About James Donnelly
Location: Chandler, AZ
Occupation: Professional Fanboy
Bio: James Donnelly works as a lowly peon, but once a week, he brings his fanboy expertise and his opinions to popsyndicate.com and it makes him happy.
Posts: 52
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Without shame, I can say that I love Ed Brubaker.
It’s a very platonic love, but I do love him. He’s done incredible things with Captain America. His original series Criminal is fantastic. But when he took over from Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Daredevil, I was skeptical. That all changed with the first arc that Brubaker did for Ol’ Hornhead. It not only exceeded my expectations of a seamless transition, it also surpassed my love for Bendis’ works on DD.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the Bendis/Maleev stuff, but they had some missteps. So far, Brubaker and the great artist Michael Lark have been knocking it out of the park on a consistent basis. And now in the “Without Fear” storyline, they’ve found some other way to torture the hell out of Matt Murdock.
Larry Cranston, aka Mr. Fear, is bringing a new Hell of sorts to Hell’s Kitchen. Half of the criminals out there are doped up on a drug that makes them fearless, and others, such as Matt’s wife Milla, are being affected with a drug that brings about dangerous paranoia and dementia, which leads Milla to accidentally kill an innocent man in a subway.
This issue deals with the most direct aftermath of that: Milla’s incarceration and placement in a mental hospital, still under the influence of Mr. Fear’s drug. She’s in a very bad way mentally and legally, so while Murdock isn’t out beating thugs really severely to try to find Cranston, he, on the advice of Dakota North, sneaks into Milla’s room after lights out and stays with his wife, doing whatever he can to help her in a way that isn’t sappy or melodramatic. This issue is more about a man’s devotion to the woman he loves than a hero’s responsibility to his community, and he even gets to prove that devotion when he’s put in a holding cell for a night when he is held in contempt of court arguing his wife’s unjust sentencing.
In a very interesting moment, the double-dealing yes-man Turk turns out to be the character with the most insight into Daredevil, when he comments on what havoc DD is wreaking with the underworld when he says, “Even Kingpin learned eventually… you don’t push Murdock too far. There’s a monster sleepin’ in that man that you don’t wanna wake up”.
You know you’re dealing with a Brubaker comic when such a menial supporting character gets such a great moment, because he’s a master of fleshing-out supporting characters.
The issue also ends with a great (and surprisingly in-continuity) twist that really links this title up with the other incidents that are going on in the Marvel Universe and lays the groundwork for some earth-shattering showdowns. I’m really starting to think that Daredevil is on his way to ousting Spidey as Marvel’s resident whipping boy.
Daredevil #101
Without Fear, Part Two of Six
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark and Stefano Guadiano
Colors by Matt Hollingsworth
Lettered by VC’s Chris Eliopoulos
Cover by Marko Djurdjevic
