SimonpaddyPicks DAREDEVIL by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
This run holds a very dear place in my heart as it was (along with Brubaker’s CAPTAIN AMERICA) one of the series instrumental in bringing me back into comics in any kind of serious way. Over the course of a year I picked up most of the run in TPBs and was blown away. This was my first time reading a comic where the status quo was able to be radically shifted in any sort of permanent way with a big/proper character.
The run takes primary focus on Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin both of whom I’m familiar, with Ben Urich acting as the main narrator for all the key moments. The run works well, looking back particularly, by making bold changes to the core of the characters, that a casual reader like myself would be familiar with. There’s a lot more being explored too, but by making these clear changes so early it’s easy for newcomers to get on board.
Having now gone back and re-read the run nearly a decade later, with a lot more comic reading stored in my head, it’s also interesting how much Bendis was using aspects of Frank Miller’s run as a spring board – keeping it interesting as a seasoned reader without excluding the less-well versed. It’s an absolute master class in how to reward the fans but welcome the new readers, without ever being patronising.
Even at the time I first read these one of the things that most struck my uncultured mind was how gorgeous Maleev’s art was. I’m certain I’m not the first person to make note that Bendis has a lot of text on the page for an artist to work with, and in DAREDEVIL there is a lot of talking and sitting and talking some more; and yet this Maleev constantly finds ways to stop this being uninteresting.
Outside of the more domestic settings this run is not afraid to explode into more traditional superhero scenes – and Maleev also allows himself to cut loose here. It seemed to me that every issue had at least two or three pages where Maleev is allowed to show Daredevil moving or fighting through the city – and while his fights never seem overly violent or gratuitous, those punches and kicks certainly look like they hurt.
Overall this run fits comfortably in my own DAREDEVIL chronology of Miller > Bendis > Brubaker > Waid. All four of these runs have been exceptionally good and lean heavily (though not overwhelmingly) on each other. Although Miller gets the reputation as the “dark” version of the character, I feel this description truly belongs to Bendis’ time on the series. The study of sadness, depression and desperation is never more real than in the pages and panels of this series.
SimonpaddyPicks 