Watching a creative team truly push the boundaries on any given book can be annoying (because they've made some fundamental change to your favorite character which you disagree with), frustrating (because they've made some fundamental change to your favorite character which you like but which you just know the next creative team to come along is going to reverse or negate), or both. With everything that Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev have done with DAREDEVIL, it's more a case of the latter than the former. The changes they've put this character through have been so sweeping that it's unlikely that anyone would have the good sense to leave them alone - but unless they're able to do something as fresh and interesting as what's been done here, they should.
I've long considered writing a column advocating that most superheroes with secret identities should consider going public, but it's the considerations of the real-world-ish consequences of such actions as vividly presented here by Bendis that generally keeps me from doing so. If anyone's public life would suffer from the revelation of his alter ego, it's Murdock, whose secret life as a "costumed vigilante" and whose public life as an attorney simply cannot mesh comfortably. It would take a Man Without Fear to turn such a situation around to his advantage, and Bendis explores the difficulties of doing so with a brutality that few other writers would dare to put such an established character through - unless he were Batman, of course. It used to be amuse me that some fans (and obviously a few filmmakers) chose to see Daredevil as the nearest Marvel equivalent to the Dark Knight, but when he's done like this, it's no longer that obvious a joke.
The "balls to the wall" approach extends to the artwork, since Alex Maleev's work on this book in general and this issue in particular defies description (but of course, I'm going to attempt it, anyway). There's nothing subtle about these images, nothing pretty, and certainly nothing that looks like a traditional comic book unless you count the convention of using panels. And even there, form follows function: the fight scene that takes up almost the entire issue takes place during a rainstorm, and because all the images therein are rainsoaked, even the panel borders are splattered with grey, gritty rain. The masterpiece of this issue, however, is the central splash page featuring a costumeless Murdock against a background of blood red, as Urich (who's narrating the action) speculates over how Matt's powers allowed him to know the Yakuza were coming. The image itself is moving and disturbing; the disconnect between what we see and what we read is jolting and disturbing; and the overall effect of Maleev's artwork through the entire issue is exciting, innovative - and disturbing.
And if all that weren't enough - our joining a story already long in progress, a hero sans costume or secret identity, artwork that can haunt even the sanest person's dreams - there's the revelation at the very end that strikes the reader like a billy club to the forehead. If ever anyone has the guts to make a DAREDEVIL II, this is what it should be like.
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