Daredevil #2
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Lee Garbett
Colorist: Frank Martin
Matt Murdock’s new life is already under fire.
Thanks to his super-senses, he’s built his world on sound, smell, and instinct. But what happens when he can’t trust those senses? For Daredevil, doubt isn’t just dangerous… it’s blinding.
One of the downsides to his super-senses that no one thinks about is, once you’re used to ‘’seeing” the world a certain way and having access to so much information, what happens when you can’t trust what those very same senses are telling you?
Previously in Daredevil:
Much has changed for Matt Murdock. He’s a law professor, the bar of choice isn’t Josie’s, and the friend he shares a beer with isn’t Foggy Nelson. One thing that hasn’t changed is him suiting up as Daredevil to protect the residents of Hell’s Kitchen. Returning home, he’s confronted by a mysterious figure who confuses DD’s senses, and delivers the message “Matthew Murdock will die” before throwing him out a window…
Pop Quiz
Daredevil is on the warpath! On the hunt for the new player who threw him out a window, DD pays a visit to the Owl to find out what he knows. Apparently the crime boss thought the mystery figure was a "good guy" because word was that he'd been going after a drug dealer called Skim.
What DD doesn't know is that Skim, minus his eyes, is lying on a slab in the morgue. The dealer is part of a case that Detective Forte is investigating regarding multiple corpses missing their eyes. The trail takes him to a ship on the docks where he finds a container full of eyes, and a ton of research into one Matthew Murdock.
Still off-balance by the encounter with the mystery figure, Matt is having trouble trusting his own senses. Trying to find a sign of his attacker, he opens his senses up too far, leaving him overwhelmed. Fortunately, an old friend swings by to help...
We Don’t Need Eyes Where We’re Going
Two issues in, this Daredevil run is off to a strong start.
Often when a new creative team relaunches a book with a new status quo and supporting cast, they ignore the old favorites until they're basically forced to bring them back into the mix. Thankfully, that isn't the case here. Even though it's only one page, we get an appearance from Foggy Nelson where we learn that he's down in Miami and apparently getting some action. Good for you, Foggy.
Speaking of the new status quo, I do wish that we had gotten more than one scene of Matt teaching his class before he's making excuses and ducking out to do Daredevil things. I get that we only get 20 pages each month and that action is king, but that doesn't mean we have to speedrun past the interesting things.
On the subject of action, we hit the ground running with some, as DD pays a visit to old enemy the Owl. It's not a very long fight, and it never seemed like he was in any real danger (despite having been tossed out a window just hours earlier), but it gives us some insight into Matt's headspace. He's feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the "new" in his life right now, so punching a bunch of mooks in the face is familiar and cathartic. I may not dress in red and jump off rooftops (I actually prefer blue), but I can still relate to where he's coming from.
In our B-plot, we've got the young-but-talented Detective Dominic Forte, who is doing his best to not throw up in the morgue. I think we can all relate to that. His eyeless body from the subway turns out to be similar to multiple others, many of which are under Federal jurisdiction. That should be the end of it, but he can't stop pulling at the thread. Don't go rogue, kid, it never turns out well. At least he's not a week from retirement, that's even worse...
Our A-and-B-plots start to converge as DD gets the name of a dealer, Skim, that had supposedly been scuffling with our mystery figure. It turns out that same dealer is one of Detective Forte's eyeless bodies in the morgue. So clearly the two things are connected, even though our heroes don't know it yet.
As the two plots start to pull closer together, we get a very strong sequence of split-screen style panels, juxtaposing the two investigations against each other. As Matt opens his senses wide to search for signs of his attacker and quickly finds himself overwhelmed, Forte locates the missing eyes, and evidence tying his case to Mr. Murdock.
A little bit of a mystery plot is a nice change of pace for Daredevil, even if it's a pretty obvious one. Just because you can tell where things are going doesn't mean you know how it'll turn out when you get there. Detective Forte has been a solid addition to the supporting cast so far. He's young and he knows that affects how other cops look at him, but he's also very good at his job so he doesn't really care what they think. He's a lot like Matt, actually. It will be fun to see them butt heads when they meet.
As for Matt himself, he's in classic form here. For someone whose senses give him a leg up on almost everyone he goes up against, getting his butt handed to him like he did has completely thrown him off his game. That's when he starts taking foolish risks, instead of the carefully calculated ones that demonstrate his moniker of "the Man Without Fear."
As a long-time fan of both characters, I'm excited about the old friend that "swings by" at the end of the issue, even if I'm wary of such an appearance so early in the run. It just feels like it's an attempt to boost sales. The two characters work so well together, though, that I'm willing to overlook my cynicism and just enjoy the inevitable team-up.
Patrol Officer
The creative team-up between Stephanie Phillips and Lee Garbett was planned from the initial pitch, and it shows. The writing and art are working in tandem in a way that many books take time to achieve.
Stephanie Phillips' writing shows a strong understanding of Matt Murdock and what makes him tick, choosing to focus more on his "control freak" tendencies and what happens when he loses that control. Sometimes he's not the most likeable character, but he's always compelling. The similarities between him and Detective Forte help to make the latter an interesting character in his own right, instead of "that guy who is taking panel time away from the guy whose name is on the cover."
So far she's kept the book fast-paced, but not overwhelmingly so. Everything that has happened to DD so far has been over the course of just a couple days, and by keeping the pacing brisk she allows us to feel what Matt must be feeling as each new obstacle hits. Even though things never really slow down, individual moments are still given time to breathe. As a result, we experience the rapid sequence of events just like Daredevil, but without being as overwhelmed.
As comics are a visual medium, it wouldn't matter how fast or slow the events were if there wasn't a skilled hand illustrating them. Fortunately, we have just that in the form of Lee Garbett. His work manages to convey both sides of Daredevil: the colorful, larger-than-life superhero side, and the darker, grittier side. The eyeless decomposing corpses in the morgue are sufficiently creepy looking, while still maintaining the "general audiences" feel that a high-profile book like this needs. His take on Daredevil and his powers is one of the best we've seen in some time, giving us almost a mixture of Marco Chechetto and Chris Samnee in how he approaches the visuals.
The best art can still be felled by lesser colors, but thankfully that is not the case here. Frank Martin’s use of light and shadow perfectly adds to the atmosphere of a given scene. The darkness of Forte's scenes on the docks, lit only by flashlights, call to mind old episodes of The X-Files, which is not a bad comparison at all if you're going for a creepy, uncomfortable atmosphere. When the artwork is jumping back and forth between Matt on the streets being overwhelmed by his senses, and Forte in the container finding clues in the darkness, the colors really highlight the two different worlds the characters find themselves in, even though both are leading to the same place.
Midterm Exams
Daredevil #2 tells a compelling story where some of Matt Murdock's worst tendencies get the better of him, while Detective Forte's investigation promises to collide with the hunt for DD's mystery assailant in the worst possible way, at the worst possible time. I wish a little more time had been spent showing us Matt's new life before he started blowing it up like only he can do, but it wouldn't be a Daredevil story if we didn't want to smack him in the head as much as cheer for him. I'm looking forward to seeing just how deeply the detective's investigation ties in with DD's own, and just how much worse things can get for ol' Hornhead. Based on past experience, my guess is "a lot more."