The Quintuple Macguffin: Daredevil #6 Review

This review probably isn’t going to be very long because there’s just not all that much to say about Daredevil #6, or the book in general since Mark Waid took over writing duties from Andy Diggle a few months back. This is an excellent comic, and you should be buying it. This is one of the rare comics where you really need to nitpick to find fault… and make no mistake, I will do that, because baldfaced cheerleading for a comic book just isn’t funny. Unless you’re watching someone else doing it. Preferably at a convention. While he or she is wearing an authentic Spider-Man costume. Assuming Peter Parker had been given the proportionate strength and speed of a very, very obese spider. But already, I digress.

Let’s start with the villain. Bruiser is a new creation by Waid and artist Marcos Martin, with a simple premise: he dresses like a wrestler, he wants to fight The Hulk, and he’s working his way up “The Ranks” of superhumans until he’s earned his shot. That is all we know and all we need to know; he exists to give Daredevil someone new and cool to fight, which is damn refreshing after years of story arcs where old familiar villains with axes to grind spend issue upon issue planning to psychologically destroy Matt Murdock. There have been times when I’ve put down a Daredevil issue and said, “Jesus, would you and Kingpin just fuck and get it over with, already?”

To me, Bruiser is damn reminiscent of Ann Nocenti’s and John Romita Jr.’s 1980’s run on Daredevil, where every couple of issues they’d whip up a new villain and chuck them at Daredevil to see what stuck, only with 90 percent fewer Aqua-netted mullets. Sure, that run gave us one or two stinkers, but it gave us Typhoid Mary and Bullet, so seeing Waid take the route of coming up with new antagonists makes me excited to see what’s coming up… so long as he avoids those stinkers. Seriously, Ann; Bushwacker? A whose hand is a gun named after an act of masturbation? Remember that Waid, and scratch “Titty Twister” off your brainstorm pad.

But on to the story. This is the final part of a story that’s been told a million times: boy finds job, boy loses job when he overhears someone say something about Latveria, boy finds superhero, boy and superhero are attacked by snipers, boy gets kidnapped by superpowered hitman. Only this time there’s also a boat!  Ultimately, this is one of those rare books where the story that came before almost doesn’t matter; Waid tells you all you need to know in the first few pages: some hitman threw Daredevil off a boat. That hitman kidnapped whoever Daredevil was with on orders from someone, and Daredevil is giving chase. It’s recap, old school: it tells you all you need to know, and drops you right into the action.

And Waid is obviously just having fun with the writing. A story like this needs a Macguffin that all the superterrorists are after, and Waid gets damn clever with it. Let’s just say that this is the most interesting use of a Fantastic Four molecularly unstable uniform I’ve ever seen that doesn’t involve the obvious pornographic applications. The resolution of the five-way Reservoir Dogs standoff between Daredevil and the terrorists is inspired, and Waid’s use of dialogue to telegraph some of the best art… well hell; using the line, “Give my clients their money shot” to lead into one of the better Daredevil action splashes of the past few years? That’s a writer having a good time.

Marcos Martin’s art continues to impress me on this book. It feels simple; compared to 90’s-style heavily lined and cross-hatched stuff, this is minimalist. It’s tempting to say Martin’s art is almost cartoony… until you take a closer look. Unlike, say, Michael Avon Oeming’s art, which is very thick-lined and cartoonish, Martin’s work is actually thin-line inked, yet in no way overdone. A lot of the shading and detail in a thin-lined, say, McFarlane-style panel happens in the inks, but here it’s brought by colorist Munsta Vicente. And on this Web site, if we feel compelled to point out the sympatico nature of the pencils, inks and colors, either the art is remarkable or it is after last call and we believe the colorist has a flask in their car. Considering I still have beer, you do the math.

But I said I would nitpick, and I guess I will: the end of this book rang a little… off. Daredevil winds up with the Macguffin, which five different groups of terrorists are going to be coming after with extreme prejudice and… Murdock locks it in his desk. Which is a fine place to secure, say, a pack of cigarettes, but the object of an international terrorist hunt? When they all know that Daredevil took it? And everyone knows that Matt Murdock is Daredevil? And when the object was built by Reed Richards, who would probably be willing to throw it in his safe… in the Negative Zone? And when Daredevil is an Avenger, meaning he probably has Nick Fury’s number on speed dial? But hey – why bother when you’ve got a desk? Good, solid pressed aluminum, there.

But that is a nitpick in the purest sense of the word, because I have no doubt that Waid will address the fate of the Macguffin in the next issue – in fact, I know he will. And that issue will be on the top of my pile. This is the best single issue of a comic book I’ve read in at least a couple of weeks. Pick it up.