Comic Review: Daredevil Volume 3

Chip Zdarksy, as far as I have read, has taken Matt Murdock and put him in a place where Matt Murdock isn’t sure what he wants or needs to do.  He’s looking to get away from being Daredevil because of an accidental death, but at the same time, he can readily understand that Hell’s Kitchen still needs him.

For the third volume, subtitled Through Hell, it certainly appears that Wilson Fisk may be in the same boat.

Matt Murdock is lost, and there may only be one person who can help him find his way:  his ex-girlfriend Elektra.  He wants to perhaps do better, particularly after saving Detective Cole North from a brutal attack by corrupt cops.  But he’s clearly unfocused and feeling lost.  Plenty of unqualified people are putting on their own Daredevil masks and are trying to fight crime on their own, often with poor results.  Even if Matt doesn’t want to be Daredevil, that doesn’t mean the neighborhood doesn’t see the need to still have him.  Considering Matt’s moral conscience, the fact he is having an affair with a married woman who happens to be the daughter-in-law of one of the city’s biggest crime lords, then I think it is safe to say that Matt, good Catholic that he is supposed to be, is clearly in a bad place right now to be doing such a thing, especially given the previous volume’s focus on rules and which rules different characters opt to follow.

But in an interesting turn of events, Wilson Fisk, former Kingpin of crime and current Mayor of New York, is looking to become a more legitimate businessman/politician, and he’s attempting to become part of a social group with a pair of incredibly wealthy siblings and their friends.  The moment seems to be there to show Fisk, despite his best efforts, is still basically a thuggish brute at heart, and his attempts to cover up some actions end up rebounding in the most humiliating way possible.  The impression it gave me is that Fisk, despite looking pathetic, is basically on the receiving end of how he usually treats his own underlings.  It gave me the impression that he will be looking to work his way back to something like his old position on a much larger world stage.

And then there’s Detective North.  Brought to New York from Chicago, his job is to bring in the city’s superheroes, and his latest target is Spider-Man, a brief moment that shows just how outclassed North is ever as Spidey isn’t even really trying that hard to evade capture.

The best Daredevil runs tend to take the Man Without Fear in a new and different direction, and I think Zdarksky has taken him somewhere new.  He’s not the MIller Daredevil finding his feet yanked out from under him by Fisk, Bullseye, and/or Elektra.  He’s not the Bendis Daredevil who had his identity outed and did what he could to deny it.  He’s certainly not the Kevin Smith Daredevil who had to deal with a personal tragedy from a long-missing love interest.  This is a Daredevil suffering a series of moral crises while his greatest enemy is going from what he thought was his highest heights to something far lower. I am really digging this run.

9.5 out of 10 successful mission sexual celebrations.