Marvel Unbound - Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 2 (Bendis)

I think Daredevil might be my favorite character of all-time. But if that is true, it’s because of the creators who have guided him – Frank Miller and Klaus Janson in the ’80s, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev in the first half of the 2000s, and Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark in the latter half of that same decade.

Until the Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus challenged its status, the Bendis/Mack/Maleev Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 1 was the previously untouchable high-watermark among current era Marvel omnibuses. Now I would be hard-pressed to make a choice between the two, and Bendis’ second volume complicates things further by not missing a beat.

I love Marvel’s omnibus line. I like the idea of collecting 25 or so issues of a particular creative team or specific era under a single cover with beautiful art reproduced in an oversized format. Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack and Alex Maleev is no exception. Holy crap is that a stunning body of work! I loved every emotionally wrenching page. The “Wake Up” arc alone is a visual treat (issue #16 through #19). David Mack’s painted pages demand you linger on each panel, soaking in every detail. It took me days to just get through those first four issues that open that beautiful, gargantuan tome.

Volume 2, however, is every bit as good as the first. The arcs are bit more obvious in the storytelling this time around, but it all flows beautifully, threaded together by the underlying threat of Matt Murdock being “outed” once and for all, definitively as Daredevil.

There are four arcs and a one-shot collected here. The first one, “The Widow” is a great story of Murdock struggling with the end of his marriage to Milla Donovan, and highlights the friendship and respect between Murdock and Natalia Romanova – the Black Widow. This sets up an all-star “40th Anniversary Super Special” with issue #65. Nine different creative teams handle the art on this single oversized issue, including everyone from Michael Golden to Greg Horn, Phil Hester and Ande Parks to David Finch, Frank Quitely to Maleev. It was probably my least favorite issue of the run. It felt very much out of place, disrupting the flow of the overall narrative despite its in-continuity place in canon.

The next arc, “Golden Age,” introduces Alexander Bont into Daredevil mythos, wrapping his history up with the Gladiator along the way. Stylistically, Maleev really shines here with varying the pages between straight black-and-white, faux yellowed pages with retro touches, and his more common dark and brooding “everyday” style.

“Decalogue” is a five-issue story listening in on the support group that meets in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in Hell’s Kitchen to discuss the impact of Daredevil and Matt Murdock (who has declared himself the Kingpin) on their lives. There is a recovered drug addict, the son of a bomber, the wife of a serial killer, the serial killer’s last intended victim, and one of Milla Donovan’s former co-workers, among others. Murdock himself is revealed to be there and attempts to give closure to the group.

Things wrap up with “The Murdock Papers,” a great arc (maybe Bendis’ strongest on the title) that finds Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, using both the feds and the press to bring Murdock’s world down around him. It’s a bold way to go out as a writer, and Bendis couldn’t have done it without the cooperation of his successor on the book, Ed Brubaker. There is even a letter from Bendis that follows the last page of the last issue of his run collected here that is basically his explanation of walking away from the title when he did. It reads like it was published in the original single issue, which is kinda cool and also speaks to the clout Bendis had established at Marvel by that time (2006, and continues to enjoy today).

Rounding out this collection of everything Bendis has done on Daredevil is his What If... Karen Page Had Lived?, which finds Michael Lark drawing Bendis himself as a sort of blue-collar Uatu the Watcher chronicling the tale, and the three-issue Spider-Man/Punisher/Daredevil story in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #6, #7, and #8.

I have no shame in my enjoyment of Bendis’ work. You like what you like, and I like his writing. Having said that, there is one area of the Marvel U. that I am not a fan of Bendis’ work: Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. But what makes the three issues of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up collected here palatable is a combination of a story that doesn’t feel trapped in a “trying too hard to be hip” space and Bill Sienkiewicz’s art. The first time I remember being consciously aware of Sienkiewicz was when he took over the art duties on New Mutants as “The Demon Bear Saga” began, and his work on Elektra with Frank Miller is revolutionary. And it’s clear from the three issues collected here he hasn’t missed a step in the 15 or 20 years since I first recognized him.

Speaking of art, Maleev’s dark and brooding tones are perfect for the main stories collected here. Issue interiors are gritty, shadowed, and the covers within individual arcs have specific graphic personalities that serve as clear signposts. We also get unused and alternate cover designs, cover inks, and a handful of stunning watercolors of Black Widow and Daredevil.

A part from every thing else previously mentioned, the only other extra is Bendis’ script for issue #81, “The Murdock Papers, Part 6.” While maybe not as robust as Volume 1 when standing alone, Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 2 is still a near-perfect collection, and when taken as a whole with the first volume, Bendis and Maleev’s complete body of work on Daredevil is cohesive, nuanced, entertaining, and worthy of the mantle Frank Miller and Klaus Janson established in the ’80s.

Marvel Unbound - Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Color Series

I am a Marvel guy at my core, but since returning to the comic book hobby as an adult, I read most anything that strikes my fancy, regardless of publisher. That includes taking in some Batman stories: Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Frank Miller’s Absolute Dark Knight, and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween and Haunted Knight.

I’m not reading the Red Hulk books and am not a fan of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, so those Batman stories and the Fallen Son mini-series after the death of Captain America are really my only exposure to Loeb. I enjoyed what I’ve read well-enough, so I’m not sure where all the Loeb hate comes from. No writer can satisfy every reader, and I have never heard a convincing argument for the extreme dislike. It all strikes me as knee-jerk fanboy posturing.

Regardless, I figured if I enjoyed the Loeb-Sale team-up on Batman so much, I wanted to see what they’d do in the Marvel sandbox. I picked up the first-edition hardcovers of Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray cheap on eBay late last year and have finally worked my way through all three of them.

The concept here is a creative take on key moments in each titular character’s life. Not reimaging so much as fleshing out events that formerly took place off-page or providing a different point of view of what was originally presented.

I read them in the order in which they were released, which almost proved a misfire because I really didn’t care for Daredevil: Yellow. Sale’s art is a sight to behold, and every page in these six collected issues is a layered, shadowed experience. But the story really left me feeling kinda “meh.” I love Daredevil, but this was very much a Karen Page story. And I’m clearly not as good a student of that particular part of the Daredevil’s history as I needed to be in order to fully enjoy Daredevil: Yellow.

Thematically, I loved the way the series titles each played off Murdock’s father’s boxing career: “The Championship Season”, “The Measure of a Man”, “Stepping Into the Ring”, “Never Lead With Your Left”, “Against the Ropes”, and “The Final Bell”. And the covers of the original single issues reveal the evolution of Matt Murdock, with a larger-than-life Daredevil in the background, watching over his alter-ego. Beautiful work by Sale, but this was the first time a Loeb story fell short of my expectations and had problems holding my interest.

Whereas Daredevil: Yellow’s conceit was a written letter from Matt Murdock to his lost love Karen Page, Spider-Man: Blue is framed by Peter Parker tape-recording a letter to the love of his life, the Green Goblin-murdered Gwen Stacy, on Valentine’s Day.

Like with the first book, Sale’s artwork is striking. His reimaging of Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane Watson is retro sexy and perfectly stylized. But unlike Daredevil: Yellow, the characterizations Loeb unfolds quietly across these six issues is nuanced and restrained. Loeb and Sale used iconic moments in Peter’s life as touchstones for filling in perspective. We see Spider-Man saving Norman Osborn’s life, we meet Anna Watson’s niece for the first time along with Peter, and we witness the organic beginning of Peter and Gwen’s romance.

I don’t know how true to the characters of Peter and MJ they are, but I really loved the last three pages of Spider-Man: Blue. They capture a soft moment between husband and wife, yet it feels so important, even cinematic. There was a satisfying sense of closure to the book that I really felt was missing with the first one.

Whereas Daredevil: Yellow and Spider-Man: Blue are essentially love stories, Hulk: Gray explores relationships more broadly: the influence of General Ross’ dead wife on his relationship with his daughter Betty, Betty’s love for Bruce Banner, Hulk’s love for Betty, and General Ross’ hatred for Hulk.

The framing device here is Bruce turning to his old friend Doc Sampson in the present day, looking back at those crucial hours immediately after the Hulk was “born” in the gamma bomb accident. I thought Loeb took a lot of liberty (maybe too much?) retconning an encounter with Tony Stark’s Iron Man into this origin expansion, but the story was compelling from start to finish. It’s amazing how much emotion a character like the Hulk can convey.

Until I watched the DVD extras for the 2008 Incredible Hulk film, I had no idea director Louis Leterrier used Hulk: Gray as his primary influence. I don’t think knowing that or having seen the movie first really colored my reading of the Loeb-Sale book in any way, but I can now fully appreciate book and movie’s connection.

There was supposed to be a fourth title in the Loeb and Sale color series, Captain America: White, but it has only gotten as far as an issue #0 book. The prologue story was released back in September 2008, but seems to have been canceled after that. I don’t have that issue, so I can’t say what it’s about or how it would fare against the other three completed series, but it would have been nice to have the creator’s complete vision to judge as a whole.

In all, I enjoyed two-thirds of the color series. As a Daredevil fan and a fan of Loeb and Sale’s Batman collaboration, I’m glad I read Daredevil: Yellow, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. After stepping away from the series for a few months and tempering those expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed Spider-Man: Blue and Hulk: Gray, both of which presented nuanced, emotionally charged stories and gorgeous art.

Daredevil: The Honu Without Fear!

We were over at Diane and Ivan's this weekend for our godson's birthday party, and my parents were there too. At one point, my mom and dad, Ivan, and I were all out at a picnic table in the backyard, enjoying the spectacular view of Lake Erie. Somehow we ended up talking about the local comic book shop, Comic Heaven. Brian Michael Bendis is good friends with Jim, the owner, and the shop used to be a frequent hangout of Bendis'. Ivan was explaining who Brian Michael Bendis is to my mom and ended up in a long, winding description of Daredevil -- both the character and the book. While in the middle of this word sketch he's laying on my mom, he turns to her and asks, "You know what ninjas are, right?" And my mom perfectly deadpans, "Yeah, they're turtles."