Bellaire. So it really speaks to how gorgeous it is when I mention it here.

Now the story. I love seeing Wakanda. I love being a part of Wakanda. We get a good taste of a sort of ritual in Wakanda to lead the story, along with a view of T'Challa's new role as King of the Necropolis of Wakanda (instituted in Hickman's run on Fantastic Four), including a mention of feeling the pride of a former Wakandan king whose spirit he carries. More of that is bound to appear in this comic, hints at Wakanda's past and at its line of royalty. I'm onboard. Anyway, the story progresses and a portal opens in front of Panther and three young Wakandans from what appears to be an alternate reality or dimension. When they enter the portal, they find themselves facing a group of people, soldiers of a sort, and a lead woman. There is a version of Manifold, the former Secret Warrior who Hickman has re-introduced in his Avengers book, that is clearly not the 616's version (tip-off, he's white) with the head villain. She makes some ominous threats, her people kill the three Wakandans (who were shown as the strongest of the future generation of Wakanda after the short ritual to start the book) and she kills her Manifold before using a device he delivered to her to set the world floating above them on fire. Panther stops her a moment too late. He returns to his Wakanda, his earth, asking who answers the call of desperate men.

After a very movie-like two page spread, all black (spare a dark gray symbol), with white lettering that reads "New Avengers: Illuminati," the comic continues. We see Panther's feelings about each member of the Illuminati. Righteous men (Tony Stark), thinkers (Reed Richards), summoners (Dr. Strange), midnight kings (Black Bolt), and the devil himself (Namor). The comic ends with his plea for the goddess to save him "from what we are about to do." Surprise team-shot, Captain America leads the procession. I don't expect him to stay on this team, eventually he'll likely be replaced by Beast (who appears silhouetted on Jock's cover), but he became a part of it in Bendis' Avengers run.

It's an intriguing story with plenty of places to go and lots to say going forward. Because I'm dumb, I honestly hadn't even connected the fact that Namor would be coming to Wakanda, his first appearance there since the Phoenix-possessed Sub-Mariner destroyed the nation. Boy did that "and the devil himself" bit change that. The first entry in this series is majestic and huge. It's foreboding, it's a bit confusing (it is a Hickman book, after all), but in a good way. It makes you want to understand more and to read more. I really want to read more. And frankly, I want to see more. I cannot overstate how great the art was. Definitely worth buying and, even though it's been one issue, subscribing.


Daredevil: End of Days 4
Bendis and Mack (w) and Janson and Sienkiewicz with one page by Maleev (a)

I had a chat with the guy at the comic store about this series as I bought it. We talked about Marvel's attempts at doing these kinds of series every once in a while, these "the end" or "a character dies in the future that might could possibly happen" kind of things. They usually fall flat. We also talked about Bendis, agreeing that he's a good writer, but that his team books recently had started to sound the same. He said "I just don't see the Sentry quipping like Spider-Man, but there it was." It's entirely how I feel about Bendis. This review is not going in that direction.

This book has been startlingly good. I'm a Daredevil fan and I'm really a David Mack fan. His stories in Daredevil were some of my favorite, I adore Echo, and his art is unbelievable. That's not me trying to take away from Bendis to give this book a good review. I like Bendis. I often want to like Bendis more, but I agree with my comic book retailer's perception; with free reign and a team, he tends to quip more than write. Daredevil was a good book for him when he was the writer on it and his run there is the one I cite most frequently when arguing in his defense. I think he understands the darkness in Daredevil and I think he's better with a small cast. Avengers books tend now to feature a huge roster to bring as many fans in as possible. Smaller books don't have to do that. They can, but they don't have to. Daredevil is a prime example. Daredevil: End of Days is a sort of examination of that smaller cast. We see everyone. Well, we haven't seen Foggy, but we must at some point. We've seen Echo, Elektra, Typhoid Mary, Milla, and few others from Daredevil's past, as led by Ben Urich. This issue shows us Bullseye and Punisher, with a quick glance at one-time comic relief/low-level hood Turk. That probably makes the book sound more fun than it really is, but there is that level of fun to it. There's something going on just under the conspiracy of Daredevil's murder at the hands of the now suicidal Bullseye that's worth waiting around for. People are losing their grips. The word "Mapone" is floating around and making people extraordinarily tight-lipped. Every female from Matt's past has a red-headed child. To make matters more interesting/confusing, someone in a Daredevil suit is following Urich's investigation, just out of sight, and still catching criminals. There are things afoot.

Klaus Janson and Bill Sienkiewicz are doing a fine job in illustrating the book. It honestly feels like a mix of Daredevil's past just within the styles. There are hints of Frank Miller in the facial expressions, the broody shadows and rain of Alex Maleev, the sometimes painted look of Mack, and the occasional big and hectic scene shots inherent to the book overall. Maleev has one page in this book, a full page look at Bullseye tossing aces at the camera and looking crazy. It's kind of amazing.

If I had a complaint, it was that things are moving a little slowly. I like seeing this many people and I like the time they're given, but this is book four of eight. I'm not sure what the final payoff will be here, as excited about it as I am, but at current I'm having trouble justifying the eight issues. That could change as the series goes on and as more is revealed. However, right now it feels like we built up to the things we needed to build up to a couple issues ago and now we're kind of simmering, adding more to it, sure, but nothing we couldn't have guessed. Still, the art is worth checking out and the story is at a good point, it's just been there for a little bit now. I don't know if this will strike home with a lot of non-Daredevil fans, but why would you be reading about Daredevil's death if you didn't care about Daredevil anyway? Very fun, though, for a Daredevil fan.




Come back tomorrow for Morbius 1, All New X-Men 5, and Iron Man 5