Daredevil vol 2 by Mark Waid
Marvel comics 2012
136 pages
$20 cover price
Having previously read, loved and put up a review for volume one of the Mark Waid run on the re launched Daredevil series, I was really looking forward to this second volume collecting issues 7-10, 10.1 and Amazing Spider-Man #677.
As it stands, every time Waid gets to work on an established book, he makes it his own, usually revitalizing it in the process. Daredevil though, has to be a high point even in that list. The story is easily the best that this title has seen in decades, particularly if you are tired of Marvel treating poor Matt Murdock like a punching bag. Waid himself has said that he fully expected to see a gun in Matt’s mouth at some point, given the way it has gone. This series under Waid and artist Paolo Rivera has brought the character back into the light. The book is fun and still exciting; there are just no ninjas and demons, which were getting to be a bit much.
This volume does not flow as well as the first, partly because the artists change. Rivera gives way in the Spider-Man issue to Emma Rios and to Koi Pham in another. The artist switch up can be jarring at the best of times, but with Rios employing a very rough line style here, it is doubly so. The single issues are a bit choppier here than in the first volume, mostly, I think because Waid is less interested in writing for the trade than he is in putting out a good book every month. That emphasis on a good month to month book is the idea, of course, but the collections do not always work as well because of it. There are times when it seems as though some of the things done are a bit obligatory. Captain America in the first volume and Spidey and the Black Cat in this one seem as though they were put in to cross market. Marvel is very often and historically guilty of this, more so than most other publishers. As a result, even when that is not really what is happening, it very often FEELS like it.
These are minor quibbles though. They are things to be expected from modern mainstream comics, and are nothing new. The high mark set by volume one has just spoiled me. Where that book was really special, this one is just very good. That still makes it the best book Marvel is putting out with the exception of the Hickman FF titles. If you enjoyed the first book, you will enjoy this too. Rivera and Waid are a great team, and if they can stay together on this book, with as few fill in issues as possible, I see no reason that Daredevil will come off my pull list any time soon.
terminaldrift 