A Comic A Day: Daredevil #6 and #7

Published by Marvel
Written by Kevin Smith
Art by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti

Spoiler warning! If you haven't read Daredevil: Guardian Devil, turn away now! The crux of this article just happens to spoil the big reveal! However, I'm not too torn up about it since this comic is over ten years old. Anyway, read on at your own peril...

Kevin Smith has described himself as a "carpetbagger" in the world of comics. Every so often he swoops down from Hollywoodland and does a miniseries here or a one shot there. While most of his comic reading audience has grown tired of his delayed scripts and straight-up unfinished projects (here's looking at you, Daredevil: The Target), I've always been frustrated that the man feels he has so few stories to tell. His work on Daredevil, which I'll be spotlighting today, and his relaunch of Green Arrow over at DC are both inspired, well written pieces of serialized fiction. With the sands of time trickling on, his delays seem unimportant in the long run. Yes, what really grinds my gears about Kevin Smith comics is that there aren't more of them.

In 1998, Marvel continued the long climb back up the mountain from a base camp called bankruptcy. While their company struggled in the public face as a mess of bad buisness deals and collapsed ventures, they were also in a creative rut. X-Men and Spider-Man seemed to thrive somewhat thanks to various crossovers and cheap tricks, but most of the other Marvel properties were fading fast. Desperate enough to finally let their creators y'know, create, they sought out Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti to forge a new sub-imprint called Marvel Knights. In Marvel Knights, lesser known properties like Daredevil, Black Panther, and the Inhumans would see new life through less editorial interference and a more "mature" marketing campaign aimed at the readers of the "graphic novel" as opposed to the comic book.

The crown jewel of Marvel Knights was Kevin Smith's Daredevil, which followed what is now a common formula for at least temporary success: take a big name writer from another medium and put them on one of your struggling characters or teams. Screenwriters like Jeph Loeb had already brushed with success and critical acclaim in the comic world, but Kevin Smith's filmography and rabid, loyal fanbase opened a floodgate of geek-friendly movie and television writers coming to comics to make a quick buck or scratch an item off of their bucket lists. It didn't hurt that Smith made no bones about being a comic book fan and reader, even injecting much of that subculture into movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy.

Smith wrote a gripping eight issue drama that read like a greatest hits record of the great Daredevil authors that came before him. Blind but radar-sense endowed Matt Murdock, the titular Man Without Fear faced a grand conspiracy that touched on his crimefighting persona, his legal profession, and his Catholic background. Drug abuse, sex scandals, and a 20th century Virgin Mary all played a part in this tangled web as well. Matt's world was once again falling apart, but the reveal of the villain in the penultimate chapter and their confrontation therein if what I'd like to point out today.

One last spoiler warning...

I mean it!

You can't get mad at me if I warn you!!

The maestro of menace and common Spider-Man sparring partner known as Mysterio stood revealed as the weaver of ol' hornhead's web of woe in all his fishbowl helmeted glory. Mr. Smith may have found a way to vent some of his frustrations with the moviegoing audience through Quentin Beck's monologue as he pulls back the curtain on the elaborate ruse that has led Daredevil to this point. There's even a bit of commentary on Mysterio and Daredevil's status as "second rate" characters. Beck believes they are made for each other and that perhaps he and Spider-Man were never on the same level.

Daredevil sees through his effects and illusions quite easily though, perhaps because he can't see at all, and Beck empties his bag of tricks in one desperate exchange after another. Finally realizing he has no where left to turn, he steals another bit as he puts it, "from Kraven". Mysterio ends his own life and Daredevil saves the day. There are many plot particulars I'd rather not get into in this limited space, but needless to say Mysterio's suicide is as hackneyed and predictable as the villain thinks it isn't. He ultimately fails as both a villain and a performer. This issue was a shock to the system the first time I read it, but that younger me had not yet read the Kraven's Last Hunt arc in Spider-Man and the broader theme of failure didn't occur to me.