Bendis' Daredevil Part 6: The King of Hell's Kitchen

[cyberghostface]

So after the end of 'Hardcore' Bendis took a five month sabbatical and let his friend David Mack do a guest-arc about the character Echo (the deaf love interest of Matt Murdock from 'Parts of a Hole'). The wait for Bendis to return, to put it mildly, was torturous. Waiting five months after Matt declaring himself the new kingpin was bad enough, but this... I had enjoyed Mack's first outing on the title but the follow-up was just a slog to get through. You really had to be there. A lot of us DD fans were like junkies in need of a fix. 

#56 begins with Ben Urich at a diner...

"...almost a year to the day when Matt Murdock took control of 'The Kitchen'."

Urich gives a brief history of organized crime in New York, and says that such an event as this -- a superhero taking control of the city -- is nothing short of historic. However, there is not a single person has claimed to have seen Matt declaring his leadership. "So scared were the people in that bar... They either left town that night, turned it all around, or killed themselves. Matt Murdock is the new Kingpin and it is officially urban legend."

Six weeks of violence and terror followed against the underworld followed, Urich explains, as Daredevil cleaned up all the crime in Hell's Kitchen, every nook and cranny.

I know the 'skip a year' part frustrated a lot of people but I really enjoyed it. From a narrative sense, it made things fresh and unpredictable. Personally I think it works better to start off with Matt ruling Hell's Kitchen and getting us to the most interesting part as opposed to showing him manually cleaning house and beating up thugs for a year.

Luke Cage later calls a meeting for Matt in the park. With him are Peter Parker, Reed Richards and Dr. Strange. Cage tells Matt he crossed a line, but Matt replies that it worked.





Matt asks them if they're washing their hands of him. Cage says no, but if he keeps it up, he'll be washing their hands of them.

Matt is later walking with Milla, and senses something. He asks her if she remembered who to go to and who to call if the worst was to happen. Now is that time. She runs off.



That's Sano. Remember him? He was the yakuza from 'Hardcore' who tried making a play for Hell's Kitchen only to get his ass handed to him by Typhoid Mary. Guess he brought more people with him this time around.

#57 opens with Ben Urich once again talking to the mystery person. He explains why none of Daredevil's rogues have gone after Matt, and that the rumors are that Matt quietly offed them. The truth is, they're scared of him. It took a full year before someone made an effort on Matt's life.

We go back to Matt facing a hundred armed yakuza, and Urich explains that when someone wants you dead, they're not going to announce who they are in flashy costumes...they're just going to do it.



Urich says that this fight woke up the whole neighborhood, with everyone watching from their windows...but still, no one was able to identify Matt in the melee. He also explains that the yakuza have been dealing and are currently on MGH, or Mutant Growth Hormone, a drug that temporarily gives its user a genetic shift.









The FBI arrive and manage to break up the fight with some sort of tear gas.



Urich tells the mystery person that he's checked everywhere, but has not been able to find out where Matt is.



#58...









Sano explains that it was just a gift from a friend. He plays dumb to all of Driver's other charges, and pretends not to know what MGH is.



Matt visits Foggy, looking for answers but doesn't find anything. On Matt's desk, however, is a piece of paper directing him to a hidden medical center in New York. There, Urich meets the Night Nurse.





#59...

Much to Agent Driver's disgust, Sano and the rest of the yakuza are all walking thanks to their lawyers.



Agent Del Toro insists that Matt's helped out. Personally, I'm not getting Driver's hate here, unless it's Daredevil's behavior over the year that set him off. Prior to this he more or less had a working relationship with Daredevil/Murdock and covered for him when he took down the Owl.

Anyway, Del Toro says they should warn Matt when they are attacked.




Behind her, the cop car explodes.

Back with Matt and Urich, Matt is denying Urich's hypothesis about Karen's death being the factor in his current behavior.




Foggy arrives, having heard the whole thing. He thinks Urich is right. "She was a hell of a woman."

We flash forward nine days later. Matt and Milla are hiding out from the yakuza in another Hell's Kitchen apartment. Matt appears to have shaved off his goatee. 






As Daredevil, Matt pays a visit to Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Daredevil admits he screwed up big time, which is all Luke needed to hear. Daredevil asks for Luke's help in fighting the yakuza, and Luke agrees.






Back with Foggy and Milla, Foggy asks her if she has ever heard of Karen Page...

#60...




Sano offers fifty grand to the person who takes Daredevil's horns off and shoves them up an orifice. The fight is on. There's some good art here, with a beautiful two-page spread of the heroes springing into action.

Sano attempts to flee, but is pursued by Daredevil.










I really liked Sano and the idea of Matt having yakuza as his enemies. He later appeared in the White Tiger miniseries, where (highlight for spoiler) he killed himself via seppuku (which someone posted on Scans_Daily, check the tags. It's a shame and IMO a waste of an interesting character, but I have a feeling that he's the type of character who would have just remained in limbo. 

After defeating the yakuza, the heroes all meet on top of a rooftop. Spider-Man says this whole scenario has solidified his belief in keeping his identity a secret because he doesn't ever want to be in Matt's shoes (and then a couple of months later he outs himself later in Civil War).

Matt later returns to Milla, who asks him about Urich's theory that he had a nervous breakdown after the death of Karen.






The final page has Urich looking at a newspaper that trumpets the return of Daredevil to Hell's Kitchen.

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

I posted a page or two of Ben's conversation with Mila, where he talks about Prohibition and how it led to the rise of kingpins. It led to an interesting discussion on the board about whether or not the failure of Prohibition led to the near-death of the Feminist Movement until the 1960s.

It also led to me posting this:


More "radical" forms of feminism always remind me of this bit from "Just Shoot Me."

Maya Gallo: All my feminist friends agree that the covers for Blush are sexist.
Elliot DiMauro: Are these the same friends who think all intercourse is an act of violence?
Maya Gallo: Jan and Gertie, yes.

[pyynk]

Even more so, now I can see why DD fans were so irritated at the Shadowlands story. No matter what was cooked up, they'd already seen it done here, essentially, and by someone who "gets" Daredevil.

Thanks!

Exactly!

[blue_bolt]

Shadowlands took what had already happened and made a sad version of it: Daredevil becomes Kingpin and kills Bullseye and then becomes possessed by a demon. That's sad, Daredevil had already been Kingpin and done a pretty damned good job. Also Daredevil killing Bullseye was hardly wrong, it was a damned good decision. Killing may never be good, but the effects of killing someone can be very positive - kill bullseye save his future victims. I hated how killing Bullseye made Daredevil go evil, Wolverine kills people all the time and you don't see him go evil. Also the x-Force are a team devoted to killing threats and Psylocke, Fantomex, Domino and company haven't gone evil. Heck the X-Men killed hundreds of vampires without going evil - does that mean that killing Edward Cullen would be less wrong than killing Bullseye?

Re: Exactly!

[turnipseed]

does that mean that killing Edward Cullen would be less wrong than killing Bullseye?

Well, yeah. Killing Bullseye is a waste of a perfectly good character.

[biod]

Wow, Snarky!Matt is a lot of fun, but PainMed!Matt is the funnest. I laughed my ass off.
I just love that image of Milla dressing Matt while he has this shit eating grin on his face. If nothing else he sure as hell has the posture of a Kingpin of Crime.

[blackruzsa]

I know, right?

I especially like the joke-nod to the yellow DD costume of old.

[kusonaga]

The only jarring thing about this is Urich telling Milla what her job is (the whole recap).

[icon_uk]

Two words Matt, "Squadron Supreme"... actually throw in a few more "Tony Stark post Civil War"

The thing about setting yourself up at the centre of such a move is that, whilst you may be a good person at heart, you have no control over what the person to succeed you will be, and you ARE only one person.

Also, does it seem likely that Daredevil/Murdock would be THAT feared when he has no track record of killing? If his opponents were rational, it might be enough, but these are NOT rational people, they are criminals, sociopaths and the sort of person who would take up an offer of $50K to kill him. SOMEONE would have tried in the intervening year.

[stolisomancer]

You're one of the biggest Batman fans in explored space and you're asking that question?

Anyway, Daredevil's record isn't really that clean. He straight-up kills a couple of people in Miller's Man Without Fear redone origin story. Further, this story is set the year after he walked up to Wilson Fisk, the most feared man in New York City even after he was deposed, and beat him half to death.

You go up against Spider-Man, he punches your lights out and webs you to the nearest wall until the cops show up. You go up against Daredevil, you wake up six months later in intensive care and a cop's reading you your rights. This is the post-Miller DD for you.

[icon_uk]

Yes I am, Batman's villains know he doesn't kill, it's a matter of common knowledge, and one of the reasons the continue to attack him. Also, Batman has never set himself up as a criminal kingpin.

Matt here is apparently so completely feared that not one single psycho has made a move against him in a year. The Kingpin, at his peak, had armies at his disposal, as well as his own reputation for death and devastation. Matt just... doesn't.

That would require a degree of fear that it's hard to enivsage EVERY criminal being so cowed by it.

[stolisomancer]

Different universe, different rules. 90% of the super-villain community in Marvel are working stiffs: they're mercenaries or criminals in costumes. None of them are gang bosses, none of them would make a play for the territory, and most of them know better than to go up against Daredevil for free. Every single one of Batman's villains, by comparison, is some manner of criminal psychotic.

Typhoid Mary got thrown into a deep dark cell to resurface in Avengers: The Initiative, the Kingpin got beaten into a shallow coma, and Bullseye was a Thunderbolt at the time. Daredevil doesn't have any other major "rogues" worth speaking of who'd take a poke at him just for the sake of taking a poke at him, and him standing over a bloody, broken Wilson Fisk and saying, "Bring it if you're bringing it" would be enough to get most of the normal criminals out of the picture.

[kenwyn89]

He's also one of the best who can at least tell when an attack is coming, but the whole OYL thing in comics doesn't work because comics can spend ten years depicting a single year in the life of a character (USM I'm looking at you).

[darkknightjrk]

"Anyway, Daredevil's record isn't really that clean."

Not to mention Born Again, where he shot down a helicopter with a rocket launcher that was gunning down innocent people in Hell's Kitchen.

[filthysize]

I think the most hilarious thing about this story, to me, is the explanation for Hell's Kitchen gentrification.

Let's face it: for years before that, you read Matt and Foggy and Urich talk about how dangerous and gritty "the Kitchen" is and you just have to snicker. Yes, citizens beware! Aspiring actors and tourists are on the prowl! Help us, Daredevil!

But it's a narrative necessity, I think, that you just had to let go and not nitpick. Then in 2006, Bendis finally acknowledged the real-world change in the neighborhood, and made Matt be the one responsible for it. It's actually rather poignant.

[glprime]

Thanks so much for posting the park scene where everyone's in their civvies.