Questionable Mental States: Daredevil #21 Review

Editor’s Note: Kingpin left me with ten spoilers in my pocket. I found a comics Web site that makes change.

Whether purposefully or accidentally, Marvel and writer Mark Waid have put themselves into a difficult position by putting the first chronological appearance of The Superior Spider-Man – that is, whoever Spider-Man will wind up being after the events of next week’s The Amazing Spider-Man #700 – into this week’s Daredevil #21.

Because with all the hype and anticipation surrounding what will happen with Spider-Man (as an example: once we published an article about the leak to the Internet of the ending to The Amazing Spider-Man #700, our Web traffic doubled… and we didn’t even publish the actual spoilers), what he does and how he acts in Daredevil #21 will be almost as important to readers as the story about Ol’ Hornhead. It’s kinda like casting the Octomom or John Wayne Bobbit in a porno flick; you’ll get a lot of rubberneckers not watching the thing for its intended purpose.

So even though Spider-Man’s appearance in Daredevil #21 makes complete and total sense with regards to the greater story – not only the story of some still unknown party trying to drive Matt nuts, but of Matt’s conscious decision to lighten up that goes back to Waid’s earliest issues – his appearance here, before the resolution of the current arc in Spider-Man’s home title, means the issue (not the story; there is a distinction there) has a massive, nearly crippling distraction that I doubt Waid originally intended. It makes the reading of this individual issue, during this particular point in pre-Amazing Spider-Man #700 time, an almost schizophrenic experience, where what Spider-Man does and says in two pages is almost, if not more, important to the comic reader than the actual Daredevil story in the preceding 18 pages.

So I’m gonna review it that way: in two parts.

You know something? I’ve spent about ten minutes trying to write my normal plot summary of the issue, and I’m finding it damn near impossible. What has happened over the past few issues of Daredevil is that Waid has taken what started as a simple and intriguing locked room mystery – someone is trying to make Daredevil think he’s crazy, and doing it effectively enough that his friends are convinced and Daredevil’s starting to think they might have a point – and spun it into a story with teleportation, new villains, clouded motivations and just plain weird shit. We have villains Spot and new guy Coyote using teleportation technology to remove people’s heads and put them to work in the Arizona desert… for what exactly? It was probably mentioned in some previous issue, but I’ll be damned if I can remember. And all of this high-tech dark industry has what to do with a costumed adventurer in New York? We don’t know – Waid clearly intends for the identity of the mastermind to remain a mystery – but the overall effect is that it took Daredevil out of his comfort area for questionable and confusing reasons. Hell, I’ve read the last couple of issues, and I’m still not sure what the hell all of this has to do with Daredevil.

But where the issue works is in the action. Sure, I don’t know who hired Coyote and Spot, and I’m not sure what any of it has to do with a forced labor mine in Arizona, but Waid and artist Chris Samnee use the close quarters and the concept of a mutated, angry Spot going after Coyote and Daredevil to present interesting and visually exciting dangers for the two to get out of… although there is one panel where Samnee presents Spot less as a mutated wreck, teleporting repeatedly in and out of his own spots in a disturbing fractal pattern, and more like a one-man Human Centipede. And all the while Waid keeps the underlying story beats of Daredevil interrogating Coyote, using a visual gimmick of showing an EKG pattern of Matt listening to Coyote’s heart rate for lies, that pays off big later in the issue. So during the mine action sequence, the art and story keep things exciting, even if you don’t know exactly why things are happening.

But regardless of whether you really get what’s happening out in he desert or why, the story really pays off during the confrontation between Matt and Foggy, who previously split with Matt after finding Matt’s father’s bones squirreled away in his desk. And it pays off because it addresses what should have been an elephant in the room since Waid’s first issue: Matt’s sudden decision to become a lighter, less intense, driven and dark, person. From a storytelling point of view, Waid has made the lightening of Daredevil make sense and has made the stories fun, but he has never really addressed how characters who have known Matt Murdock through years of noir stories, where he was beaten down and driven clinically insane more often than Joe Blow calls in sick for a hangover, would react to his change in attitude.

And while most of the Marvel Universe has taken for granted that Matt is nice and happy now – Luke Cage invited him into The Avengers about two months after he made the change, no questions asked – it makes sense that Foggy, who has seen Matt go homeless in Born Again and become a murderous ninja warlord in Shadowland (to name two examples off the top of my head), might think that Matt’s new attitude means that there is something actually very wrong with him. What Foggy thinks is wrong is left unsaid – Waid and Samnee use the heart rate gag to show he isn’t telling everything – and Waid also provides a clue that maybe Foggy isn’t wrong. It shows that Waid is acknowledging that the last 20-odd years of Daredevil stories still have weight in today’s stories, and that it isn’t realistic for a person who has been through the traumas Matt has to just say he’s okay… and then really be okay. It gives the story an unexpected edge and it made me excited to see what Waid has in store for Daredevil, and for us, in the coming months…

And then there’s Spider-Man. And spoilers will likely appear hereafter…

I don’t want to give things away here, but I might not have a choice: in a few short panels, it is clear that, whoever is behind Spider-Man’s mask, it’s not Peter Parker as we know him today. In fact, the way that Waid writes this sequence, it seems like it’s a completely different person behind the mask, and one who maybe doesn’t have Peter’s memories of his friendship with Daredevil. And while I’m not entirely sure what Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott has in mind for the conclusion of his current arc, reading this issue makes it clear that either Peter is about to have one last bad day, or else possibly undergo a partial lobotomy.

However, the inclusion of this version of Spider-Man in an issue of Daredevil that begins to call into question Daredevil’s sudden change in attitude under Waid’s direction could be a big, big tease as to how Slott and Marvel will handle the changes in Spider-Man that are likely to occur (assuming you believe the leaked pages of Amazing Spider-Man #700).

And I am about to discuss those apparent changes, so if you don’t want to potentially be spoiled, turn back now.

If we are to believe that Otto Octavius is now occupying the body of Spider-Man, and is determined to try to continue the tradition of that hero, we need to believe that Ock is willing to turn his back on years and years of acting like a megalomaniacal, arrogant douche, concerned only with amassing power and enhancing his reputation. We will need to believe that he can just put those things behind him and act like a whole new person… kinda like Daredevil did in Waid’s Daredevil #1. So for Waid to start calling Matt’s sudden emotional transformation into question, and bring in the Doc Ock version of Spider-Man who will apparently be trying to do exactly the same thing, is really Goddamned intriguing. It sets up what could be a really interesting story, and one that could either cement the new Spider-Man status quo or show it as doomed to retcon (but let’s face it: no matter what happens in Daredevil #22 next month or in Amazing Spider-Man #700 next week: it’s doomed to retcon). Because if we are willing to believe that Daredevil can change who he has been by sheer force of will, we need to believe the same is possible in Ock. But to show both of them struggling at the same time could be one hell of a story, and one that I really can’t wait to read.

This has been a hard issue to review. On one hand, the battle between Daredevil, Coyote and Spot had little weight for me; I didn’t really get or care why it was happening, and could only enjoy it on an action and visual level. But the introduction of doubt about Matt’s current mental state and motivations, combined with our first official introduction to the “superior” version of Spider-Man, whose current mental state and motivations will similarly be in doubt, serve better as a tease for what looks to be a truly exciting issue of Daredevil next month than it makes this issue a really good one.

Call this issue a killer teaser for a really good comic book… but unless you’re absolutely dying to get a little taste of The Superior Spider-Man, if you need to skip a comic this week, sadly, this Daredevil #21 is probably safe. But I’ll tell you this: if you miss next month’s Daredevil, you’ll probably be a Goddamned fool.