3 out of 5

Kicking off with the rather underwhelming ‘Omega Effect’ crossover, Waid ends up writing himself into a bit of a hole, dragging out his conclusion for a bit too long – of which he seems aware, hence the sloppy and rushed ‘Hell Night’ in DD #13.   The issues covered by the third collection thankfully end on an incredibly thrilling note when DD is taken to Latveria and Waid successfully tosses a true challenge our hero’s way, but otherwise this is a bumpy transition point for our series, though it is our first glimpse of the guy who would cover the majority of the remaining issues – Chris Samnee.

So: the Omega Effect crossover, the final chapter toward which Waid’s been building…! only not so much.  The split of creator responsibility over this three-series crossover (Avenging Spider-Man, Punisher, DD) was nice – Rucka and Waid pairing to start in S-Man, then Rucka on his title and Waid on his, with artist Marco Checchetto and colorist Matt Hollingsworth and letterer Joe Caramagna keeping the look consistent for each part (more important for Punisher and then-‘partner’ Cole, as Pun’s bearded, bandaged Rucka makeover requires a darker style to work, an DD’s artists don’t quite fit that bill but Checchetto certainly does), but by the same token, because of this consistency, and because each character gets a pretty fair shake per issue, the need for the crossover is pretty questionable except that it was a way to keep things in-chronology for each book.  To the story, it ends up being a three issue delaying tactic.  DD pairs up with Punisher for shaky comic book reasons, and Spider-Man is tasked by Reed to keep watched over DD and the drive, so there we go.  Then it’s an issue of convincing Pun to use rubber bullets, and then an impressive fight that, again, can’t help but be underwhelming since it still doesn’t actually resolve anything.  And Penn Station at 3am would still have people there, I’m pretty sure.  I appreciate using a recognizable location, but… it’s New York.

Issue 12 introduces Samnee for a cutesy date issue with assistant DA whatsername.  It’s a nice way to ease us in to Samnee, nothing too flashy – Chris has a very ‘clean’ style that’s nonetheless heavily shadowed, making him a good blend for the light-hearted detective vibe of Waid’s DD run – but the issue, to me, sort of comes out of nowhere, getting an epilogue that ties it to main events but just shoving the girl and guy together because that’s what happens… I’ve been reading these issues in order, so there’s been no direct mention that a date was possible, unless it occurred in some other series.

Then the low point (in my opinion) of the entire run – issue 13, ‘Hell Night’, the second final fucking battle over the Omega Drive… which, again, is a fucking copout.  Khoi Pham takes on art duties and this just reads / looks like your everyday comic book: big battle, silly logic (Times Square?).  I mentioned from issue 10.1 that Pham has a pretty ‘normal’ style, and so it really feels like he (assuming it’s a ‘he’) got tossed on the stop-gap issue.  The boring feel of this issue is compounded by the dreadfully flat coloring which harkens back to 90s computer coloring…  Odd, given that Javier Rodriguez has been on color for most of the books, so perhaps Pham’s basic pencils and Tom Palmer not really inking up any enhancements just brought out that quality of Javier’s coloring.  Anyhow, exactly like the Omega Effect, this feels like a delaying tactic, only without the interesting characters populating the panels – just fightin’.

BUT: as DD fades out at the end of issue 14 and then wakes up in Latveria in issue 14, the bummer of these previous issues is completely washed away.  Doom wants reparations for Daredevil causing a loss of profits for Latveria with the theft of the Drive.  So we’re still dealing with the Drive, but it’s not the main gist of these two issues.  One of my main problem with hero books is that it’s difficult to find unique ways to challenge our heroes without always resorting to “the world is ending!”  But the punishment Doom has in store for Daredevil was truly exciting, giving me that rare wonder of “how will he get out of this?”, and Samnee’s back and applying that negative space to ultimate effect.  This two-parter (which does have ramifications we’ll see in the following issues) completely rescues this collection from tedium.  I guess the drawn out tale of the Drive makes the Doom tale more worthwhile, but I think it could’ve been moved forward and still had equal effect.