Brubaker's Daredevil Part 1: The Devil in Cell-Block D

[cyberghostface]

So as requested, I'm going to start posting Brubaker's run. A warning though; it's probably going to take me longer to get these done as I'm having a bit more difficulty selecting which pages to use than when I did Bendis. But I already have the next arc in the bag more or less.

This continues directly from Bendis' run, which ended with Matt Murdock and the Kingpin both being put in the same jail.

First issue is #82. Disclaimer: It was double-sized.

The issue begins with Hell's Kitchen going to hell in a handbasket as Matt Murdock rots in prison...only, Daredevil's still fighting crime.



So basically Matt's in protective custody right now pending trial, but even then he's having a real bad time. With his heightened senses, he can hear and smell everything around him, and he's suffering. The guards are cruel and malicious, and it's clear that many of the prisoners run the place...such as Hammerhead.

Ben Urich wants to know from Foggy if he's behind the new Daredevil running around, since Matt benefits from the most. Foggy claims to know nothing about it. Outside, upon seeing the new Daredevil, Foggy puts his ears to his head because he doesn't want to know who is under the mask.

Brubaker also reintroduces two old supporting characters; Dakota North, a private investigator who functions as a mole on the feds working against Murdock, and Becky Blake, a lawyer friend of Murdock and Nelson who is confined to a wheelchair. Both are doing their best to help Foggy with the current situation, and North reports that the feds are trying to move Matt into gen pop.

Back in the prison infirmary, Carlos Muertos AKA the Black Tarantula and tells Murdock (who is getting his bandages from the gunshot wound from last arc removed) that the going's going to get rough and he should pick a side. Matt is later taken away by the guard to a detour.









Matt manages to make quick work of the goons, but the guards arrive and put Matt in a more confined cell in solitary.








Back in his cell, Matt finds a note asking him who he can protect when he's behind cement walls.ww










#83...









Back in prison, Matt vows revenge against those who killed Foggy. His 'dad' tells him he's making a mistake.









84...







Does anyone know if this Hannibal-restraint mask is used in real life? (The design was created specifically for the Silence of the Lambs film).

Anyways, since being released back into gen-pop, Matt has become a feared inmate in his quest to find out who ordered the hit on Foggy. It's easier for him to escape his cell now, and he manages to track down Hammerhead.








The Kingpin is soon moved into gen-pop.






#85...

The man who shanked Foggy is found hanging in his cell, and the word is that Kingpin killed him to cover his tracks, and that he was the one who ordered the hit on Foggy. Carlos offers Matt a shiv to take out Fisk, but Matt turns his offer down.

Later, the Punisher decides to sit next to Matt at lunch and explains why he's here. One, he didn't want to miss out on the wave of violence hitting Ryker's.




Frank almost kills the inmate, but Murdock stops him. Frank says he's surprised that Murdock still gives a damn.

Meanwhile, Dakota and Foggy have discovered that the new Daredevil is possibly connected to a mysterious lawyer named Alton Lennox.












This is one of the reasons why I find the Kingpin such an interesting character; you really can't see many superheroes having this sort of relationship with their archnemesis. 




#86...









Word of an impending riot soon gets out. On orders from the Kingpin, Turk releases Bullseye. The Kingpin and Matt are the two prime targets, so the two end up teaming up to defend themselves.












#87...

Some men who think Dakota is getting too close try to kill her, but the new Daredevil saves her.
















Matt discovers that Lennox has left for Monaco, and under the alias of Michael Murdock, boards a plane to find him.




Right after this page, Brubaker did an afterword with the first sentence being "You didn't really think I'd kill off Foggy, did you?" I have to say, he had me fooled. So it was a big relief to know that Foggy was safe and sound.

Comments

[thosefew]

I imagine a Frank Castle who is surrendering is scarier than a Frank Castle who is attacking.

[rainspirit]

Especially when any cop with half a brain would know that something fishy's going down. It's the freaking Punisher. He doesn't just break someone's neck in front of a cop car and come easy.

Man, this makes me want to read Punisher MAX again...

[proteus_lives]

Motto.

[starwolf_oakley]

I don't have much sympathy for the FBI director. Hating FIsk I get, but why does he want Murdock dead so badly?

[cyberghostface]

He explains his motivations at the end of The Murdock Papers, but I don't really get him either. Especially since at the beginning of Out he was telling the FBI agents to leave him alone because he helped out the city.

[yaseen101]

He seemed kind of haggard and suffering from pressure in the Murdoch Papers compared to his appearance in Out. Plus the Kingpin does say he's slimy. He may not be corrupt but he's not entirely clean either since he was perfectly fine with Daredevil and Kingpin possibly kill each other in prison.

[glprime]

He also agreed to waive Paladin's entire criminal record in exchange for shooting someone so they could be tracked and arrested. I mean, that's conspiracy to commit and assault right there. He may not be pocketing money, but that's "dirty cop" to me.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I dunno, swapping deals with superhumans seems to be standard fare in any fictional medium. And as hired guns go, Paladin isn't that bad.

[yaseen101]

I have to admit coming off of Bendis's run, this feels slightly underwhelming. Not to mention I'm kind of abrasive about this run considering what Brubaker does to Milla in order to pair him off with Dakota (was she his OC?) plus killing off Venessa, how he handles Matt's release and how he ultimately brings back Fisk.

Still I ended up seeing his run in it's final stages, the rest are what I have heard so I'm looking forward to how this actually pans out.

[stolisomancer]

Dakota North dates back at least to the mid-eighties at Marvel, when she had her own comic for a few issues. She was not created for Brubaker's run.

[cyberghostface]

Funnily enough a lot of people were quick to say Brubaker was better than Bendis when his run began, and I was like "What are you reading?"

Dakota wasn't Brubaker's OC as she had first appeared in the '80s but she was an obscure character who he essentially brought back into the limelight. So I guess she's like the Hood and Bendis.

As for Milla, I dislike what he did as well, but the bright side is in comic terms, she'll be back as soon anyone wants her to be. It would take the briefest of retcons to put everything back to normal; other comicbook characters have recovered from far worse.

FWIW I warmed up to Brubaker after the end of the next arc. I felt he got into his groove then. As a run, I think it's vastly inferior to Bendis' but it had some good moments.

[yaseen101]

I'm not at all gleefully at the fact that Dakota doesn't even have a tag here at Scans Daily ( at least from what I have searched).

Yeah, I hope someone does Milla back. I have fallen completely in love with her and Matt/Milla because of your posts.

I'll still be following the posts, I'm interested in seeing how Milla's break down happens. It's like how the Kingpin put it: 'the threat of something can [sometimes] be worse than the reality.'

[espanolbot]

Huh, I wonder if that con in the canteen was selected by the others to be the one to openly threaten because he was so obviously dense.

I mean, walking up to Frank when you're a convict is one thing, walking up to him and yelling about how you're going to kill him is another things entirely.

[glprime]

First of all, let me commend you for these great posts. I have a weak and shoddy posting schedule, but you bang these out like mad. Great work.

It's sad but true when Matt speaks to the memory of his father; very Sins of the Father. Matt may have been given an education, taught to think first, but he's still the son of a boxer/mob enforcer from Hell's Kitchen. He was raised in violence and as a means of survival learned to commit violence better than almost any opponent. On that note...

With the move of Matt into General Pop: Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em. Smart cons would keep their heads down, but everyone wanted a power play. They deserve what they had coming.

Punisher getting himself sent to Ryker's was a glorious thing to behold, and I love Brubaker's take on the relationship Frank feels he has with the
other superheroes of the Marvel U. He respects them, but he also sees them very starkly, right where they fall on a spectrum of morality, and
he sees where he stands, and knows where every line is. It's funny that as cold as Frank is, there are moments where is dry honesty still lend
some humanity to his character.

[kusonaga]

I remember being so happy to see Foggy was still alive. If Bru had really done that, that would've just been the end of Matt Murdock. You can kill his family, all of his girlfriends, but take away his best friend?

And I mean that mostly in a meta-sense. If Foggy had really been dead, Daredevil would be way to depressing a comic.

[kusonaga]

Oh, as for the Bendis comparison: Brubaker was definitely top notch here, but I think the biggest reason to put his run over Bendis' for me, is actually Michael Lark's art. Brilliant stuff.

One flaw of Bru's in this arc is definitely his characterization of the Black Tarantula, which doesn't fit with anything done before.

[blackruzsa]

This was an awesome run, and this part, Brubaker did well... And I gotta say, I still got worried even when I knew Foggy wasn't dead.

I'm sorry, am I the only one with the CELL BLOCK TANGO playing in my head while reading this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltBevk4i1CQ

[proteus_lives]

Loved it.

Frank is so...Frank in this.

[cainofdreaming]

It also really plays on the strengths of his relationship with Matt. They are almost polar opposites when it comes to dealing with the criminals, law and all the stuff in between, but they've still come to... not respect, but perhaps understand each other.

Franks coming there not to take part in the melee that is looming ahead, but to nudge Matt away from going down his road, that was just something very, well, Frank.

Actually, there's a weird parallel running between them, now that I think of it. Matt, if anyone, has had his life taken apart as much as Castle. Yet he's come out of it, not unscathed but not dead (or almost, depending on the writer and story) inside like Frank. If not for grace of God I'd be him, and all that.

[proteus_lives]

"Franks coming there not to take part in the melee that is looming ahead, but to nudge Matt away from going down his road, that was just something very, well, Frank."

A lot of fans and writers don't get that about Frank. He knows what he is and he doesn't want anyone to become like him.