I warned you I’ve been on a comic book kick lately.
For only $10/month, you can read unlimited Marvel comics on your device. For the past week I’ve been giving it a try. I’ve read 42 comics. Given that each is $4.99 from the store, that would have been $209.58 spent. I wouldn’t ever spend that on comics. So without Marvel Unlimited, I wouldn’t have ever read those comics.
*This is not sponsored by Marvel Unlimited, but I wish it were.*
Anyway, I want to tell you about Man Without Fear: the Death of Daredevil from 2019.
It’s a five-issue run written by Jed Mackay. For all of it, Matt Murdock is in the hospital.
He’s there because at the end of the prior run, Charles Soules’s which ran from 2015-2018, he leapt in front of a truck to save a kid from getting hit.
I have not read that run and I have read mixed reviews of it, but that’s the tl;dr: he gets hit by a truck.
Again.
When he was a boy, a truck carrying toxic waste hit him. Toxic waste spilled into his eyes, robbing him of his vision but blessing him with radar-like super hearing.
Arc
This short run is a cerebral series. Not a lot of punches thrown or bullets dodged (just a few in flashbacks) but a lot of internal battles against FEAR.
In the first issue, the pages alternate between the hospital room, where best pal Foggy Nelson encourages a comatose Matt Murdock to hang up the horns and Matt’s subconscious, where he battles Fear and the Beast, grotesque parodies of Daredevil, one inveigling him to give in to fear and the other goading him to get back out there.
This was extremely cool.
The narration did not explain what was happening. But I liked that. The creators trusted the reader to get there on their own.
In issue #2 Matt given in. Haunted by the women who have died in service to his masked-vigilante career, he drives away one more woman who’s willing to help him, Kirsten. This despite what the spirits of the women he has loved and lost before want for him.
He wants to quit being Daredevil. His body is in ruins. This latest truck-strike has broken open many old wounds, as though he has scurvy. The writers at Marvel have really f*cked up his life.
So he quits. He is resolved, even when the ghosts of Christmas Past—er, the Defenders come calling.
And then Wilson Fisk pays a visit.
Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin, is Daredevil’s nemesis (maybe besides Bullseye). A crime-lord with super-human strength and the third-most corrupt mayor in NYC’s recent history.
Kingpin gloats over his fallen foe, Matthew Murdock, the blind but brilliant prosecutor. Kingpin believes MM knows Daredevil, not that he is Daredevil (I think, like I said I’m just getting back in to comics), but seems to take great satisfaction from Murdock’s horrible state.
But he pushes his luck too far. He believes Murdock is asleep when he gloats and is startled when Murdock snaps awake and remarks, “do it.” Kill me, he says. I dare you to.
And that’s the story’s climax. The reversal point. Matt can’t take it anymore. His mind is changed; the Daredevil will return!
In the fifth issue we get the emotional apex for Matt. Through the series the question has been nagging him, “What is pain for?” It was something his father, a professional boxer, asked him often.
“You’ve always been smarter than me, Matty. So this is the only thing I can teach you… What is pain for?”
Matt’s answer: “It keeps us going.”
He’s also come to accept his fear. He’s no longer the vaunted “man without fear.” Throughout this story, he has learned to embrace his fear, to face it, and to be brave anyway. A classic story trope, but well told.
When Foggy comes to visit his friend, still believing Matt has hung up the horns, he is in for a shock.
Tension, Please!
What kept me reading?
Tension. This is the driving force of all good modern narratives. Will the hero get out of that pit of vipers? Who are Rey’s parents, really? What will happen when Hank realizes Walter White is Heisenberg?
In Man without Fear, the tension was entirely cerebral. Will Matt Murdock really give up on being Daredevil? Superheroes before him have passed on the torch to the next generation, so it’s not impossible.
If he doesn’t give up, what will drive him to pick up the fight? How will Foggy react? The Defenders?
And there’s more tension coming: how can he keep those he loves safe if he becomes Daredevil again?
Stakes matter the most in writing. This is something I’ve come to appreciate more and more over time. If the writer has a clear vision of what’s at stake for their characters, the story moves naturally and in exciting and interesting ways. So if you came for writing advice, that’s it:
Make your character want something. Then raise the stakes.
Daredevil
When I was a kid, I labeled Daredevil as my favorite super-hero. In the early aughts the only superhero movies that were in anybody’s zeitgeist were the Sam Rami Spider-mans, Blade, and Ben Affleck as Daredevil.
Daredevil is a terrible movie. I knew that then. But I wanted to like it.
Maybe he’s still my favorite super-hero, maybe She-hulk or Jessica Jones are. I did love that movie’s soundtrack, so I’ll leave you with my favorite song from it.
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