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October 28, 2004
Subway Reading: Daredevil #66
Last night on the subway I finished up Hellboy: The Cained Coffin and Others. I have already trumpeted the greatness of this book, so I'm not going to bore you by re-hashing it. I bring up last night because somewhere around West 4th St, a guy wearing a T-Shirt bearing the Spiderman black-costume logo got on the train, sat down next to me, and proceeded to open his bag and pull out some comics to read. Ahhh, kinship. Brotherhood. Solidarity!
Anyway this morning I dug into yesterday's haul. First up was...
Daredevil #66 - A few weeks ago, while rumaging through some comic boxes at the 23rd St. flea market, I came across a run of Sam & Twitch comics. I pieced together a complete arc, which turned out to be the last arc written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Alex Maleev. It was very cool to read these books from an archeological point of view: how has the team changed since then? What elements from that stage in their respective careers carried over to today? I found that Bendis' trademark snappy dialogue & unique pacing (i.e., 2-page spreads of talking heads) were in full force, though it was a little rawer and there was more of it. He has gotten more restrained since then, which has been a welcome improvement. Maleev used some of the same distinctive techniques he does now, especially his photo-based backgrounds. I was surprised to see that his work used to feature more traditionally rendered cartoony figures. Seems that he uses more of a photo-inspired style now. Not to say that he has become some kind of photo-reference hack; far from it. What I mean is that he places his shadows and describes facial features more judiciously, sort of under-renderring rather than over-renderring. It owes more to the look of a reprinted photo than the look of traditional comic art, which helps his figures blend in better with his heavily photo-referenced backgrounds. That probably doesn't make any sense, and I'm sorry. Maybe tonight I will scan some examples and post a side-by-side comparison.
This creative team of Bendis & Maleev have been bringing us the last few years of Daredevil, and it's been maybe the best run since Frank Miller put the character on the map in the early 80's. In this issue, Bendis pulls back from the deep super-hero motifs that we have seen lately and tells the story of Alexander Bont, who was basically the kingpin before Wilson Fisk. Through two different flashback sequences, we see the moment when Bont begins his ascension and the moment 20 years later (give or take) when he begins his downfall. Both events are touched off by the interference of costumed superheroes, with the latter involving a yellow-costumed Daredevil (Bendis gets in some clever cracks about the clownish outfit, which I appreciated). The two coloring techniques that were employed to differentiate the eras were a nice touch.
The main reason I brought up the Sam & Twitch story arc was that for much of this book, Bendis more or less ignores super-powers in favor of giving us a believable taste of the lives and personalities of criminals. The result is an enagaging, human drama that is easy for the reader to connect to. We can all imagine the sad desperation of the bounty hunters in Sam & Twitch who admit to hating themselves and their life. Thanks in part to Maleev's rendition of Bont's weathered face and confused eyes, we can imagine the disconnect that comes from visiting a place that has little relation to the place it was 40 years ago.
--SPOLIERS ALERT--
What we can't relate to, of course, is the world of super-powers. I understand why Bont would take the course of action he takes at the end of this issue. His rise and fall were made possible by super-heroes. It seems to him that they controlled his destiny. So in an effort to finish out his years with some semblance of control over his life, he takes some kind of super-power granting pill (which I imagine must be the mutant hormone drug that we saw earlier in this series) and swears revenge on Daredevil. That's all well and good, and will definitely make for a solid take on a standard superhero story. But at the instant that happened, it shattered the emotional connection that had been so skillfully developed in the preceding 20 pages. It's not unlike what Bendis did in the last issue of Powers, and it left the same kind of bad taste in my mouth. 2.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at October 28, 2004 01:47 PM