Daredevil Message Board

[Thayrone Ibsen]

I’d like to know you guys’ opinion about these issues, written by J.M.DeMatteis in the 90’s, near the end of volume I. Since now I apologize if there already was a thread about this, I’m fairly new in this board. I bring this story up due to two things: one, to look back at stories away from Waid’s tiresome and weak Silver Age rip-offs since #28 at v.III and two, people always go to the usual writers and arcs of DD, but I think we should give some credit and chance to other writers’ efforts.

I know these issues are part of the 90’s need of shock to mantain readers and etc., but I think the dark themes (some nearly extreme) worked out really well in this story. Of course, Matt is in a very bad place, one of the worst ever, but it isn’t so badly written as things like Shadowland or barely good written like Reborn. I see good psychological aspects treated in these issues. The foe is very good, and it manages to make the classic dynamics of “story/enemy mirrors hero’s problem/situation� work in a very good way. Also, we get to see so many aspects of the differences between the “Daredevils� through analogy with the costumes and there’s even some good connections between the various ways of thinking and acting through Matt’s life as a hero/vigilante (how he balances the scales between these two kinds of person and another thing, how he even adopted the yellow-red costume as a way of being a lighter protector after his brutal beginnings in Man Without Fear). I really like these issues and just finished re-reading them. Do you guys like, even a little bit of them?

[Nightwing2001]

It's been years since I've read them but I remember enjoying them a lot at the time. Part of it may have been that I had suffered through the Chistester run for way too long (which most of it I had not liked much) and was looking for anybody to come along to bring back the red costume and get rid of the Jack Batlin identity. But I also enjoyed how DeMatteis showed the 3 different versions of his personality through the 3 different costumes. While at this point in DD's history it's become cliche for a writer to do a "Matt's having a mental breakdown" story and I'm not really interested in seeing any more, his take of it was enjoyable to read I think.

[james castle]

I've never returned to it but I recall really disliking it at the time. I really liked Chistester's run and was a bit bitter that it got cut short. This was pre-internet(ish) and I didn't read comic magazines much so I didn't know what was going on. In my view Chistester was doing cool stuff and then his name was removed from the book and then we got this weird Born Again rip off stuff.

Plus, the mental break down was a little too extreme for my liking. If one really starts living in multiple personalities that's pretty severe stuff. And I hated the whole Sir twist. Thing.

It's funny because I always just assumed that J.M.DeMatteis was some random hack but have since learned that he's a pretty celebrated guy. Maybe it's worth taking a look back at it.
_________________
JC

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

[Dimetre]

I enjoyed that arc, and have reread it a number of times, but not in years.

I disliked Chichester's run (I find most of it unreadable), and it's obvious to me that DeMatteis was brought in to do a clean-up job. Most of DeMatteis' work, whether he's writing Batman, Spider-Man or Daredevil, shows psychological insight, so I was able to follow Matt's breakdown. I found Sir to be legitimately threatening.

There's an interview with DeMatteis on this website. It's too bad Marvel cut his run short.

[Mike Murdock]

I disliked Chichester's run, but I've never read these stories (before clicking on the link, I thought this was about the X-Men Crossover than Nocenti did). The whole thing did have an agenda of ending a storyline and nothing else, which can be a bit problematic, but the execution matters.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

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Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[train]

I'm with James Castle on this one. I haven't reread these issues since I picked them up at my local comics shop. I too, found Sir to be among the worst foes that DD has faced (along with Surgeon General and Angar the Screamer). The whole mid ninties run of DD seemed like a rudderless ship. At that point in Marvel history, if it wasn't a mutant title, it was second tier stuff.