Daredevil #12

I noticed with a bit of amusement that the Marvel NOW bar doesn’t appear on this issue’s cover, which I hope to be a permanent change. Marvel NOW was a campaign intended to shake up the status quo and infuse new life into the whole line, but Daredevil never needed that. It’s why of all Marvel NOW titles, it relaunched with the exact same creative team, cast of characters, and storytelling spirit it had before. Anything otherwise would have been counterproductive, not to mention a little insulting.

That’s not to say Waid’s Daredevil is all perfection, all the time. This issue is one of the series’ bumpier rides, which is an apt metaphor because it has Matt riding a motorcycle across a cable of the Golden Gate Bridge with his powers mostly neutralized, meaning effectively blind, deaf, and radar-less. It’s one of those situations that even within the superhero fantasy of a comic makes you go, What the what? Fortunately, Waid doesn’t test your doubts too long; a couple pages later, Matt jumps ship and saves George in one fell swoop, which makes you wonder why he bothered going along with Kid Stunt-Master’s little dare in the first place.

Once that challenge is over, our villain has no special powers or abilities to fall back on, and the plot may very well have fizzled out before the issue’s second act. This is especially true once Kid-Stuntmaster impatiently spills that he’s a mere flunky, and it remains true even when he rope-a-dopes his way out of Matt’s clutches to another road chase. Aside from a pin-up worthy image of Matt in full Daredevil glory, standing astride a sweet ride,* the sequence is a bit truncated and obligatory, a brief reprieve for a villain who’s only intended to be a distraction anyway.

[Spoiler alert!] A week later, I’m still not sure how I feel about the twist of George being the mastermind all along. Considering his page-time totaled a few pages at most, you’re not that affected by this turn, certainly not after Waid signals early on in the issue that not all is right with George. And then he reveals he did it all—ingested life-shortening toxins to fool Matt’s truth-telling, hired Kid Stunt-Master, financed the entire sham—on the chance that Daredevil, of all people, will fail to live up to a dare. Even superficially, it’s not the smartest plan to restore his rep. If he’s that willing to poison his life away, why not just take stuff that’ll enhance his physical abilities and senses and do an actual death-defying stunt?

But because Waid is the writer he is, he still manages to mine some real emotional tension from George’s betrayal, particularly when George scathingly replies to Matt’s demands for answers, “We weren’t friends, Murdock! We knew each other years ago! That’s all! What, you think being in some Daredevil inner sanctum is its own reward?”

His words produce a double-whammy of hurt for Matt, throwing the trust and compassion Matt had for the wash-up in his face and reminding him of past failures. “…Not in my experience,” Matt finally says after a brooding pause.

George’s storyline somewhat ungracefully retreats from there, but at least it provides an opportunity for Matt to take an important step forward in his love life by pulling out the big L-word itself on Kirsten. Looking back, you wish that if this was part of Waid’s endgame all along, Kirsten was given even more to do than she ultimately got.

It’s difficult to convey Fast and Furious-type speeds in comics, and even Samnee doesn’t quite succeed. Mateus Santolouco’s sharp lines, so sensitive to movement, might be able to pull it off, but Samnee’s clear and precise storytelling can only capture specific beats in Matt’s chase of Kid Stunt-Master. He’s much more effective playing out George’s delusions of grandeur and Matt’s sullen reaction to it, the only true emotional element to this particular plotline.

Some Musings:

* Bonus points to whoever can identify his vehicle of choice. I’m a car moron, so…

– I’m happy to see some fictional doctors competently putting things together for once and catching on to George early on.