Daredevil Message Board

[Mike Murdock]

Well, I can't say my idea is a better idea unless you're saying having absolutely no idea is a better idea, which maybe it is because, damn, that's a stupid idea they went with.
_________________
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]

[Darkdevil]

[Mike Murdock]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

Daredevil End of Days #5



Due 5/8
_________________
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]

They got me... kind of. I predicted that the Punisher would deny knowing what Mapone means. Well, apparently the Punisher knows what it means, but won't tell Ben. It seems to inspire him to escape from prison, but I don't know how he did it. Sienkiewicz and Janson's artwork makes it impossible to figure out how he escaped, let alone how he started a fire, or how he used Urich to start a fire.

The Punisher jailbreak means that something actually happened in this issue. Other than that, Melvin Potter denies knowing what Mapone means. Foggy won't see Ben. Then, for some reason, Ben goes to see Bushwacker in the hospital, because it seems like a new Daredevil took him down, when Bullet comes running in like a freight train.

So the jailbreak, and the revelation that a disciple of Matt's is the new Daredevil make it seem like something happens in this issue.

However, there were some things that bothered me.

I don't think Ben would say that Matt views himself as judge and jury. Matt wouldn't be a lawyer if he didn't believe in the judicial system. He has always shown a belief in everyone's right to their day in court. Matt isn't naive enough to think that the system is perfect -- he's seen it fail. He thinks that with his powers he can help. Saying he thinks he's judge and jury shows a big misunderstanding of the character, and I don't think Ben would say that.

Would Matt train a disciple? I don't think he would, or that he could. He can do what he does because of his powers. He can't teach that. And he's not Stick. He's not a member of the Chaste, at war for eternity against the Hand. And I never liked it when someone took over a heroes identity for a departing character -- it always made the departing character feel less special to me.

Why is Melvin Potter missing an arm? Why draw him that way if you're not going to address it?

If Potter doesn't make Daredevil costumes, than why is business going through the roof, if that's the hot costume? He says, "Every time one of the costume guys drops dead, sales go through the roof." Potter said that, even though that's irrelevent because he won't make a Daredevil costume.

Black Widow can't have children. It's a consequence from her days in the Red Room. Everyone who knows anything about Natasha knows that. That shouldn't be her daughter in the picture.

So, it seems we have moved beyond finding out what Mapone means to trying to figure out who this new Daredevil is. That was always there to a degree in the background, but this new Daredevil was having zero effect on the plot until now. I was actually wondering if the panels showing a Daredevil on a rooftop was just something out of Ben's imagination. This issue cleared that up.

However, this series is offering no new insight into who Matt was. Well, there was the stuff Frank was saying about how he was always a lawyer. "They stack the deck in their favor," he said. "A lawyer doesn't ask the question unless he knows the answer. A lawyer doesn't go into a courtroom unless he knows he can win."

However, as a long-time fan of Daredevil, I've seen Matt take enormous chances in the hopes that it would prevent a disaster. He's called Daredevil for Pete's sake. He takes risks. He's impetuous.

Also, I don't think Matt is your stereotypical lawyer. He's not a lawyer who won't enter a courtroom unless he's sure of winning. I always thought Matt was the rarer breed of lawyer who will always go to court as long as there is an injustice to fight against. I don't think he's like all the other lawyers, and he has both suffered and been rewarded because of that.

But I've long been at odds with Bendis and his view of who Matt is. Perhaps Bendis' view of lawyers is a key reason why Daredevil was such a reactive character during his run. (I still have never read most of the Bendis issues that followed Vision Quest in Volume 2.) I guess Bendis felt Daredevil was someone who kept his cards close to his chest, when I feel the character is much more fun and interesting when he's being proactive.

You can say my view of who Daredevil is is my own, and Bendis' is his, and that's fair. But there are so many stories showing Daredevil taking risks and being proactive outside of Bendis' oeuvre, and I think it shows a misunderstanding of the character to fail to acknowledge that. That and the whole "judge and jury" thing bother me. More happened in this issue than others, so I'm giving this a 2.5 out of 5.

[james castle]

End of Days Part 5: Made Up Ninja Facts

Plot!
NOTE: Although a lot is happening not a lot that actually effects the plot is happening so I’m gonna try to collapse as much as I can.

1. Daredevil named himself the new Kingpin of Hell’s Kitchen

2. Matt slept with Elektra, Echo, Milla and Typhoid Mary and fathered five red headed sons..

3. Daredevil put the Punisher in jail (at some point).

4. Fisk came back to New York and Daredevil beat him to death in public. Daredevil and Matt Murdock disappear and no one knows where he went!

5. Years later Daredevil and Bullseye fight. Bullseye gains the upperhand and right before he kills Daredevil, Daredevil says “Mapone�. Bullseye appears shocked by this word. So shocked that he later kills himself after writing “Mapone� on the wall in his blood and repeating “Mapone!� over and over again..

6. Ben has a 16 year old son named Timmy. If it wasn’t for Daredevil Timmy wouldn’t be living with Ben.

7. Black Widow is dead.

8. Nick Fury, Milla, Elektra, Typhoid Mary and Echo don’t know what “Mapone� means..

9. Ben goes to visit Punisher in jail and asks about “Mapone�. Punisher knows what it means!!!!!! HE KNOWS WHAT IT MEEEEEEEEANS! But he’s not telling. BUT, he does confirm that it’s was something that Matt knew about Bullseye that he used as a self destruct button. I.e. Matt knew saying “Mapone� to Bullseye would cause him to kill himself.

10. Punisher also tells Ben that all Ninja train their replacements! I don’t think that’s actually a thing but it strongly suggests that Matt trained a replacement!

11. Punisher escapes prison.

12. Ben visits The Gladiator. He doesn’t know what “Mapone� means but reveals that he made a smaller, replacement (cough, cough) Daredevil costume for Matt before he died.

13. Ben finally gets around to visiting Foggy and sees a picture of Foggy and some lady and a kid AND Black Widow with a red headed teen aged girl! Maybe Matt is standing with them (?) It sort of looks like him but neither the dialogue nor the art make it clear. Although Ben comments on it being Black Widow he somehow doesn’t comment on whether it’s Matt or not.

14. Ben leaves a message for Peter Parker. Real interesting stuff.

15. Someone left a stack of Nocenti issues on Bendis’ desk and he sort of flipped through them or maybe just looked at the covers because Ben goes to visit Bushwacker in the hospital (because Bushwacker was beat up by the New Daredevil) and Bullet shows up and bumps Ben out the window. (Note: since when does Bullet hate Bushwacker? Maybe he does but I don’t remember why).

16. New Daredevil swoops in the save Ben.


Ben(dis)’s Mysteries!
Why did Matt kill the Kingpin? Nothing.
Why did Matt leave New York? Because he killed the Kingpin (?).
Where did he go? Nothing.
How did Bullseye find him? Nothing.
And what did Matt say with his dying breath? Mapone.
What did it mean? Nick Fury, Milla, Elektra, Mary, Echo and The Gladiator don’t know and neither do we. The Punisher knows. But he’s not telling. It made Bullseye kill himself though so it’s somehow connected to him.
Who’s the guy in the Daredevil suit? Who knows. Maybe someone Matt trained?

Fun Facts!
Illegitimate Kids Shown This Issue: 1?.
Running Illegitimate Kid Count: 5 for sure. Maybe 6?
Did What Happens on the Cover Happen: No.
Cliff Hanger: Will New Daredevil save Ben?

Whose Time is it Anyways?

The TV person asks “what inspired Castle to escape after so many years?�. But we’re in the 4 or 5 year range at this point, right? Things aren’t adding up.

Now THAT is Decompression!

“I was the patsy and like any good patsy I can’t figure out exactly how I was the patsy; only that I know that I was a patsy�. One terrible sentence. Three dialogue boxes.
_________________
JC

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

[james castle]

[Francesco]

Ben(dis)’s Mysteries! (Improved version)
Why did Matt kill the Kingpin? We stopped caring.
Why did Matt leave New York? Because he killed the Kingpin (?).
Where did he go? We stopped caring.
How did Bullseye find him? We stopped caring.
And what did Matt say with his dying breath? Mapone.
What did it mean? Nick Fury, Milla, Elektra, Mary, Echo and The Gladiator don’t know and neither do we. The Punisher knows. But he’s not telling. It made Bullseye kill himself though so it’s somehow connected to him, anyway we stopped caring..
Who’s the guy in the Daredevil suit? Who knows. Maybe someone Matt trained? We stopped caring.

[james castle]

Ben(dis)’s Mysteries! (Realistic version)
Why did Matt kill the Kingpin? Bendis forgot he should explain this.
Why did Matt leave New York? Because he killed the Kingpin (?).
Where did he go? Bendis forgot he should explain this. ...(etc.)

The sort of exciting thing is that other than one or two big plot points I've completely forgotten how this train wreck ends. I'm actually interested to see if any of these questions do get resolved.
_________________
JC

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

[Francesco]

Reading again this particular issue I had an epiphany, which I will now tell you.
Do you see at the beginning the punisher, sitting there, strapped immobilized, ready to resolve the cliffhanger of the last issue?
That Punisher, my dear readers is BENDIS PERSONIFIED.

And I don't mean that in a "oh, look, so cool, this artist here makes cameo of creators"-crap, I mean that he's a sock puppet for Bendis. It's Bendis' spouting his ideas about DD and wanting us to stand in awe at the revelations that only he may give us about DD, if he so chooses.

Ben stands there waiting to learn the Mapone mystery, and he's forced to listen to Frank Castle's psychobabble about DD in the vague hopes that he will reveal something.
in the EXACT SAME WAY, the reader is (in Bendis' most optimistical scenario) dying to know the mystery and so he keeps reading, waiting for any revelation or at least any clue, and so he's forced to read all this crappy interpretation of what DD is according to Bendis and only Bendis.

The Punisher speaks as if only he has gotten what Daredevil is through the years, and in the same way Bendis has "spoken" during this exact miniseries as if only he knows what daredevil was. Only his continuity ever mattered, or better only the parts of continuity he remembered, only his take on the character mattered, and all the rest didn't matter, because as only the Punisher knew what DD was, in the same way, only Bendis ever got what DD was.
The readers are just dumb bystanders who "don't get it".


"And now, Bendis says, you expect me to tell you what Mapone is, right? Nope, I won't tell you! instead I'll take the chance to explain you what Daredevil is, because only I have ever understood it! And you'll be forced to listen. Daredevil is this, this and this!"
"Daredevil was a Ninja" Woooo! "And also a lawyer and so he maniacally had every detail on each one of his enemies" (aspects that have only ever appeared in his run).
"and also he must have had a replacement because.... Ego!! and reasons!"

And in doing so, Bendis and the artists proceed with a grotesque character assassination, showing us a Matt Murdock who goes around in a short amount of time inseminating women as if they were sheep to be f***ed by a ram, who acts irrationally and decides that he had to arbitrarily kill a villain out of the blue because "he tried anything else and you don't understand", who decides to give the burden of being DD to someone else (no spoilers) just because he had a big ego, and so on.

This whole scenario is only made more pathetic by the fact that by the time we got to this point of the story, more than half of the readers have realized that the whole "what does mapone mean?" mystery is just garbage, a cheap trick with no substance like many others Bendis has done in the past (see the whole Echo/Ronin thing) and have stopped caring.

[Mike Murdock]

I'm not sure I agree Matt Murdock believed himself to be Judge and Jury. That's not a great start to the issue because I'd rather just talk about this. To me, Matt Murdock was a defender of the downtrodden and protector of the innocent. But I think he believed he had to stop people from doing bad things, but he wasn't necessarily there to judge them (although, he's only human so it's sometimes hard to avoid doing that). I'd be happy to discuss this more, but I'll get back to the issue since we're only on page two.

This issue is very exposition-heavy with a conversation between Ben Urich and Frank Castle. I'm not sure I like or agree with much of what is said. I've never thought Bendis truly didn't understand Daredevil based on his original run (I didn't always agree with his take, but I don't think he necessarily missed the point). Here, I'm seriously starting to doubt. For example, I'm not sure I ever thought of Daredevil as ultra-prepared. To me, his strength and weakness was that he is impulsive. He acts rather than plans. Black Panther is that Batman-esque always prepared character. Maybe the idea is that Matt Murdock plans when Daredevil does not, which I'm more willing to accept, though. The idea of him collecting something to ruin Bullseye's life isn't bad, although it covered most of the issue to just say that.

I liked seeing Bushwacker and Bullet, I suppose.

Three Stars.

ETA: I actually agree very much with Francesco that Bendis is using Punisher as his mouth in this. Otherwise, I'd be happy to dismiss Punisher's rambling as an unreliable narrator. I'm not sure if it's fair to pick on the artist (Maleev, I assume?). He just drew the damn thing based on what he was told.
_________________
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

[james castle]

I feel like all the Punisher exposition on Daredevil is just random tropes that Bendis pulled together. The whole "has a file on everyone" is pulled directly from Batman. The whole "a lawyer never asks a question he doesn't know the answer to" is super basic cross examination advice that any first year lawyer would tell you. I think it's Bendis just trying to show that he knows something about lawyers. The judge and jury thing doesn't even make sense but sounds clever. Which is basically Bendis' entire MO.
_________________
JC

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

[Darkdevil]

Bendis has been showing us his pet theory on Matt being a player throughout this mini and now, we get his pet theories on his motives for being DD.

The notion of Matt 'having files on everyone' is rubbish. Unless it's somehow tied in with his being the 'Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen', a title we know little about.

Declaring DD 'judge & jury' is likewise rubbish. Matt's faith and belief in the judicial system is nigh absolute. For right or wrong, everyone deserves their fair day in court. Frank circumvents that system entirely with his own absolute moral view, with execution just being the end to his means. For Bendis to suggest otherwise for Matt only shows his narrow view of his character.

Now I will admit, I liked Frank's scenes here in this issue the best. How he said everything was interesting but as to what he said, well....

So Frank knows what 'Mapone' means yet won't tell Ben. My first obvious question is, if Frank knows then why didn't he use that knowledge against Bullseye himself? You'd think getting a criminal to kill himself would save you the cost of a bullet or two.

Second, the escape venture was completely vague. Did Frank use Ben to escape? If so how? For that matter, how did Frank know Ben would visit him or when? It doesn't make sense.

Third, Frank tells Ben that he is there to set him back on the right path. 'Mapone' supposedly has a deep strong connection to Bullseye. Yet Ben continues to investigate Matt's life. Why not delve into Bullseye's life and background? Unless Ben thinks he will stumble across the source of Matt's information on the name. Even if you take what Frank stated with a shaker of salt, I think such a suggestion would bear some amount of investigation.

Fourth, Matt training a replacement. 'Because that's what ninjas do' is more rubbish but I think, given certain circumstances and who the replacement is, Matt might undertake such a venture. (Didn't he try to help and teach that one blind kid in Nocenti's run?) But again, as with 'Mapone', we're given little context with this new Daredevil. In fact, if he wasn't mentioned each issue in the recap page, I'd forget he was even in the book. Leaping after a falling Ben is the most he's done so far and that's after five issues in an eight issue mini.

If we had some better hints or clues to these mysteries (is this new DD even blind??), then this story may carry more weight and enjoyment to it.

Ben calls Peter for help. Peter quietly refuses. Why??

Foggy has been more successful without Matt (Apparently even having some influence in Sam Wilson's Presidency). Yet he won't see Ben over his questions about Matt. This after not attending Matt's funeral. Again, why??

Bullet goes after Bushwhacker for some unknown (or forgotten) reason. Why didn't this new DD foresee this and stop this since he's the one that put Bushwhacker in the hospital in the first place?

Too many question, too little answers and still hardly any plot progression. Two-and-a-half stars and that's mainly due to the art which was decent.

[Mike Murdock]