Daredevil by Mark Waid vol. 2 & Captain America by Ed Brubaker vol. 2

(We’re experiencing some technical issues with the podcast again and it’ll hopefully be up either later tonight or in the next day or two.  So before we get to my thoughts on Ennis/Robertson/Braun/et. al.’s “The Boys” here are some superhero titles that while not as thought-provoking, won’t make your skin crawl.)

Waid’s “Daredevil” continues the high level of quality established by the first volume and even if the shock of his new spin on Matt Murdock has worn off, there’s still plenty of quality superhero action to be found here.  Not only does the title character have to lead schoolkids through a snowstorm, head underground to take on a grave-robbing Mole Man, but he also gets to team up with Spider-Man and match wits with the Black Cat.  There’s a lot of entertainment crammed into the six issues collected here and the overall quality of the art from Paolo Rivera, Emma Rios, Kano and Khoi Pham, overcomes any stylistic inconsistency.  None of this will blow your mind, but Daredevil hasn’t been this much fun to read about in years.

As for Brubaker’s “Captain America,” it picks up on a plot thread from his “Steve Rogers:  Super-Soldier” miniseries from a little while ago as the Super-Soldier serum that gives him his powers is mysteriously giving out on him.  Normally this is where I’d gripe about none of the characters being allowed to be heroic and consistently at the mercy of the bad guys.  While that’s true for a lot of this volume, it ends on a welcome bit of cleverness in which we find out that Sharon Carter had all of the necessary bases covered here.  It would’ve been nice to see more moments like these in the latter half of Brubaker’s run, but at least we get some great art from Alan Davis to make this volume a cut above the character’s recent solo exploits.