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Daredevil and the Kingpin form an uneasy alliance to take down the Hand.  But is that really what either of the two wants or are their motives more sinister than that?

Daredevil: Return of the King is almost a perfect mirror to Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark’s first Daredevil book, The Devil, Inside and Out Part 1.  In that first story, they began with Matt Murdock in jail, forced to ally himself with his enemies to survive and escape.  By the end of that book, he had his freedom but was on the run from the law.  After that first storyline, they had a short interlude story, focusing on the life of Foggy Nelson and how Matt Murdock constantly kept Foggy’s life in turmoil.  Return of the King, the creative pair’s last Daredevil story, opens with a similar interlude about the Kingpin, trying to recreate a life for himself in Spain but, like Foggy, constantly pulled into the chaos that swirls around Matt Murdock.  After the ninja group the Hand come to turn over Wilson Fisk’s newly discovered and happy life in Spain, they send him on a path of revenge against Daredevil.

Brubaker and Lark’s final Daredevil book is about uneasy alliances, reconciling the past and trying to find new solutions to old rivalries.  For a large portion of his run, Brubaker has been writing about how Matt Murdock continues to make the same mistakes again and again.  He constantly underestimates his enemies hatred of him; constantly endangers those he loves and constantly refuses to believe that his problems are his and only his fault.  These fundamental problems of Matt Murdock are what fueled the best Daredevil stories written by Frank Miller, Ann Nocenti and Brian Michael Bendis.  These problems are actually what drive the character on, forcing him to make decisions before he can ever really think them through.

Matt Murdock is a fascinating character because he makes decisions that no other hero would ever make.  For better but most likely for worse, Murdock does things that Peter Parker, Clark Kent or even Logan would never do, like making a deal with the Kingpin to jointly go after the hand, to “grind their bones into dust… all of them,” as the Kingpin succinctly states his goals.  Murdock has to realize that there’s more to the Kingpin’s goals than this, doesn’t he?  After all, this is the man who systematically destroyed his life in Born Again and has constantly manipulated him since then.  So why does he choose to temporarily ally himself with the Kingpin?

In that way, Ed Brubaker is the perfect writer for Daredevil because he has shown that, as a writer he is willing to make choices that others wouldn’t.  He is the man who brought Bucky back and then killed off Captain America.  His books Sleeper and Criminal are all about people who made bad choices and then have to live with the consequences.  During his run on Daredevil, Brubaker never took it easy on Murdock and refuses to let up in the end.  Matt still has to deal with his own infidelities and pride, even up to the end where he had to make drastically life changing decisions.

If there is one thing that becomes too clear in this book, it is that Daredevil needs the Kingpin like Matt Murdock needs Foggy Nelson.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that Foggy and the Kingpin had whole chapters during Brubaker’s story focusing on the two of them.  Both characters have had their lives turned upside down, mostly due to their relationship to Matt Murdock.  Both characters could easily blame Murdock for most of the horror in their lives but both characters keep on returning to Murdock and both characters force Murdock to make decisions.  In their own ways, they’re the angel and the devil that sit on Murdock’s shoulders, whispering in his ears.  They are also the characters that propel Murdock forward in this book; the Kingpin through his vendetta against the Hand and Foggy through his final straw-breaking moment where he finally confronts Matt Murdock about his inexcusable actions.

By the end of Return of the King, Brubaker and Lark have recast Matt Murdock and his role as a hero, if that’s every what he really was.  More than he has before, Brubaker forces Matt Murdock into a situation where he has to make real choices about how to deal with his enemies, how to treat the people in his personal life and even how does he change his life.  These are decisions that will have ramifications but those are for other stories.  Maybe for the first time, Matt Murdock actually grows up a bit and embraces his life rather than avoiding his own faults and issues.

Daredevil: Return of the King
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Penciled by: Michael Lark with David Aja
Inked by: Stefano Guandiano with John Lucas
Additional art by: Klaus Janson, Chris Samnee and Paul Azaceta
Colored by: Matt Hollingsworth with Jose Villarubia
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos

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