Reviews by Harold Bloomfield (HB56@aol.com)

Daredevil #19

The Ben Urich-Timmy arc comes to a close. Urich finally gets a chance to hear what happened between Leapfrog and Daredevil. Turns out all Daredevil remembers is when Timmy inadvertently interrupted their fight Leapfrog momentarily knocked him unconscious and when he awoke Leapfrog was gone. After Urich fills him in about Timmy Daredevil meets with the boy and gets him to reveal the truth: he electrocuted his father with an exposed cable to save Daredevil.

It's impossible to tell if Bendis thought what actually happened between Daredevil, Leapfrog and Timmy was a stunning revelation here. It was fairly obvious since last issue that Timmy had greatly harmed his father while protecting Daredevil. This makes for a conclusion lacking melodrama but with a quiet power nonetheless. The speechless pages of Timmy and Daredevil's talk are touching. The ending, which features the least expected plot twist of the series, is touching also but it borders on sappy. Even J Jonah Jameson has a nice moment, tapping Urich on the hear with a folded paper to indicate his pleasure with Ben's Timmy story.

While previous issues hinted that Daredevil was tortured by the incident we find he actually paid it little mind. Especially since he condescendingly considered Leapfrog as 'guy in a big green frog suit.' His confession that he sometimes is embarrassed by the type of costumed villains he faces is a classic. Having Daredevil oblivious to Timmy's plight while being the key to his recovery justifies Urich's dogged pursuit of this matter and pegs him and Timmy, not Daredevil, as the heroes of the piece. Much to Bendis's credit this is not your everyday superhero book turn of events.

David Mack's paints have been a high point of this arc up to this point. But I must say that style seems particularly ill suited to the action sequences in this issue. I don't think it would be very effective in a more conventional storyline. Also detracting is Daredevil's cluelessness when he regains consciousness and can find no trace of Leapfrog. With his heightened sense of smell there is no way he would be unable to detect even the faintest trace of the electrocution that happened just moments before. Finally, I learned from this site's message board that Bendis blundered big time in the continuity area totally forgetting Leapfrog had another son. Since I was unaware of that it didn't bother me at all but I'm sure it caused considerable displeasure with those more familiar with Leapfrog's background.