Daredevil vol. 2: West-Case Scenario

I’ll give it this:  “Original Sin” at least offered a very flexible setup for allowing other titles to tie into this particular event.  Having characters suddenly remember forgotten memories works really well in the context of what is effectively “Retcon:  The Event!”  Mark Waid already got a decent story out of it with Kieron Gillen for their “Hulk/Iron Man” story, and now he gets to tell one about Matt Murdock and his parents.  However, telling a story using the “Original Sin” setup wasn’t enough for the writer as he felt the need to dig even deeper into retconning the history of the characters involved.

Everyone knows that Matt’s father “Battling” Jack Murdock was a great man.  Someone who raised his son alone and did his best to give him a better life than he had.  Now, after the encounter with the Orb’s eye-bomb of secrets, Matt’s wondering if his father really was that man at all.  The image of his angry father standing over his frightened and terrified mother is now etched into the superhero’s brain and he can only do one thing to put it to rest:  Talk to his mother and see what she has to say about the man she left all those years ago.  Only problem is that after an act of civil disobedience against a U.S. military base, she’s being extradited to Wakanda for reasons unknown.

The Wakanda stuff is entirely superfluous to the main story in these two issues.  After all, it’s not like Matt can just go up to his mother and ask about what her relationship with her former husband was really like.  Our hero has to break into the Wakandan embassy, find out about a conspiracy between the two countries armed forces, and then fly to the country itself to confront its ruler to get his mom back.  While all this is irrelevant to the story at hand, it’s still executed quite well by Waid who manages some good suspense in unraveling the conspiracy.  We also get to see the artist of these issues, Javier Rodriguez, deploy some really impressive page layouts that showcase everything from the hero’s power at work in the embassy, to the tension of a woman slowly losing her mind.

As for the story of Matt’s remembering of that particular memory…  I have to admit that I was really nervous about how he was trying to tamper with the character of “Battling” Jack.  He’s the “Uncle Ben” of the Daredevil mythos and to suggest that he was anything less than completely virtuous really casts a pall over the character’s origin.  Still, you see those scenes of him angrily staring down at his frightened wife on their kitchen floor and it’s hard to see how this could be explained in a way that doesn’t have him being revealed as a wife-beater.

In that regard, Waid had me believing this even though I’ve read enough comics to know that there had to be some kind of twist coming.  There is and the most impressive part is that the writer, along with the masterful work of the artist, actually manage to explain everything about that scene without demonizing either parent.  The thing is, it’s also part of the character’s mythos that his mother left when he was young and the fact that she was even alive at all wasn’t established until Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s classic “Born Again” storyline.  Yet why did she leave in the first place?  Waid gives us an answer here that’s both tragic and utterly credible while also allowing for a reconciliation between mother and son at the end.  There have been a lot of good stories in the writer’s “Daredevil” run over the years.  I honestly wasn’t expecting one borne out of a crossover to be one of the best.

The bond between parent and child is also explored in the arc that follows, only in a far more creepy fashion.  “Creepy” is a factor here because it’s all about the Purple Man and his need to feel the unconditional love of his kids.  You see, Zebediah Killgrave’s mind-controlling powers mean that while he can get any woman into bed with him, he won’t get any actual love from them.  So, he’s gone and rounded up the kids that have resulted from some of these encounters in the hope that they will be immune to his power, and love him like a father.  Killgrave was half-right in his expectations:  They are immune to his power.  The five of them in this story are also strong enough to overpower him and then hit the streets of San Francisco to do whatever they want.

It’s a strong story overall, with the hardest-hitting part being when the kids — who also have additional empathic powers as well — hit Daredevil with all of the trauma that he’s suffered over course of his superhero career.  He winds up sinking into a crippling depression and Waid’s description of that mental illness is more harrowing than the fact that Killgrave is standing over the hero ready to bas his skull in.  That the title character eventually shakes off the worst of the effects and cleverly dispatches the bad guy in the end should be seen as a foregone conclusion.  Yet it’s how the depression lingers on with Matt over the rest of the story that gives it its impact.  

Waid’s run has done an excellent job of getting away from the darkness that usually defines “Daredevil” stories and telling ones that are lighter in tone, yet no less dramatic.  Here, all that bad stuff comes bubbling up again and threatens to drag the character back down again.  That being said, the disjointed nature of the final two pages makes me wonder if the creators tried a “fake ending” of the kind that Scott McCloud did all those years ago in “Zot” in the issue this was published.  It certainly feels appropriate, and heartwarming in a way that feels earned.

Also in this volume is the “Daredevil” #1.50 one-shot celebrating the character’s 50th anniversary with stories from some of his most notable creators (that are still on good terms with Marvel).  Waid and Rodriguez lead off the issue with a story of Matt in the future and what happens when his son, and about a million other people in New York, spontaneously become blind.  It’s all part of a villain’s challenge to get Matt to put the suit back on after he got rid of it years ago.  This may sound pretty standard-issue, but the story is rich with details.  From the description of the evolution of Matt’s hypersenses, to seeing how his son deals with the same along with the relationship he has with his father, and bits like “Doctor Valeria Richards,” Waid crafts an engaging and affecting story that is only made more so by Rodriguez’s fantastic art.

The anniversary issue also features an enjoyably goofy story from Karl Kesel about “The Last Will and Testament of Mike Murdock.”  Because there was this one time that Matt pretended to be his brother Mike in order to convince everyone that he wasn’t Daredevil.  My, how things have changed. *rimshot*  It’s a decent bit of continuity fluff that leaves my life no better or worse for having read it.

Then you’ve got the “text with pictures” contribution from Bendis and Alex Maleev.  Given that these two produced one of the longest and most acclaimed runs in the character’s history, this should’ve been great.  Instead, the writer makes the error of re-treading familiar ground by giving us an imaginary story about a woman who falls in love with and marries Daredevil.  Considering that Bendis had the character fall in love and get married in the course of his run, one has to wonder why he feels the need to do it again.  Hell, I thought he did it really well with Milla and I’m still bummed about what happened to her.  Even if the reasons for this particular reiteration become clear at the end, they’re more depressing than anything else.  The art and writing are strong, yet they don’t amount to anything much at the end.

Fortunately this anniversary issue is at the beginning of the volume.  So you go from this uneven anthology to two stories that show Waid, Rodriguez, and regular artist Chris Samnee at the top of their game.  Even if this era of “Daredevil” is coming to a close later this year, it seems almost inevitable that they’re going to go out with a bang and leave us wanting more.

… I’ve just jinxed it, haven’t I?