Daredevil #6
“Of Moles & Owls” Part 1
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Flaviano
Colorist: Rico Renzi
Cover Artist: Lee Garbett
Publisher: Marvel Comics
It’s wild how much a change in art can impact your enjoyment of a book…
Let’s talk about Daredevil #6 so I can explain what I mean.
Man Without a Watch
Matt Murdock is finding that being a law professor by day and the costumed vigilante Daredevil by night is harder than it looks. Especially the part about getting to his office hours on time. Oh, and getting students’ papers graded and posted within the two-week window.
Fortunately, beating up crime bosses like the Owl is much easier. Except this time, the Owl is calling in a marker from the time he helped Daredevil out against Omen. Seems that a mole from the Kingpin’s old organization has a book that contains something that Fisk wanted kept secret. And now every criminal in New York wants it…
Man Without a Calendar
This was a tough one. I enjoyed the story presented here, and it was nice to get some actual focus on Matt’s new job for a bit. But the art… I’ll get into it more in a few minutes, but let’s just say I’m not a fan.
I feel like Stephanie Phillips has a good grasp on Matt Murdock’s character overall, and I’ve seen enough of her social media to know just how enthusiastic she is about this run. There are moments, though, where I wonder if she’s adjusting his character to suit her story, rather than the other way around.
The Daredevil parts are solid, and that’s where this issue really shines. His interactions with the Owl, the way he approaches the race to get to the mole before someone else does… It’s all pretty much textbook Daredevil. It’s the Matt Murdock parts that I have a tougher time with.
I know that he hasn’t been a law professor for long, but he has led a double life since he was young. So I just don’t feel like his struggles to balance the two lives feel true here. When he was a lawyer, you wouldn’t see him rushing into court late—after that happened even once, his reputation would be shot. So when we’re told here that him being late to his office hours is a common occurrence, I’m not buying it. When you add to it that he’s apparently taking the maximum time allowed to post his students’ grades, that’s even worse.
Matt Murdock is stubborn and self-destructive, plus loaded with Catholic guilt. So I just can’t buy that he keeps letting these things happen (or not happen)—he would push himself until he was ready to keel over before he’d let something be unfinished for that long. It just feels like drama for the sake of drama to me.
Plus it gives him an excuse to interact with Doctor Ellison, who is a pretty obvious “love interest in waiting.” So when he asks her out so she can “help him with his lesson plan,” I understand why the script had him having so many issues with the job. And then we find out that he forgot about dinner with Foggy Nelson and double-booked himself—another thing I don’t really recall Matt Murdock doing. But, of course, that means that his best friend is conveniently there to make excuses for him when he has to run off as Daredevil.
It’s just too much story before character for me.
Fortunately, the Daredevil parts are much better. And the appearance of Elektra at the end (it’s not really a spoiler, considering she’s in the solicitations and on the cover of the next issue) is very welcome. There’s a lot of unfinished business there that I’m excited to see how it plays out, and how inconvenient her appearance now will be for Matt’s romantic prospects.
Man Without A Spine
As I’ve already said above, Stephanie Phillips seems to have a strong understanding of Matt Murdock overall, and she certainly has a clear plan for where she wants this run to go. I just wish her execution was more true to Matt’s character and wasn’t making changes to him to serve her story. As for the plot, the “Kingpin had a secret that everyone wants now” beat has been done before, as has “Daredevil beat up a bunch of hoods dressed as cops, so now he’s going to have issues with the NYPD.” The real test will be where she takes these stories and if they’re important to the overall plot, or just devices to fill page space.
Now the art… I’m sorry, Flaviano, but I’m not a fan. In fact, the art actually dropped my enjoyment of the issue overall by a notch or two. The out-of-costume scenes aren’t bad, although Matt’s face is really awkward. The costumed portions are where things get rough. Everyone’s proportions are so exaggerated that it all looks like an overly stylized cartoon. If you’ve seen newer Nickelodeon fare like Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it reminds me of that. His sense of motion is decent, but the posing is crazy. There’s one panel where Daredevil is supposed to be leaning over, breathing heavily after a huge fight, and he looks like an overly angular hunchback instead.
Rico Renzi handles the colors for this issue, and they’re decent overall. Everything has a darker look overall, with plenty of shadows on everything. There are some action panels where the city of New York has a purple tone from all the lights, and one cool page with a green map in the background showing the fight across town. But then other pages just have solid-colored backgrounds over the awkward art, and the whole thing just doesn’t land.
Man Without A Break
Daredevil #6 is a noticeable step down after the previous story arc, with Matt Murdock acting out of character to serve the story and some truly awkward art. The underlying story is solid, even if it’s a plot device we’ve seen before, and the return of Elektra promises that things in our hero’s life are just going to get more interesting.