By: Mark Waid (story), Chris Samnee (art), Javier Rodriguez (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)
The Story: Coyote’s grotesque criminal enterprise is revealed as Daredevil tries to get himself together.
The Review: For me, a huge part of what’s made Mark Waid’s Daredevil such a revelation has been his expansion of what constitutes the “Daredevil story.” With each arc, Waid tries to extend Murdock into a slightly different genre while still maintaining the core “Daredevil” essence. This arc has certainly been among the most successful of these experiments thus far, giving us a very effective horror comic with a pulpy vibe that provides that particular brand of fun only to be had in comics.
This success is clearly on display in this issue and it’s largely thanks to new villain Coyote. Waid paints a truly horrific, amoral past for this villain, one that’s surprisingly unflinching and “real world” than you might expect from a Mark Waid superhero comic, with the Coyote being heavily involved in something as ghastly as human trafficking. There’s something unsettling about this mix of goofy comic book supervillain and real world horror that works quite well – the dissonance between the two actually makes this more effective as an off-kilter read, as it sort of throws the reader off, which is something that can work quite well in a horror story. The best horror fiction, after all, is that which disturbs the reader.
And speaking of disturbing the reader, Waid and Samnee come together to give us some seriously disturbing visuals that are also as twisted as they are creative. There’s a scene where Coyote feeds his “prisoners” that is probably the most unsettling, chilling scene I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a Marvel comic in quite some time. I dare you to read that scene and not get the hibby-jibbies. The nature of Coyote’s power source, a machine that has a certain villain strung up, abusing and drawing energy from his powers, was also wonderfully ghastly to behold.
If there’s one slight downside to this comic, it’s that I’m not really clear on the mechanics of the collar that the Coyote places on his victims. I can’t really go too much into it without spoiling a big chunk of the book, but I’m not one-hundred percent certain that I understand how exactly that collar allows the Coyote to exercise such control over his victims or allow them such physical capability. Regular people aren’t Matt Murdock, after all, who can be expected to have excellent control over his body, detached from its head though it may be.
Despite all the horrifying images and real world tragedy, there’s also that signature Waid swashbuckling, goofy “comic bookiness” in this issue as well. Seeing a headless Daredevil stumble about, smashing giant machines that would look at home in the lab of Dr. Frankenstein is a real treat. Scenes like this, as well as Coyote’s appearance in its own right, lend the book a kind of retro, monster-movie/”chiller” feel that is delightfully campy.
Honestly, every positive I’ve listed is thanks to the combined efforts of Waid AND Samnee, both of whom are in lock-step here. Waid’s imaginative ideas for Coyote’s criminal enterprise or his twisted scene involving the prisoner’s being fed, or the nature of Coyote’s machine only come off as well as they do thanks to Samnee’s art, after all. His heavy inks and characterful work is perfect here and I’m hard-pressed to think of a stronger Samnee-illustrated issue of DD than this one.
Conclusion: Creepy fun that continues to expand Daredevil’s horizons with strong, distinctive artwork, Daredevil continues to be a showcase for Waid’s unbridled creativity.
Grade: A-
– Alex Evans