Daredevil Message Board

[Kuljit Mithra]

DAREDEVIL #34 by Waid, Rodriguez and Lopez ships December 18th, and here's the preview!



http://www.manwithoutfear.com/gallery/Daredevil-V3-034

Please use this thread for all your comments and reviews when the issue comes out!
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Kuljit Mithra
www.manwithoutfear.com

[Dimetre]

A positive rebound in quality from the Halloween two-parter. Rodriguez's depiction of Dr. Strange leaves something to be desired. He's not Asian. But I found the speeches by Daredevil and Kirsten to be very powerful, and perfectly suited for these politically polarized times.

And I'm very worried by the last panel.

[Francesco]

This issue sucked. 1.

[Francesco]

- The art is terrible: Doctor Strange looks weird, and so does Matt/Daredevil. In that page where he's on the rooftop pondering on his life he doesn't look like a guy in peak human condition able to give Kingpin a run for his money in a fight, but rather like a nerd who could be broken in two with a well placed punch.
The scene where he meets Kirsten is incomprehensible.

- The plot is nonsensical. Matt goes to look for kirsten's help exactly for what reason? Why did he desperately need her help to the point of openly admitting of being Daredevil? Because he needed her to read a frigging name on a microphone? Seriously? Couldn't he have aske to, I dunno, spider-man, or the black widow, or a random guy on the street?

- The guy who used to bully DD and is a genius with electronics is perfectly fine after having been hospitalized days before for a friggin' gunshot wound to the chest.
Also, not sure why DD needed him to put together the equipment which he got from the Avengers (neat deus-ex-machina McGuffin btw): Was it too much to ask the same avengers who provided the equipment to also assemble it? It felt to me like the guy was needed to provide a cheap foil to the main character-hot chick dynamic.

- The entire "big scary war which now begins against the sons of the serpent" is reduced to the simple act "Give up the Jester or I burn your holy book". Wait. Seriously? The threat was the C-List villain working with them rather than the fact that they were a nazi organization with infiltrates in various important places?

- What was even the threat, anyway? Because I failed to perceive any threat. In an issue we saw a judge shoot Matt's client while mentioning the sons of the serpent and then we are "told" that they are a totally serious threat and that some riots have broken in the city. We are just told that. Barely anything that could deliver the reader a sense of threat is actually shown.

- The same way, we are told Matt life is so depressing (in the page where he looks like a toothpick on the rooftop) because Foggy has cancer and Jester is out there and his enemies are all around him. I don't feel any depression. I'm just supposed to feel his depression because a caption box tells me so. This is nothing like the anguish you could perceive when reading Bendis' "Out" or "Hardcore" or "King of Hell's Kitchen", or Brubaker's Mr Fear storyarc.
But, be as it may, that's not even important, because in the next caption box Matt states that he doesn't care. Sure, whatever. I didn't even feel any tension as a reader, go figure if I care if the protagonist himself tells me he doesn't care.

- A trap. Incredible! How very unexpected. Maybe if you told them to give up the Jester to the police? But that way we would've missed...

-... a super-exciting fight scene: Daredevil Vs.... wait for it.... "nine nameless mooks". That's right fellas. Nine nameless mooks of one of the ten evil organizations in the Marvel Universe. Equipped with rifles and helmets and minimal body armor. You think if they set up a trap, the hyper-powerful terrorists would've brought a friggin Hypersonic generator, or placed a couple of snipers, or hired a B-list supervillain, but nothing.

On the plus side, we got to see DD doing fancy stuff like running backwards and stopping two purse snatchers while doing an acrobatic move. Oh wait, that was totally boring and unnecessary.

[thank god for stilt-man]

[qtmxd]

I appreciate Francesco's detailed review... you know how to write. And it confirms I'm not missing anything by sticking to previews and periodic skimmings.
Given that Waid did say in an interview that Foggy was going to San Francisco, it would have to be an outright lie to kill him, which isn't typical. Even when Brubaker had him stabbed, they were mostly careful to avoid saying in fansites that he was actually dead.
I've also been assuming that Foggy is irreplaceable. I guess if Waid wants to complete his decimation of DD, he could replace him with that hilarious bully character.

[Darkdevil]

4 out of 5 for me.

A good issue, with Matt taking a daring risk in involving Kirsten that seemed to work (while also taking their relationship to a new level), the rooftop helicopter scenes were especially gripping, and the speeches weren't too over the top.

[Gianni]

I finally got to read it. Not as bad as previous issues. The pacing was good, and the "Man without fear my ass" scene was fun enough. I find Rodriguez much better than Samnee, though still not my cup of tea (Matt on the rooftop is ridiculous, and Dr. Strange is a curious mix of Charlie Chan, the Owl and Madeline Kahn in "Young Frankenstein"). As for the final panel, I'm the one who claimed they're gonna kill Foggy (remember qtmxd? ) so I'm the last one to be surprised, but I still hope I'm wrong.

[qtmxd]

Okay, Gianni, but remember, I gave you a direct published quote from Waid, so he would have been outright lying... they're not supposed to do that.
Let's hope it's a misdirect, and my new prediction doesn't come true... that he'll replace Foggy with that hilarious bully character.
( I often wonder why I get so into this anyway... I'm living in the past.)

[Francesco]

Pray tell, what's so hilarious about that character? the fact that he's overweight and loutish?

[james castle]

[qtmxd]

I'm not sure what you think of him, but I meant "hilarious" sarcastically. I assume he's being played for humor, but I think he's just an obnoxious character, and I find nothing funny about his loutishness. I had hoped he'd be there just for a filler story and not stay around.

[Francesco]

There's an article today on CBR in which Dan Slott comments on having explicitly lied when saying that Peter Parker would've never returned (for those who don't know, something like a year ago Dock Ock had erased Peter's conscience and replaced him as Spider-man).
He explains that it was very difficult to him to do that, including having to lie at conventions to little kids (on a side note: only a little kid who's new at comics could've believed that such a change would've been permanent)

[qtmxd]

I've only been glancing at Spider-Man comics, but I have the impression that Peter has never left... Octavius is frequently wrestling with his ghost, who promises to get his body back. Plus, Peter's whole life is still the storyline, so of course, a permanent replacement is untenable.
Anyway, the preview for DD #35 gives the impression that Foggy isn't going to die. If this were DC, or Spider-Man, whose universes allow for radical fantastical reboots, they'd be more likely to kill Foggy, but to kill an "ordinary man" character in DD's universe and bring him back would end the last vestige of DD's realism. (It's different with a "super" character like Bullseye, who's already a fantasy).
Also, when Brubaker had Foggy get stabbed, it seemed the editors were very careful to avoid saying conclusively that he was dead.