Daredevil Message Board

[Mike Murdock]

While not all the dialogue in the opening scene was great, I do think the Matt/Urich scene was good for making things clear to Daredevil and making a statement to the audience - the cat's out of the bag. It's not Fisk, who can use the information to toy with him, it's someone else who made a powerplay to take out the Kingpin and also knows who Daredevil is. Plus, I like the "no smoking" gag.

The rest of the issue is pretty much mobster stuff. It's very dialogue-heavy, so they use scenes of Fisk being murdered as a backdrop. Rather than some of the past repeats, I think it serves a point. The conversation is business-like with a bit of romantic mobster notions thrown in. But the end result is cold-blooded, brutal murder. And, as many pages as it takes up, it's not like it's slowly drawn out. It's about an average of six panels per page (not the silver age nine crammed in, but still pretty dense) and its full of dialogue. Is it necessary? To drive the plot, of course not. But it drives home the point that this is a crime drama. It isn't just a superhero comic. That means it needs to sell the idea of these people being mobsters. Granted, I don't think anyone ever sold the idea of Fisk being a mobster before, but the story explains that too in true Goodfellas tradition. Fisk is not Italian. He's not a made man. He's someone who used his own cunning and ruthlessness to rise to the top to displace the organized crime leaders. Silke is trying to take his "rightful place" back.

I commented previously that the character of Vanessa gets explored in some depth in this story. She has a page at the end, but it's not just a bold move to protect her husband. She's going to act as Fisk.

When I read this previously, I thought Four and a Half Stars. I'm going to stick to that vote. The mobster stuff does sell it for me.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

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I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[Mike Murdock]

Sorry about the double post, but I wanted to respond to a few points.

[Dimetre]

[Mike Murdock]

Don't get me wrong, it could be the second thing. I just disagree with it being the first. I thought it was a good character development (particularly how Ed Brubaker handled it), but I do agree there was no foreshadowing to this point (it was, at best, designed to be a twist).
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

Not sure what to read next? Check out the Book Club for some ideas!

I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[Dimetre]

[james castle]

Anyone with a little time on their hands should swing by wikipedia and read the Richard Fisk and Vanessa Fisk pages. Both characters have colourful/interesting histories. Histories that Bendis completely deep sixes for his little story.

And look, I'm all for new takes on old characters. I don't think writers should be hamstrung by the past and I think writers should have a lot of leeway in terms of reinventing characters. At the same time what's the point of using a pre-existing character if you're just going to start from scratch? When we last saw Vanessa she was escaping the Kingpin's clutches in the amazing Love and War. Now she shows up all revengey and completely changed?

And it's not a "twist". Not everything completely unexpected is a "twist". There's an amazingly terrible moment in Bendis' Uncanny X-Men where a mystery villain is revealed to be...well, literally a random villain. There's a few lines of dialogue "justifying" why that villain is even in the story but that's it. That's not a twist. That's just random stuff happening.

Finally, can I just point out that Daredevil has basically done nothing thus far? He's been attacked a couple times and has been repeatedly wrong about it being the Kingpin. That's it.
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JC

So why can't you see the funny side?
Why aren't you laughing?

[Mike Murdock]

Yeah, he's done nothing. In fact, I don't think he really does much until Hardcore. In Lowlife, he threatens the Owl and that backfires. In the end, the FBI clean up his mess.

I wonder if the fact that I haven't read Love and War is a factor. I read the original Miller run. Obviously, that Vanessa is a very different character. But I took her to be more innocent than anything else. Someone who could be corrupted by repeated exposure to this kind of evil when torn between her dislike for this world and her love for her husband (who she has stayed with). Maybe, after reading that, I couldn't have seen Vanessa the way Bendis wrote her.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

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I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[Dimetre]

I think you should definitely read Love and War. As good a writer as Frank Miller still was at this time, Bill Sienkiewicz is really the star of the show. The Kingpin/Vanessa relationship is the centrepiece. If I have to find fault with anything, it's that Matt (funnily enough) doesn't really affect the outcome of the story.

[Mike Murdock]

Ooh, I had no idea Sienkiewicz wrote a Daredevil story. I loved him on New Mutants.

When I started collecting Daredevil, I collected (in order) The Man Without Fear, Hardcore*, and then the Miller Omnibuses Vols. 1, 2, then 3. Unfortunately, while I got the more recent version of 1 and 2 with the red covers and all that, I got the older one for 3 without paying attention. Not only did it repeat some of the material of 2, it omits Love and War. Some day, I'm planning on selling that and replacing it with the correct one to complete my collection. I could probably read it on Unlimited, but I like to rea Daredevil in print when I can.

* While I loved The Man Without Fear, I didn't like Hardcore (I like it better after having read everything that precedes it, though). It's amazing I continued to read Daredevil after that. The story is suggested by some as a good introduction to the character (possibly because it features the Kingpin, Bullseye, and Typhoid Mary), but I couldn't disagree more with that.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

Not sure what to read next? Check out the Book Club for some ideas!

I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[LightningandIce]

This issue was okay, but once again, way too sparse on content. I will say that we get some decent dialogue in place of plot developments, so it doesn't feel as terrible as some of the issues. The first scene was okay, though it would hardly be worth mentioning if not for the fact that it's the only scene in the entire issue that actually has Matt in it. Once again, I reiterate that while we the readers already know what's going on, the characters don't. It might not seem like developments to us but Matt and Ben are piecing things together.

The stuff with Silke was okay too, though the flashbacks were way too in-your-face and hogged some unnecessary real estate that could have moved the plot along a little more.

A few comments on what other people said:

[Mike Murdock]

[Mike Murdock]

Last One!

Daredevil Vol. 2 #31 - Underboss pt. 6


Due 8/2
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

Not sure what to read next? Check out the Book Club for some ideas!

I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[Dimetre]

First off, this is already the second time since #26 that Maleev has used a pose of Daredevil simply standing and facing us as a cover shot, and it wouldn't be the last time. Very rarely do Maleev's covers have anything to do with what's inside the issue. This is a problem throughout Volume 2.

Daredevil appears on five pages of this issue. That's it. When he does appear, he knows less about New York's organized crime than Ben Urich. Hey Bendis, I'm going to give you a tip. One of the reasons we buy Daredevil is because we admire the guy. He's our hero. Heroes tend to know what they're doing. This is the 411th issue of Daredevil. By now, he knows how organized crime operates in New York. Write him accordingly.

Other than those five pages, this is a comic about the mob. All of Underboss, apart from the Nuff Said issue, is a mob comic disguising itself as a Daredevil comic. Daredevil has had no impact thus far on how this story plays out. He has been a step behind at all times, and not in a believable way. How is Vanessa, who has shown nothing but disgust towards mob activity prior to this, three steps in front of Daredevil?

This really bothers me. We're five issues into this story, and Daredevil is whining, "I don't know who my enemy is." That's because YOU HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO FIND OUT! All we've seen him do is shake down a few people who say it's the Kingpin, and then the Kingpin denies it, and then Daredevil is at a loss. Our hero. Keep digging, ya tool.

This issue's best moment is when Richard is unable to hide his grief over the death of his father, and that's on the fourth page. After that, Daredevil is ineffective, and Vanessa is out-of-character.

I find it difficult to believe that Bendis was unfamiliar with Vanessa as a character before writing this. She was a remarkably consistent character, even in the 90s Spider-Man cartoon. She was in love with Wilson Fisk, but she hated his lifestyle. She abhorred violence. This monstrous character Bendis is writing isn't Vanessa.

As a comic about the mob, is it any good? Sure. The decompression is silly, but it sustains it's gritty noir mood well. But it's supposed to be a Daredevil comic. Daredevil is supposed to be the protagonist, and he barely figures in the story at all. He hardly influences the flow of narrative. Really, the main character in this story is Sammy Silke. That's the truth. He drives the story. This is his rise and fall. This story was not about Daredevil.

Maybe that's why the closing argument in #26 was so drawn out -- to artificially give more pages to Matt. I'm convinced now that the Nuff Said issue wasn't in Bendis and Maleev's original plans. Maybe Stuart Moore told them to use it as a way to give more time to Matt. Honestly, the events of the Nuff Said issue don't do much to drive the story of Underboss.

This is a common problem with Bendis. Matt didn't drive the story in "Wake Up." Urich did. In "Out" Matt is simply reacting to events, not steering them.

So I'm not going to grade it as a mob comic, because it was sold to us as a Daredevil comic. And as a Daredevil comic, I appreciate it's gritty noir mood, but there is not enough Daredevil, and a serious mischaracterization of characters with which Bendis should be more familiar.

2.5/5

[Dayle88]

I'm surprised there aren't more fans of this run. It's one of my all time favourites (the entire run, not Underboss.)

I always took it that the people who hire Nitro absolutely know that Matt is Daredevil.

I agree this arc is a mob story around Daredevil but ultimately it sets up Out.

Hardcore is brutally awesome.

I read this run for the first time in Ultimate Collection form, and after reading the first few issues I bought the second and third volumes so read the entire run from start to finish. I think that makes a huge difference to the story. I imagine it could be frustrating reading this stuff month to month.

I've mentioned in other forums that I don't believe in decompression. It implies there is one right way to pace a book, which there isn't. It's a creative decision.

[LightningandIce]

Again, this issue was okay. It finishes up Silke's story nicely, even if that does involve some odd characterization of Vanessa. And on that subject, Richard Fisk seemed kind of whiny in this issue given how he acted in the last one. Otherwise, my thoughts on the arc are pretty much the same as Dimetre's.

It's a decent crime story but there just isn't enough Daredevil. That's also why my opinion on Silke is so polarized. I like him in a Goodfellas kind of way but I don't think he's paid his dues or is worthy enough to take down the Kingpin. The thing is, this is Bendis's second story arc on Daredevil, and he still hasn't properly made Matt the main character.

It does get better. I didn't mean to imply that I disliked the entire run. Out, Trial, Lowlife, Widow, and Murdock Papers were great. There is an ongoing story throughout Bendis's entire tenure, and it this is kind of the prologue for it. Silke leaking Matt's secret identity kicks off everything that happens from here on out, much of which is pretty good. The thing is, Silke never plays a significant role again, and dropping Matt's name to the FBI could have been done much faster and more believably in any number of ways.

So what it all adds up to is an influence that was avoidable, or a self contained story that was forgettable. I don't think this story was horrible or anything, but it could be skipped over completely in the Daredevil canon.