Daredevil Message Board

[Kuljit Mithra]

DAREDEVIL #6 by Soule, Buffagni and Milla ships April 27th and here's a preview.



http://www.manwithoutfear.com/gallery/Daredevil-V5-006

There are 4 covers for this issue.

Please use this thread for all discussion on the issue!
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Kuljit Mithra
www.manwithoutfear.com

[Dayle88]

Really liking that art. Sort of a David Aja Iron Fist tone to it, noir-ish with heavy lines.

[Dayle88]

Gave it a five for the action alone. Starting to get bits and pieces of what happened in those eight months too.

[Dimetre]

I think this is Charles Soule's best issue so far.

I love the cover. This is classic Bill Sienkiewicz.

Now that Matteo Buffagni has taken over on pencils, Matt Milla is mixing up the colours a bit more, and that gives this book a bit more vibrancy. While I liked Garney's present-day scratchiness, I prefer Buffagni's cleanliness. I've never heard of him before.

I guess the editorial team timed this to follow the release of the Netflix series second season. The court and bar scenes nicely illustrated Matt's attraction to Elektra as well as his need to flee from her.

I thought this was a very strong issue. The fight was great, and the characterizations were dead on.

I have three quibbles.

1. When were Matt and Elektra ever a couple when both of their costumes were red? I don't think that ever happened. My memory of Fall From Grace is spotty, so I don't know if Matt and Elektra were an item then, but he was in the armoured costume anyway. I can't remember a single time when Elektra physically embraced Matt when he was wearing the classic red costume.

2. I think we could have cut Blindspot out of this issue and not lost anything.

3. Buffagni needs to work on his drawings of shoes. They don't look combat-ready.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling some explanations may come forth in this arc. Will we find out how Matt hid his secret identity? Will we find out why he's dressed in black? Why Foggy is mad? I think we just might. But if we don't by the end of this arc, I'm going to be grumpy.

I gave this issue a four.

[Thayrone Ibsen]

[Mike Murdock]

I ended up a rabbit hole trying to determine if New York City arraignments are actually like the ones in Law and Order (apparently they are with bail determination actually being a primary purpose). I trust Soule for his accuracy and he got that one right. The hearing was just setup for Matt meeting Elektra again - with the big deal being that she doesn't know he's Daredevil, but she still has the personal connection with him.

The consequences of his actions are surprisingly big - something I hadn't thought about. Anyone who had a relationship with both Matt and Daredevil now think they were with two people at the same time. That's pretty extreme! This issue does a good job exploring the new status quo, at least in the sense of how it affected the old status quo. It's mixed in with some pretty brutal fights. I thought the art was an improvement as well (although I just got used to the previous way Matt was drawn so now this one looks weird).

Overall, I enjoyed this issue. I still want a greater focus on the personal side of things, but this is still intriguing. The fact that Blindspot was at a minimum helped - this needs to be a Matt and Elektra story. I'll give it Four and a Half Stars. I'm not sure if it's entirely accurate, but I wanted to signal an improvement rather than four every week. In retrospect, I'd consider downvoting issue three a bit, but I liked this one a bunch.

Oh, and the surprise at the end was intriguing. It doesn't give me pleasant thoughts since we're reading End of Days right now, but I want to see where it goes.
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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]

The weird thing is that the only reason Elektra allowed Matt to get to know her is because of his abilities. Now that this mysterious change has happened, does that mean that Elektra is unaware of Matt's abilities? I think it's those abilities she found so attractive, but I guess she got to know him beyond his abilities eventually, so if there is any lingering attraction on her part, I guess it wouldn't be dependant on his powers and acrobatics.

[Mike Murdock]

I think she's clearly aware of his abilities. She said Matt relatively quietly knowing he would hear her. What she's unaware is he's a secret ninja vigilante. Obviously, she figured out last time quickly, but maybe whatever magic caused the change has confused her situation (the difference before was she is now well-aware of Daredevil and has interacted with him often without knowing his secret).
_________________
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

[Dayle88]

I remember when Spider-Man Big Time Effed-Up whenever he told someone his secrets they're mind effectively unlocked and everything instantly made sense again regardless of what interactions they'd had with Peter and Spidey.

Bendis was once asked on Tumblr about Pete, MJ and Aunt May living in Avengers Tower. Supposedly they would remember living there but not really know how Peter managed to get them a place there or why.

Probably something similar happening here. It is either you know and have it clear in your mind or you don't because there's only one actual past that is now messed up. Doesn't leave a lot of room for manoeuvre when having people with a lot of history interacting with the person who hid their identity.

[Francesco]

The issue was a good one, but the "made everyone except Foggy forget" clearly has glitches. When Matt first met Elektra, during Miller's run, he was already showing off his physical prowess and his abilities, jumping around in a makeshift costume (the one with the bandanna) and then attempting to save her and her dad when they were taken hostages, so it was clear to her that he was no ordinary blind man. Basically if she forgets Matt is DD she basically forgets Matt exists altogether.
Elektra is a master assassin, so she MUST have the necessary brains to make the connection.
It makes little sense that she knows Matt, she knows DD and she knows that Matt and DD are connected without immediately be aware that Matt is DD.

[Francesco]

A similar thing was pointed out in one of the spider-man issues that came shortly after One More Day, when Spider-man traded with Mephisto for a massive retcon including his identity being a secret to everyone again.

In that issue, Daredevil and Spider-man take out a mob of minor supervillains. After they take out the last one, Spidey does a couple of his usualy quips, but DD is somewhat angry and mistrustful. He says that he has memories of both of them teaming up countless time and having a long past history together, and he has superhumanly sharp senses, and so it makes no sense that he doesn't know or remember who he is.
The same thing or a similar one should go for Elektra now regarding DD's identity.

[Darkdevil]

The art greatly enhanced the brutal fight scenes throughout this issue, that was worth the price of admission alone.

My major qualms with this issue lay with the new clues given about how Matt solved his secret identity problem. It's looking more and more like he resorted to some form of magic fix judging by the altered memories on display here.

But I find the nature of those altered memories disturbing. So Elektra now believes that she had a fling with both Matt and DD. The same apparently goes for every other woman Matt was ever involved with; Natasha, Milla, Karen, etc. Yet Matt seems to be taking some form of perverse pleasure in this split notion as he's pleased to see Elektra as Matt and quite surprised when she wants to meet DD (and agrees with something akin to a smile).

I've never bought into Bendis' theory of Matt as a horndog player but this would seem to bolster it somewhat. Matt has had a deep emotional bond with all these women and now they all suffer from the same memory delusion. I would think Matt would feel something stronger than some form of glee over this deception but here, his main fear is over the possibility of Elektra somehow discovering his perfidy. I just find this situation strange.

And if any of you have been following Jason Aaron's superb work on Doctor Strange these days, magic now comes with a high price. If Matt did indeed use magic to fix this problem (from whom or what), then what price did he pay for this fix?

Is it just me or over these last two issues, has Matt started resembling Charlie Cox a little more?

I would give this four-and-half stars, for the brutal action, the great cliffhanger ending and it raises far more questions than it answers over the depths Matt resorted to fixing his secret identity.

[hellomatthew]

Hey guys, so at the end Elektra reveals that she has a daughter and apparently the girl is missing. In Bendis' "End of Days" Elektra and Matt had a son. I do not know if I missed something but I'm a little confused about if there's a connection between those stories or this is part of Elektra's altered memories...

[DesignDevil]

Probably Soule's best issue so far. Wonderful art and pacing.

This issue does bring up a lot of new questions.
Previously Matt and Elektra did not have a romantic relationship during his Daredevil "career", only during their first year of college. So is this simply altered memories? But Matt remembers it too. Is this Soule not being familiar with DD's history and a mistake? Or is this a clue that we have a new altered history post Secret Wars?

Does Elektra really have a child or does she only think she does?
The implications of the memory alteration and the thought that all of Matt's loves now believe that they were cheaters needs to be explored. When Matt did whatever he did, was he aware that this "side effect" would happen?

I get that past memories have been altered, but I have trouble believing that now in the present Elektra wouldn't immediately recognize Daredevil as Matt. Unless perhaps whatever sorcery is in play is ongoing and doesn't allow people to make the realization.

[Dayle88]

I don't think anyone thinks it's official. The nature of mainstream comics is that they don't end, the people making them know that better than anyone.

It was the end of their little world if nothing happened after the end of Brubaker's run. That's how I always took it.

I don't think there is going to be a child and if there is Matt knows nothing about it. He's the only one who does remember everything.