Daredevil #7

[kojiro]

Daredevil asks Maggie why she left. She says it was to save him.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

I KNEW IT!

people were so quick to jump on Matt's dad was an abuser. instead we get a pretty frank conversation about how post partum depression was treated in the late 70 (hell even the 80s and 90's weren't much better)

[freezer]

people were so quick to jump on Matt's dad was an abuser.

Because that's what we were shown (see also: Tony Stark sabotaging the Gamma Bomb).

[shadowpsykie]

no we were not shown Matt's dad being an abuser. we were shown a scene with no actions taking place. Yes, sure it was meant to imply one thing... but the thing about these "secrets revealed" type stories is that they should never be taken at face value.

I mean, sure, people jumped to Tony sabotaging the gama bomb because, let's face it, it's drunk era Tony Stark... it's totally something in his perview. Matt's dad on the other hand, was always seen as a caring and loving guy. it just surprised me people jumped there only having seen the stage set and not seeing what lead to it, or what actually happned

[mrstatham]

This is exactly the same thing that happened during Simone's second Birds of Prey run. People were basically tearing her down because she'd appeared to have killed off the two gay characters she'd brought it, despite her saying they didn't know the full story, and people ignored her. When Savant and Creote turned out to be alive, no-one apologised, and that's why she stopped coming here.

So I wasn't surprised by the reaction to the 'original' version of that scene, last month, at all.

[tugrul]

She used to come here?

[mrstatham]

She used to appear pretty frequently on one of S_D's previous iterations, yes.

[nyadnar17]

The Tony Stark thing turned out pretty great as well. I understand that a lot of comic fans have been hurt for a long time by all the Grimdark, but at least with Marvel and Especially with Mark Ward I hope people are starting to trust a bit more.

[ablackraptor]

It seems to be a thing with Marvel recently. A lot of people still give them shit over the angst-party during the 00s and Quesada's run, but Marvel NOW has really done a lot for adding fun back to comics. While the tone varies from book-to-book, and the quality in some cases leaves a lot to be desired, Marvel have a good amount of fun in their books.

Mark Waid especially is good with this since he knows that tone isn't important to writing a good story; he can use any kind of tone in his work, but he uses it when it fits instead of making things super grimdark or super silly all the time.

[ablackraptor]

The weird thing is, and I said it then as well, people were quick to complain about it because it came out of nowhere...even though Jack was retconned into being abusive during Miller's run, so it wasn't even a new idea, just an idea we all seem to have ignored because it makes things overly complicated, and Jack as a 'tough guy who loved his son dearly' is much more appealing.

[silverhammerman]

I think a big part of the reason that few posters raised doubts about the first flashback is that no one wanted to be seen as defending a domestic abuser, even a fictional one, which is explicitly what the flashback seemed to position Jack Murdock as. I actually did figure there would be a twist, but I was careful to word my thoughts on the matter around Mark Waid and the actual writing process.

Really I just don't think anyone in the community was comfortable saying "Well we don't know what happened, maybe she was asking for it!"

[starwolf_oakley]

Well, this isn't "The Fixer had his goons beat up Maggie so Jack wouldn't quit boxing" like I thought.

[kd_the_movie]

I love this art. One thing (among many others) that Marvel is doing better than DC is maintaining a particular art style for certain books. In the case of Daredevil, every artist and colorist on the book maintains a clean, soft, look that has a bright palette of colors.. I dont think the book has had a badly drawn issue yet.

[flint_marko]

Shuri was pretty villainous in this issue, though given how she was acting in New Avengers I guess it's not really out of character.

[kumahige]

I am actually glad we got this explanation as to why Sister Maggie abandoned his son rather than the strange explanation that was given on the Battling Murdock mini-series. I seem to recall that one as she abandoning Jack Murdock at the same moment she presented him their son as well as telling him about "having sinned" so I was under the impression she left her baby son because of misaimed religious priorities. Post-Partum Depression aint no laughing matter but it is a more acceptable reason for her dissapearance.

In the end, I am glad Matt and his mom finally made peace with this Original Sin.

[silicondream]

Hmm. Between this, Impulse (people think Preston's dad is abusing him, but it's actually his mom) and Irredeemable (the Plutonian's mom is mentally ill and keeps trying to kill her infants), I wonder if Waid has a specific interest in highlighting maternal child abuse?

[thatnickguy]

I feel like Waid is greatly confusing depression with, say, schizophrenia. Because I don't recall depression ever having these kinds of symptoms. That's speaking as someone who has fought depression for most of his life.

[sailorlibra]

Yeah, I agree. I looked up postpartum depression online and it looks like there's a related condition called postpartum psychosis, which includes symptoms such as hallucinations, paranoia, and attempts to harm either yourself or your baby. From the scenes pictured here, it definitely seems clear that Maggie was suffering from both the depression (she has a lot of the symptoms of that too) and the psychosis. But most people haven't really heard of postpartum psychosis (as far as I can tell), so it does make sense to me that she might just refer to her condition as postpartum depression for simplicity's sake. You still have a point, though, in that she's definitely showing symptoms that don't really fit under the label of depression.

Disclaimer: not a mental health professional, just someone who read this Mayo Clinic article.

[thatnickguy]

Huh, I'd never heard of postpartum psychosis before. Postpartum depression, sure, but not psychosis. Interesting. And that would fall more in line with what they're depicting above.

Still, you're definitely right. Depression has many symptoms, but paranoia or hallucinations are most assuredly not included in that list.

[chrys]

The editor mentioned getting in touch with an organization dedicated to it and ran info on several kinds of postpartum conditions instead of a letters page. Seems well-researched - they just used the most well-known term.

And she didn't have hallucinations - she had intrusive thoughts which is in the scope of depression (though not for everyone).

[jaxjyls]

Really should of had more faith in Waid, he's a good enough writer not to resort to such a cheap retcon

[doodleboy]

I do like in sharp contrast to the angst and drama of the previous Daredevil runs, full of revenge, ninjas, mobsters etc. Mark Waid chooses to give Daredevil problems that anybody on the street would have.