Bendis' Daredevil Part 2: Out

[cyberghostface]

So where we last left off, ambitious underboss Samuel Silke attempted to overthrow and assassinate the Kingpin with the help of Richard Fisk, the Kingpin's son. He failed and the Kingpin's wife Vanessa Fisk retaliated. With his life in danger, Silke fled to the FBI for protection with the only information he was willing to give up: Daredevil's secret identity.

In Daredevil #31, we pick up with the two FBI agents who were with Silke. They report their findings to the FBI director. After bringing the director up to speed on the Kingpin, the agents bring up the bombshell that Silke dropped.





They go through most of Daredevil's history and how it ties into Murdock's; the events of Born Again, Elektra, etc. All the while the director is drawing over the photo of Murdock.











#33...









We go to a flashback to last issue and follow one of the two FBI agents. Long story short, one of them is poor, in a rocky marriage and decides to sell it to the Globe.







#34...

The beginning of the issue has Jonah at a boardroom meeting. He has a list of their salaries with him because he wants to know how much it cost him to get "his tookis kicked this badly." He's pissed, in other words, that someone else got the DD expose before he did.

Jonah goes on like this for a bit until Ben Urich interrupts him and tells him that it's not true.











Foggy is trying to convince Matt to give up the costume, saying it's brought Matt nothing but misery.



#35...

Daredevil waits above the crowd of paparazzi.






Foggy Nelson meanwhile is finding himself attacked by Mr. Hyde, who wants revenge against Murdock. He's stopped by none other than Spider-Man.









#36...

Matt gives his press conference.







Later, Black Widow pays a visit to Matt, asking him to put on his costume and go out with her because the city needs him. He turns down her offer. Frustrated that Matt appears to be pushing aside his costumed identity, she makes a phone call.









Now what I've heard is instead of Elektra, Bullseye was going to be here before Kevin Smith intervened (see my last post). Don't know how true it is, but the next issue would have been significantly different.

#37...

The issue opens with a flashback to Matt and Elektra when they were in college in bed together. He tells her that he would like it both of them could never leave the room and just stay there like this.

Present time...

Elektra appears to be under the impression, from Black Widow, that Matt needed to see her.







The next day, the Globe's lawyer comes to chew out Matt Murdock and tells him he can stick his lawsuit up his "fake blind, lying superhero, vigilante fazoo" and that the Globe's owner has no intention settling this out of court but to smack Matt around a courtroom.

Daredevil later pays a visit to the FBI agent who sold him out to the Globe, staring at him silently through his apartment window and scaring the crap out of him. The Globe no longer has their source to back them up now.

Matt later has a meeting with the Globe's owner, Mr. Rosenthal. Now he's willing to make an offer with Matt, and the two, after some negotiating, agree to seventy-five million and a printed apology in the Metro section. Matt wants half of the check to go to the National Endowment for the Blind and the other half to go the Hell's Kitchen Restoration Society. He also wants no layoffs from the Globe for two full calendar years because he knows the settlement isn't going to hurt the Globe.

Rosenthal's still clearly pissed because he believes he was telling the truth and Matt called him a liar on television, and Matt is a bit smug at how it's turned out for him. Matt turns to leave.

Comments

[hivemindcomics]

<3

That is all

[mola_ram]

Motto

That is all

[shanejayell]

Well. not BAD. However I really doubt a publisher, after losing a possibly unreliable source, would actually carry on.

[fifthie]

If the publisher and the reporter whose work it published didn't keep any notes, recordings, or other verifying records from the interviews with the source which revealed the information upon which they based this major front-page story, they're idiots.

[fifthie]

Like it's important to remember that libel doesn't just require you to be wrong but to be deliberately wrong. If an FBI agent comes to you and tells you some shit that it's completely reasonable to believe that an FBI agent would know, then you have every right to print that. If he retracts that story later you haven't retroactively libeled someone.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

That's real law. Comics law is a little different :P

[shanejayell]

*shrug* Just saving the recordings etc doesn't really help. If this comes before a judge and he asks to see the source and the guy has booked, it's very damaging to the case.

[citygod]

Oh really? You been following the news from Britain? And dig a bit deeper, because phone hacking isn't the worse that Murdochs papers have done. Ever heard of Kelvin Mackenzie and the Sun's Hillsboro coverage? A story full of fabricated incidents that Mackenzie never apologised for.

[glprime]

Excellent.

Say what you will about characterization not matching previous stuff, but this grew into a damned suspenseful intrigue.

And the random bit with Peter Parker showing up (in one scene) and he and Ben sharing a "So you belong to the special secret ID club, huh?" moment outside was nice. Then of course, Spidey swings by from Queens to give a hand.

I hope, when it comes to it, you post the scene where Matt (after declaring himself Kingpin) tells the assembled NY heroes to do what he did, claim a territory and have a zero tolerance policy. And Luke Cage is standing right there. I mean, that's basically what Cage does outside of Heroes for Hire adventures with Danny and crew.

[cyberghostface]

I have part of the scene ready to go but not the whole thing. But the part that you mention is in it.

[misterbug]

"Good for you, devil guy! Don't take no ****!" is about the best support you can get in Marvel NY...

[fifthie]

Those are the same firefighters who attacked Captain America during Civil War.

[proteus_lives]

Liked his slam to Vanessa.

[venatosapiens]

And lo, Daredevil dropped the mike.

[starwolf_oakley]

In the wake of that "British phone hacking scandal" I wondered if Lois Lane, Clark Kent or anyone else at the Daily Planet would hack someone's voice mail to get info for a story.

I also wonder if J .Jonah Jameson would do the same, at least back when he was a reporter.

[citygod]

Don't think so - different culture at News International. They were untouchable: they had a boss who was so powerful, they could do/say what they wanted. And it wasn't just then papers: NI companies, even in the US, where convicted of phone hacking rival businesses, not for a story, but for financial advantage.
Actually, JJJ comes out of this as pretty reasonable. A blow-hard, but a reasonable one.

[cainofdreaming]

I'm not so sure about JJJ. Sure, if Peter and Ben would give the name of the real DD, only they were lying about the part where they said Matt wasn't him, it would be news and sell papers. Which is what newspapermen do. So he's fine as far as that goes. But if you look at his motivations, well, they do not bear light. He doesn't want to print an expose because it is newsworthy, or even to just make money for the paper, his motivations are personal - i.e. his hatred of masks.

And when it comes to that part of JJJ's personality he's anything but reasonable. As several supervillains he's had a hand in creating could vouch for.

[citygod]

Agreed but I meant in this scene - JJJ concedes Urich's point by not firing him, which is more reasonable (and real - score one for Bendis) than he's usually seen.

[darkknightjrk]

Lois and Clark, no.

Jonah, hell yes.

[shadur]

It depends a whole lot on who's writing him - the /good/ writers tend to remember that aside from his hatred for Spider-Man, he's got a crapton of integrity and balls and spine of solid Adamantium -- he once kicked a big shot that was helping him go after Spider-man out when he discovered that the guy had been threatening Peter Parker with physical violence in order to get the identity of SM out of him.

[darkknightjrk]

I dunno...there may be some examples of him being a good guy, but once you create a couple of super-villains with your own money, saying that you have any integrity kinda goes out the window to me.

[cyberghostface]

He has shown considerable development since then. It depends on the writer though. For example, Scott Lobdell had a great Jonah appearance during his run on Uncanny X-Men.

[cainofdreaming]

This seems quite well written, but treating the outing as something that hasn't already happened, what, two or three times already is really jarring. Matt's been in jail before for Grudd's sake.

You would think that the newspaper editors, at least, would either know better already or acknowledge that printing the same story for nth time isn't going to sell papers like when it was a story.

[kusonaga]

Good stuff again, although I hate the caption boxes during the conversation with Elektra. Matt sounds like a school boy.

[blackruzsa]

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
And still this continues to give me massive fangirl aneurysms.
No offense to people who have suffered actual aneurysms.
THIS IS AWESOMENESS AND THREE FOURTHS ,this is.

[citygod]

Great stuff, thanks for posting. I read this as floppies, when it was released - felt really fresh and new at the time, before Bendis turned to schtik. But it hasn't dimminshed this. And if anyone if wondering if they should invest in the collected editions, after reading this - do it. Lots of other interesting stuff - the scene with Peter Parker and Ben Urich after the JJJ scene is excellent.