What if... Karen Page had lived?

[cyberghostface]

The story opens with a guy at a diner (who's clearly Bendis) recapping Matt's life.



He goes onto say how Karen was murdered by Bullseye and sent Matt on the downward spiral that he is currently on.



In this version of events, Karen is not killed but is instead injured and hospitalized. Almost losing Karen puts Matt in a state of rage and he finds out that Kingpin was the one who started the chain of events that lead to her predicament.





Matt attempts to give himself up to the police but Fisk had, in the event of his death, set up documents for his legal team exposing Matt as Daredevil that implicated him in his murder. As such the police arrest Matt first and he instead comes off as a guilty man being caught.

Foggy defends Matt in court and various public heroes like Captain America and Reed Richards come forward as character witnesses.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Man, the Watcher is really slumming in those first pages, isn't he? Was this during his grim, gritty, more realistic phase? Is this how they'll bring him into the Marvel Netflix Universe?

[draganoche]

Isn't that just Bendis selfinserting himself?

[jmacq1]

Y'know, between the self-insert and the way this What-If turns out, it kind of takes on a really ugly implication that this is effectively a "take that!" to any readers who were displeased about Karen's death.

[cyberghostface]

I think you're reading into it too much, Bendis used the 'self-insert' as the narrator for the Jessica Jones what-if as well. It was just his schtick for his 'what if' issues.

Also he was bothered how no one seemed to care about Karen's death in the comics after the fact so he wrote in Matt having a nervous breakdown over it to bring it back to the forefront, so I don't think his motif was "people need to get over it".

[lamashtar]

He didn't kill her, though. That was Kevin Smith, and he's apologized vociferously, blaming his lack of imagination for what to do with her character.