3 out of 5

This storyline will complete in #10.  But I’m getting off here.

As I’ve said before and as I’m sure I’ll have need to say again: Mark Waid can write a great Comic Book, which capital C and B for emphasis.  And that’s not to be said lightly.  With the slew of regular names that you see on Marvel and DC covers at any given point, while the majority of them obviously sell books – and would have their praises sung by their fans – Mark is still an exception, a writer who’s been around in the business for a good long while, has a foot firmly on the fanboy side of things, but can write in a balanced tone that encompasses both classic and new sensibilities.  In a more compressed description: if someone wanted to get into hero books, you could choose from a big stack of Waid comics and find something that could serve as evidence of good writing and good comic that’s clearly about men-in-tights and not attempting to be Watchmen.

But as I’ve also said before: Mark is so skilled at writing a great Comic that he can put on the style like a glove.  And I can’t pinpoint what the difference is between Great Great and Glove Great (I am ON POINT this review), but having recently reread my entire Waid DD run, something does change at some point.  There’s this vibrancy to the first 20 or so issues, an urgency and passion, even lasting through some crossover books, which is an incredible rarity.  It was as though Mark’s Daredevil existed entirely in its own world.  Not outside of continuity, but, well, the kind of vibe I had when reading comics as a kid that only the book I was reading mattered, and whatever else was going in on Marvel – even though I’d see other characters from time to time – didn’t matter so much.  It’s not that vol.3 / vol. 4 of Daredevil suddenly started having excessive “See (this issue)” notes from the editor, but the tone changed.  Which, if I had to guess, started to occur around when Marvel decided to rebrand as Marvel Now!, necessitating and re-numbering of the series back to #1, and Waid deciding to shift the story to San Francisco.  One can notice plotlines in vol.3 ramping down, and then when the final arc seems to be shaping up into something as out-there fun as when we started (the Monster Squad arc)… it’s wrapped up within panels.

I stuck with #4 through its introductory arc, which felt like an introductory arc, a horrible one-off issue and a seemingly endless (but only two) slew of sidebooks like issue .1 and 1.5… and then, even though they were actually pretty good issues, the nails which sealed the coffin of ‘DD in his own world’ – some Original Sin tie-ins.  Issues 8-10 are back to business as usual, Daredevil versus a bad guy – a revamped Purple Man, who ‘suggests’ things to people, only now his power has somehow drifted to a pack of children – and Mark Waid writes a great Comic Book, but I’m admitting to myself that it’s Glove Great.  There was a purposeful avoidance of letting the Devil slip back into gloom, and Mark has tromped out the ‘conflict’ of trying to remain happy a couple of times already, but that doesn’t prevent him from using it here again, as the Purple Children make him face up to some bad memories.  Chris Samnee… is boring me, at this point, I’m sorry to say – the man is consistent, and his panel directions are always clear, I’ve just never felt like his layouts add much to the page – though Matt Wilson hasn’t allowed the colors to skip a beat with the departure of Javier Rodriguez.

On the surface, everything is fine as can be.  But the book has drifted to the bottom of my read pile.  I don’t see Matt as a lawyer anymore.  It’s sorta just another book at this point, albeit professionally put together.  It’s the season where the show obviously settles into its formula.  So I’m getting off here.