more Daredevil comics
Today I read Daredevil: Born Again (aka issues 227-233), by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli (et al), and. Um. That... went in directions I was not expecting.
I maybe should have been expecting them, because Frank Miller, but even though I knew he gets really weird about the military and patriotism and governmental authority and stuff, I did not think those things would be in any way relevant to a story about a man whose life gets ruined by a vindictive crime boss.
Apparently I should never underestimate the strength of Miller's obsessions!
...
Anyway, reading 80s comics is a trip. First, I'd forgotten just how wordy they can get, using thought bubbles or narrative voiceover boxes (whether in third-person omniscient or first-person limited) right and left instead of letting the artwork tell the story. You end up getting more story per page count, but at the same time everything feels a little, I dunno... slower, maybe? A little more like reading an illustrated book. Second, the colors are super unrealistic, which I think is because of limitations in printing technology at the time. Third, there are an awful lot of background-what-background panels, with just blank white or a solid color fill behind whatever image (face, hand, gun, etc.) is being spotlighted for a moment. Sometimes, for variation, there's a pattern of ~dramatic lines~ but Mazzucchelli doesn't go for that option much.
Okay, details and stuff:
I am still ten kinds of WTF about the whole "drugged-up knock-off super-soldier rampages through Manhattan" thing. Was that ever picked up and used by actual Captain America writers, or is it just a weird blip that's been ignored and/or retconned away?
I'm not hugely bothered by the treatment of women in this story, which is mostly because I went in with basement-low expectations on account of A) the 80s and B) Frank Miller. I'm not thrilled at Miller's choice to dump Karen's life down the toilet with only the barest explanation, but given that terrible starting position, everything she does thereafter is fairly logical -- and she does act, repeatedly, instead of sitting around and bemoaning her fate. (Well, at least until her reunion with Matt. After that she's passive.) The Sister Maggie thing, which IIRC was a sudden and dramatic retcon, is... well, clunky is the kindest term, but it's not any more clunky than most of the Kingpin-centric scenes. Glori gets to actually do a little plot-relevant stuff, which is nice, though I wish Miller had bothered to give ANY on-page reason for why she takes up with Foggy -- or why he takes up with her, for that matter. (Speaking of Foggy, I am weirded out by his complete failure to recognize Matt after literally running into him. It's soap-opera levels of ridiculous... but then again, so is the whole storyline, so eh, whatever.)
You can tell that comics were still very much a serialized medium at the time, with collections a rare and unusual beast, because every issue takes a moment to explain Matt's whole "blinded by radioactive waste as a kid, developed super-senses to compensate, now fights crime" shtick. Given that insistent reiteration, it's weird how little attention Miller and Mazzucchelli pay to Matt's actual blindness. The few times we see his eyes, they look perfectly normal and seem to focus on whoever he's facing. He does 'read' by touch rather than sight, and Glori sends him a break-up cassette tape instead of a break-up letter, but he ditches his cane after issue 227 (and is only seen using it for a few panels, anyway), and loses his glasses after issue 228; thereafter he apparently passes for sighted with no difficulty whatsoever. There's much more focus on his enhanced remaining senses, though there's never any attempt to illustrate the way he perceives the world.
I think the story would read better in context than in isolation. It would be helpful to know exactly what went wrong with Nelson & Murdock that leaves Matt unemployed at the start of issue 227, and also to see some of his prior run-ins with Fisk. It would also be nice to see what happens afterwards, because so far as I can tell, Matt and Karen end the story homeless and unemployed. I mean, they're together and happy, she's kicked her heroin addiction, and I guess they used some of the money Matt appropriated from Fisk to buy new clothes, but I think he intended to give (and did give) most of the cash to the diner owners. So their future is a big question mark.
Also, and this is really quite random, I am shocked that Ben Urich pistol-whipping a man to death is not more widely talked about! Especially given his creepy smile while doing so. I mean, he goes into shock afterwards and he'd been under a hell of a lot of stress for weeks by that point -- not to mention the guy was actively trying to kill Ben on Fisk's orders -- but even so.
...I should go make a prompt about that on the kinkmeme.
---------------
I also read a Bendis/Maleev collection -- issues 46-50 -- and I am not going to make any attempt at a detailed review because it literally does not make sense without context that I don't have. Okay, yeah, the basic A-then-B-then-C-then-D chain of events level is clear enough, but the meaning and emotional weight behind any of the events is just flat not there. And that is all I can really say at this point.
I think I may have to get a Marvel Unlimited subscription for a month or two, just to figure out what on earth is going on there.
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comments)
I maybe should have been expecting them, because Frank Miller, but even though I knew he gets really weird about the military and patriotism and governmental authority and stuff, I did not think those things would be in any way relevant to a story about a man whose life gets ruined by a vindictive crime boss.
Apparently I should never underestimate the strength of Miller's obsessions!
...
Anyway, reading 80s comics is a trip. First, I'd forgotten just how wordy they can get, using thought bubbles or narrative voiceover boxes (whether in third-person omniscient or first-person limited) right and left instead of letting the artwork tell the story. You end up getting more story per page count, but at the same time everything feels a little, I dunno... slower, maybe? A little more like reading an illustrated book. Second, the colors are super unrealistic, which I think is because of limitations in printing technology at the time. Third, there are an awful lot of background-what-background panels, with just blank white or a solid color fill behind whatever image (face, hand, gun, etc.) is being spotlighted for a moment. Sometimes, for variation, there's a pattern of ~dramatic lines~ but Mazzucchelli doesn't go for that option much.
Okay, details and stuff:
I am still ten kinds of WTF about the whole "drugged-up knock-off super-soldier rampages through Manhattan" thing. Was that ever picked up and used by actual Captain America writers, or is it just a weird blip that's been ignored and/or retconned away?
I'm not hugely bothered by the treatment of women in this story, which is mostly because I went in with basement-low expectations on account of A) the 80s and B) Frank Miller. I'm not thrilled at Miller's choice to dump Karen's life down the toilet with only the barest explanation, but given that terrible starting position, everything she does thereafter is fairly logical -- and she does act, repeatedly, instead of sitting around and bemoaning her fate. (Well, at least until her reunion with Matt. After that she's passive.) The Sister Maggie thing, which IIRC was a sudden and dramatic retcon, is... well, clunky is the kindest term, but it's not any more clunky than most of the Kingpin-centric scenes. Glori gets to actually do a little plot-relevant stuff, which is nice, though I wish Miller had bothered to give ANY on-page reason for why she takes up with Foggy -- or why he takes up with her, for that matter. (Speaking of Foggy, I am weirded out by his complete failure to recognize Matt after literally running into him. It's soap-opera levels of ridiculous... but then again, so is the whole storyline, so eh, whatever.)
You can tell that comics were still very much a serialized medium at the time, with collections a rare and unusual beast, because every issue takes a moment to explain Matt's whole "blinded by radioactive waste as a kid, developed super-senses to compensate, now fights crime" shtick. Given that insistent reiteration, it's weird how little attention Miller and Mazzucchelli pay to Matt's actual blindness. The few times we see his eyes, they look perfectly normal and seem to focus on whoever he's facing. He does 'read' by touch rather than sight, and Glori sends him a break-up cassette tape instead of a break-up letter, but he ditches his cane after issue 227 (and is only seen using it for a few panels, anyway), and loses his glasses after issue 228; thereafter he apparently passes for sighted with no difficulty whatsoever. There's much more focus on his enhanced remaining senses, though there's never any attempt to illustrate the way he perceives the world.
I think the story would read better in context than in isolation. It would be helpful to know exactly what went wrong with Nelson & Murdock that leaves Matt unemployed at the start of issue 227, and also to see some of his prior run-ins with Fisk. It would also be nice to see what happens afterwards, because so far as I can tell, Matt and Karen end the story homeless and unemployed. I mean, they're together and happy, she's kicked her heroin addiction, and I guess they used some of the money Matt appropriated from Fisk to buy new clothes, but I think he intended to give (and did give) most of the cash to the diner owners. So their future is a big question mark.
Also, and this is really quite random, I am shocked that Ben Urich pistol-whipping a man to death is not more widely talked about! Especially given his creepy smile while doing so. I mean, he goes into shock afterwards and he'd been under a hell of a lot of stress for weeks by that point -- not to mention the guy was actively trying to kill Ben on Fisk's orders -- but even so.
...I should go make a prompt about that on the kinkmeme.
---------------
I also read a Bendis/Maleev collection -- issues 46-50 -- and I am not going to make any attempt at a detailed review because it literally does not make sense without context that I don't have. Okay, yeah, the basic A-then-B-then-C-then-D chain of events level is clear enough, but the meaning and emotional weight behind any of the events is just flat not there. And that is all I can really say at this point.
I think I may have to get a Marvel Unlimited subscription for a month or two, just to figure out what on earth is going on there.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)