Daredevil Message Board

[jumonji]

[Gloria]

[Gloria]

[Acerbus]

[Gloria]

[james castle]

[harryhausen]

First, it’s nice to be sent off in high fashion, but you won’t be shut of me that easily!
I’ll stick around here to read about the current issues (and probably jump back in when you all tell me that the Kingpin arc is the bees’ knees!) and comment on the larger DD concepts……

I’m interested to see that some others share my pain about the major issues (stagnancy, tone, etc.) that are prompting my axe. If I had more cash, I would just ride it out, but my limited budget sees me wanting to pull other comics more than this one, plain and simple.

Part of reading these (thoughtful!) responses has been me trying to understand what it is that rubs me the wrong way about the book and I think it comes down to a few things:

- the lack of change (as Stanley and Francesco and others also point out) in Matt’s world
- the portrait of Matt as purely responsive, never proactive
- the general tone of the book

I don’t necessarily lay these all on the doorstep of Mr. Brubaker, either. It’s just that I’m fed up while he’s writing, not that it’s his fault, per se.

Stanley basically says exactly what I was thinking about the character and the stagnation of themes in the book. It’s been a long time since I was happy with what Matt, himself, was doing – definitely back to the earlier part of the Bendis run. [Coincidentally, that’s also the last time I was happy with what Bendis was doing. Hmmm.] I much prefer the bold, assertive DD. Crackin’ skulls and whatnot. Stopping the occasional street-level crime - and not just using thug-busting montages for mopey internal monologues, either!

I realize, too, that when I go to pick up a comic, I am looking for a specifically “comic-y” experience. I’m happiest (I’m learning) when comics proceed at that breakneck pace that seems so loopy and weird. When they are wildly illustrated and colored with style and otherworldly élan. And when the creators wear their hearts on their sleeve in that Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams GL/GA-type way. I’m something of a faux-nostalgist (in music, particularly – longing for an atmosphere that reflects an idealized notion of the experience, sepia-toned recording sessions that were probably anything but…..) and am, perhaps, happiest looking backward.

So dropping this title, for me, is like going to the record store and passing on a very accomplished modern jazz record in order to go home and drop a needle on a classic Monk LP or some such.

Oh, and as for Mr. Castle’s query about Mike Carey on X-Men: Legacy….I think he’s definitely my favorite X-book writer – good characterizations and dialogue, smart dude, plots that emerge organically and aren’t completely derivative. He does a nice job of moving several major threads along, too. The drawback to the book he’s on is that it is so mired in X-continuity. He’s doing a manful job, but you’ve got to be up on all the major (and many minor) points in the X-continuum to fully enjoy Legacy, I would say. And I would be reading it, too, still, except I realize that I just don’t like Professor X that much….Weird, I always thought I did.

[blacktyphoid]

[Francesco]

I'm gathering thoughts and ideas to try and find an explanation on why, despite everything being theoretically in its place (dialogues, script, art), and despite the fact that the book is getting almost only good reviews, Brubaker's run fails to be satisfactory. There are interesting points in this topic.
Hopefully, this will explain also why sales keep dropping.

[jumonji]

[Francesco]

[Gloria]

[jumonji]

[harryhausen]

I think you make some good points, jumonji, about the nature of the book. I’m not really calling for it to be more of a ‘superhero book’ and am not daunted by the lack of costume time. Perhaps you’re addressing a broader tone - I’ll admit that I don’t read many reviews of titles I collect (excluding our man, Dave Wallace – good as always!) and it could be that these complaints arise there and on other message boards.

I would offer that we haven’t seen Matt do much lawyering, either. Foggy and Becky do all the heavy lifting around there, of course, but Matt hasn’t even done his usual quota of legal work, in my eyes. My point, I think, is that he hasn’t done much of anything, personally. He has become a central figure around whom the other characters revolve. His villains are the ones doing things. So Matt stands around stewing and lamenting all that has happened to him.

In recent memory, I’d say the last time he took matters into his own hands in a logical way was that weird trip to Europe. Which was cool.

I also think that spending more than half the narrative time away from the costumed hero part of Matt, as a character, is not a good idea, on the whole. It is the most interesting part of his life. I know lots of lawyers – even those who crusade for social justice (bring back the storefront office!) – but they’re not nearly as interesting as a super-intense blind vigilante in a devil suit.

Two completely subjective things.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about how much I’ve enjoyed Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps since Johns brought Hal back. He was surprised that I could like them so much, as I have expressed an aversion, in the past, to all those goofy aliens and crazy names and geeky sci-fi adventures. I told him that once I made the leap and accepted a few things about it (the vague power of the rings, the stupidest-looking aliens), it was actually easier to suspend my disbelief and operate in that outlandish fictional world than to handle the one or two stretches in the fictional worlds that are largely more ‘realistic’. I find that it’s easier for me to accept that Hal Jordan can use his ring to fly through space and draw sedatives out of his blood and make a huge green net to catch a rocket than it is for me accept that DD can jump through a hail of bullets up to and through a hovering helicopter. I know I’m off topic, but I thought it was germane to mention the fluid nature of my own suspension-of-disbelief problems, perhaps.

Lastly, I’ve always liked DD and Batman, both, because of their iron wills and the Eastern elements they embody (to me). That idea of human potential. I remember that compelling comparison between Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark that put the lie to the assertion that DD is Marvel’s ersatz Batman, but I link them - in some ways – in my mind, nonetheless (because of Frank Miller? Probably.). Now, I don’t know if you’ve been reading Morrison’s Batman (and I know I’m opening a whole can of worms here), but I think that – hallucinatory nature aside – he’s done a really compelling job of crafting a portrait of a truly (very likely unhealthily) proactive character with an unstoppable will. Almost an anti-Daredevil, these days. If you mess with Bats, he will f%*@ you up, brother! I used to get that same feeling about DD, but no longer. Maybe that’s what I miss most?

[Francesco]

That's maybe the thing that's missing most, harry:
The main character driving the story and not vice-versa.