Thoughts on reading today's Daredevil (Spoilers ahoy!)

[dragonbat2006]

So, today's Daredevil left Matt between a rock and a hard place and I'm thinking about the way it ended.



So. Quick recap. Matt had assumed that Owlsley was forcing the Shroud to work for him by promising to find the Shroud's missing love, Julia in exchange for his services. Last issue, we found out that the Shroud was controlling Owlsley and using his [Owlsley's] recently-gained ability to use his mind to spy out of any electronic screen in order to search for Julia. This issue, we found out that he was also spying on Matt and getting enough info to completely wreck Matt's new life. In short order, he broadcasts that

• Foggy is alive and they faked his death
• A painful secret that Kirsten revealed to Matt in confidence
• All of the secrets that Matt was keeping under attorney-client privilege (apparently, Matt was using a recording device to take notes and didn't care that said device-which might have been his smart phone-had a screen)
• That his newest ally, Jubula, Owlsley's daughter, actually supplied the tech that allowed kidnappers to nab the police chief's daughter, back in issue #1. End result: Police chief now thinks Matt engineered the kidnapping so he could rescue the girl and be lauded as a hero right from the start.

Heavy stuff. Serious stuff. The cops are after him, his loved ones are in danger, his clients are probably going to sue him, and he might get disbarred in California. (I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that violating attorney-client privilege would be grounds for disbarment. Whether they'd take into consideration that he hadn't intended to share it probably hinges on whether they think Matt did enough due diligence. And I don't know the answer to that one.)

Jubula tells Matt that there is one person who can help him. Matt tells Foggy and Kirsten that he's just going to hear what the guy has to say and that he can always walk away, but he knows that's a lie. Because the man who can supposedly help him is Wilson Fisk.

Okay. Here are my thoughts. Leaving aside whether Waid was urged to include Kingpin because of the TV series (I have no idea on this. Wayyyyyyyyyy back when Waid took over the book, he'd said that he didn't want to use Kingpin but it's been over 4 years. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe TPTB@Marvel said "hey, if a new reader picks up DD for the first time after watching the Netflix show, maybe it would be good if they saw a villain they recognized. I don't know. It's not important), what do we know about Kingpin? Relevant points (comics canon):

• He's a careful planner, not given to rash/hasty decisions.
• He's controlling. The reason he stayed free for so long was because he had key people in law enforcement, politics, the judicial system, you name it. He'd much rather have people under his thumb than under the ground.
• All the way back in the first part of Born Again, it was pretty explicitly stated that Kingpin enjoyed making Murdock squirm. He didn't want to kill him; he wanted to break him
• He's patient. This sounds like a repetition of my first point, but it's going one better. Kingpin sat on Matt's secret identity for six months, setting thing up, waiting for the right opportunities, not showing his hand until the right time. Coming up with a plan is one thing. Waiting months to put it in play and to set things up behind the scenes, subtly, so slowly that the victim doesn't have a clue there's a trap until it snaps shut? That's more than planning. That's playing a very long game.

So. Here's my theory: Kingpin knows where Julia is. He may not have known from the start, but he found her before anyone else did and he's likely got her in some shielded, screen-free location. He's playing the others: Owlsley, Shroud, Jubula, and, of course, Matt. When the dust settles, he'll have

• the man who tried to take over the underworld in his absence (Owlsley) as an enslaved spy, basically.
• He'll have Owlsley's daughter as an enforcer/techie, her father held hostage for her loyalty.


• He'll have two vigilantes taking out anyone opposed to his reign: the Shroud, because so long as he doesn't know Kingpin has Julia, he will work for Kingpin in hopes that the crimelord will locate her. (Given Shroud's power, I'm not convinced that Kingpin would tip his hand and try to hold Julia hostage for Shroud's good behavior. I think Shroud would just engulf him in his cloak of darkness until Kingpin coughed up her location).
• He'll have Matt under his thumb, right where he wants him, caught up in misery and self-loathing, working under Kingpin to protect his loved ones.

...At least, that's his plan. I fully trust that Matt will figure some other way out of this, but my suspicion after reading this issue is that Kingpin was involved in this scenario long before Matt pays him a visit at the end of this issue.

Guess we'll see if I've gotten any better at predicting outcomes. Normally, I'm way off base. But maybe not this time...

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