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Reviews by Harold Bloomfield (HB56@aol.com)

Daredevil #32

Brian Michael Bendis continues to amaze. He is producing a run of great Daredevil issues practically without Daredevil. Oh pretty much the whole second half of the book is taken up by discussions about Daredevil but he doesn't even make an appearance.  In my last review I commented that Bendis needed to move the focus to Daredevil having taken so long with the Underboss arc but in a way I was wrong. Bendis does put the focus on Daredevil but does so without having him even appear in this issue. Nonetheless it is yet another strong and compelling effort.

As usual with Bendis the book is dominated by beautifully written dialogue. In fact the whole story is dialogue as an FBI agent recounts for his boss Silke's confession about his move on the Kingpin, and together they make inferences about Vanessa Fisk's counter attack and Silke's revelation about Daredevil's true identity.  The opening bit about the boss showing up at 3 am in his pajamas is great.  The rest of the dialogue doesn't miss a beat from there.  The agents' back and forth concerning the possibility of Silke's information being true leads to the logical conclusion as to what the FBI should do with the knowledge: nothing.  Silke does not get to make his deal for leniency and faces hard time unless he turns in his mob boss father. Just as it seems Silke's desperation to stay out of jail will not bring any harm to Daredevil we get the climax of Foggy buying a newspaper and being confronted by a bombshell headline. As with Bendis, Alex Maleev keeps up the great artwork. Here he's called on to illustrate 20 pages of talking heads. He restrains himself admirably, resisting the temptation to get fancy and detract from the story. He does this without being static, handling the facial expressions well which is his main task here while keeping the dark film noir feel he has used from the begining. Bendis has opened up a huge can of worms for Daredevil and everyone around him.  Based on his track record so far we can expect the repercussions to be real and the reading to be very interesting indeed.


Daredevil (and other related characters appearing) and the distinctive likenesses are Trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc. and are used WITHOUT permission.
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