Customer Reviews

Daredevil, Vol. 5

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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This hardcover collection collects issues 66-75 of Brian Michael Bendis' and Alex Maleev's Daredevil run. There's not a lot of forward momentum in this collection, as Bendis chooses to explore the affects of Matt Murdock's actions on others, both in and out of costume.

The first arc follows the revenge quest of Wilson Fisk's predecessor as Kingpin, Terrence Bond. The reader gets a first-hand historical tour of organized crime and vigilantism throughout the 20th century.

The second story arc takes place in the meeting room of a "Daredevil support group", where those affected by his vigilante acts can get together and bond over shared and/or similar experiences interacting with Daredevil.

All in all, Bendis seems to be spinning his wheels a bit, plot-wise, with not much forward motion. His steadfast use of decompression doesn't help much with that, either. However, the dialogue, as always, is top-notch. The characters speak like real people with individual personalities. And Alex Maleev's art is always a pleasure to look at. He has a very textured and atmospheric style that suits the timbre of Bendis' characters (and characterization) perfectly.

This is volume five of the Daredevil hardcovers, the fourth consecutive volume featuring the creative team of Brian Bendis (writer) and Alex Maleev (artist,) and it, like it's predecessors, is brilliant.

Each volume of this series has been amazing on it's own, but taken as a whole, they easily reach Watchmen or Batman Year One level. The only other Daredevil story anywhere near this level of quality is Frank Miller and David Mazacheli's incredible Daredevil Born Again (another one of the best comic stories ever told.)

Bendis has created a complete, solid, believable, real world for Daredevil in which everything has a consequence, a past, and a future. The characters are real people who act and react as real people would in some very tense situations. And Bendis doesn't let anyone off easily. His story builds on itself and leads to places most comics never would. There is so much emotion and tragedy and beauty and peace and violence that the story feels important beyond it's pages, and Matt Murdoch emerges as one of the most complex and compelling characters in any medium.

Maleev's artwork is the perfect compliment to Bendis's story. His story telling is impecable and is always very clear. His facial expressions and body language add a great deal of depth to Bendis's brilliantly written characters. His action sequences really make you feel the force of the violence taking place. When Daredevil punches someone, you can sense how hard he's swinging -- you can see the effort. He's not just play acting or taking it easy, he's trying to end the fight as quickly as he can, and Maleev really gets that across. And the art looks fantastic at the same time.

This volume deals with the return of the first Kingpin of Hells' Kitchen after several years in Jail to find that Daredevil (the man who put him away) is not only lawyer Matt Murdoch (who smugly refused to take his case years earlier,) but also the current Kingpin. The volume also includes a fantastic story in which ordinary citizens of Hells' Kitchen get together in a support group to discuss Daredevils affect on their lives. Of course the citizens are connected in more ways than they originally know, and over the course of the story they discover they have two special guests sitting in their midst.

The whole Bendis and Maleev run totals (I believe) 56 issues, and while there are chapters within, it truly is one big story dealing with Daredevils secret identity being revealed, his role as a hero, his duty to the people he wants to protect, and the effects of all of that on his life and the people around him. I would recomend this series to anyone. Maybe someday Marvel will gather the whole thing together (ala the Bone One Volume addition which contains 60 issues or the Ultimate Spiderman Collection that contains 41 issues,) because it really is one story that deserves the aclaim of Watchmen or Batman Year One -- it truly does stand with the best of the best and demonstrates that Bendis compares favorbly to Alan Moore and Frank Miller in his prime. Bendis's 28 issue run on Alias (which recently came out in one volume) was one of the greatest comic stories ever -- this Daredevil run is even better. The fact that Bendis and Maleev maintained such a high level of quality from begining to end is a tremendous credit to them -- and it's very lucky for the rest of us.

The DD collected series by Bendis/Maleev remains a terrific achievement, similar to some of the monumental series run by Stan Lee/Kirby for FF, X-Men etc. The amazing thing about the Bendis/Maleev run is the sheer longetivity of it, 50 plus issues. Overall, this series gets a 5 star rating.

This particular sub-series within the overall run is not so satisfying. Bendis can startle and take DD in various unexpected directions.

The idea of a church support group to talk about the effect that DD has on Hell's Kitchen is brilliant. However, the sudden turn of events leading to the dwarf monstrosity affecting one of the participants is like a Night Shyamalam movie, totally unexpected and goes into the horror genre. The DD genre works very well when steeped in the real world, notwithstanding even the ninja mojo stuff. But when you move into Stephen King territory, DD reads like Hell Boy and falters badly.