Reviews by Harold Bloomfield (HB56@aol.com)

Daredevil #25

On the final page of the final issue of Bob Gale's "Playing to the Camera" arc Foggy sums the lawsuit against Daredevil by saying, "All this time, energy and money spent and nothing was accomplished." He very well could have been commenting on the story arc itself which comes to a very disappointing conclusion here. Previously I complained that part of the problem with this plotline was that the lawsuit held no serious consequences for Daredevil and/or Matt Murdock. Now everything is revealed and that indeed turns out to be the case. In fact the mastermind of the whole thing admitted it was just a test of his mind control technology.

On top of that the court case itself is concluded by the intrusion of a character from out of the blue. A character that has had nothing to do with anything going on with the case or Daredevil. This is a cheap and easy way out of the whole mess. Furthermore Matt's plan for Daredevil winning the case involved Peter Parker dressing up as Daredevil while the real Daredevil was vidoetaped swinging by clock at the same time Peter was on the stand thereby raising doubt about who is behind the mask at any given time. All well and good but even though we suspend disbelief to be entertained by superpowered individuals I think it's quite a stretch that two random people would be close enough in build and body language to appear identical in the same costume. Additionally, would it not be obvious that they sound nothing like each other in the first place? Daredevil had been on the stand before and interviewed on tape before.

As to Peter's testimony that it is not him on the tape confronting Griggs doesn't anyone have a problem that Daredevil already testified about the tape under questioning by his own attorny, Kate Vinokur, and made no mention that he's now claiming it wasn't him. Finally, we have the claim that no crimes were committed by the mastermind of this plot as there's no law against implanting false memories. Seems to me plenty of laws were broken in that these false memories were implanted for the express purpose of bringing a law suit. Encouraging someone to bring a false law suit and lie about the so-called events must break a whole lot of laws.

This issue does feature some humorous touches like Spider-Man's quip about clones and Hillman, the fake "old" Daredevil, being motivated by trying to impress a girl. But that's not enough of a payoff for a six part story. I have nothing against change of pace tongue-in-cheek stories but this did not start out in that vein and certainly, given the resoultion, didn't need six issues to tell. Two, maybe three, could have settled it nicely. The finale is so over the top that we get the cliched oldtime TV drama ending of the protagonists sitting around laughing hardily at the whole thing.

Without a doubt this is the weakest of the arcs in Volume 2 and a good arguement for a regular creative team, which we are getting starting next issue, and not the 1 arc per guest star writers and pencillers Volume 2 has used up until now.