Daredevil #5

[arbre_rieur]

"I think I'm being kind by calling cynicism an emotion, but as a point of reference, let's call it an emotion--that has been the overriding emotion in American super-hero comics for the last ten years or so. And that makes me batshit insane. As a status quo, I find it morally repellent..." -- Mark Waid

Most of this issue is a flashback to two months prior:

Comments

[philippos42]

Is it just me, or is Waid playing Hank Pym very Ray Palmer-like here?

That whole thing of suddenly having to disappear from your previous life sounds like Witness Protection. That's its own kind of maddening.

[aperturedreams]

Plus foggy has been in actual witness protection before

[dr_archeville]

"He can't attack the tumor itself any more effectively than the chemo"

Why? Why can't he, a sapient being small enough to surf on red blood cells & equipped with an energy rifle, attack the tumor itself more effectively than non-sentient chemicals?

(Other than not wanting people with superpowers to actually be able to cure/solve anything 'real' like cancer.)

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, that's what I want to know! He should be able to see the difference between tumour cells and normal cells and excise the tumour cells. Or at least have a surgeon remove the majority of the tumour then have Hank Pym to clean up any remaining cells (the line between which is of course the main issue with real life cancer surgery).

And if you don't want people with superpowers to solve anything real, don't put those kind of real problems in a comic book with those kinds of superpowers. I actually stopped reading the comic the moment Waid gave Foggy cancer, because that's bullshit. And I was really enjoying the series otherwise.

[mrstatham]

This. I can understand that Waid has a dislike for the negativity and the cynicism of mainstream superhero comics in the past decade or more, but it's really, oddly telling to me that while he has really made a good show of why Matt and Foggy connect, he's had to do it with one of the most obvious 'hard-hitting' plot devices of all, and one that now involves repeating a plot point from Brubaker's run.

Saying 'Hank can't fix article Y of this problem' just feels really weak. Why bother invoking it at all? Or why not develop some of the current, new research surrounding the idea of attacking cancer cells with new processes but advise that, much like our world, it's experimental? Really, it just feels like an excuse to have Hank Pym around to shrink Foggy. Which.. Fine. You need to tell the story. But it shouldn't be so transparent.

Man vs Tumor locked in Mortal Kombat...

[sir_razorback]

I think the problem would be scale. Sure, he can get down to the size of the tumor, but how fast can he deal with it? Would he be able to make a difference vs the rate of cell division? Just trying to think of a different spin for an answer.

Re: Man vs Tumor locked in Mortal Kombat...

[bruinsfan]

This sounds good to me. There's not really a happy medium of size that Pym could use - he'd have to be as small as cells themselves to move freely through the body without damaging it, and at that size interacting with millions of cells could become too big a job to tackle effectively.

[espanolbot]

Heh heh heh, it's funny because Black Panther's country are established as having the cure for cancer, but aren't willing to share it with the rest of the world.




Come to think of it, Norman Osborn also had a cancer cure, but he decided to turn it into an anti-Deadpool weapon than, you know, try to capitalise on it.

[sindra]

Hank Pym....who is on par with the Illuminati, who currently can stop incursions from alternate Earths from destroying the planet....can't find an effective way of fighting cancer cells at the sub-atomic level.

*best Brian Cox fake Irish accent* I'll believe that when me shit turns purple...and smells like rainbow sherbert!

[aperturedreams]

Stoping implies they do something more than blow up the other earth killing billions of people

[thezmage]

They haven't destroyed another Earth yet, to the best of my knowledge.

[nate_abril96]

(SPOILER):
I wouldn't be so sure about that...

[cyberghostface]

Wakanda knows but they're hoarding it.

[thanekos]

I'm kind of surprised only the climax of that conflict was a fakeout, instead of the whole thing.

(But then, where would Matt and Hank get a mecha!Leapfrog, and who would they get to first drive it?)

[bruinsfan]

The whole thing being a set-up seems a lot more likely than that particular set of circumstances turning up just when needed (and Matt being able to improvise perfectly to make use of it without prior knowledge).