The Daredevil Re-Read, Part Two — Devil of Hell’s Kitchen II: The Knight in the Darkness
The Marvel Knights imprint arguably changed Marvel Comics in ways that are felt even today — from the kinds of stories it told to the changes that they made to the characters and even the creators that were involved.
And it all began with Daredevil.
But I don’t want to start at the beginning of Daredevil’s time under the Marvel Knights banner, with Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti’s Guardian Devil storyline. Instead, I’d rather focus on the two names that had the greatest impact on the character during this period: David Mack and Brian Michael Bendis.
While Smith was a big-name hire — a Hollywood director who was still very much in his prime — it was Mack, Bendis and their collaborators who would use the momentum that Guardian Devil set in motion, and create an era for the character that arguably still rivals Frank Miller at his prime.
Echoes of His Own Work
I’ll be jumping around a bit here, so that I could look at Mack and Bendis’ work individually, before tying it all up at the end of this post, starting with Mack.
His most recognisable contribution to the title would be the co-creation of Maya Lopez, aka Echo, but the impact he made isn’t as important as the types of stories he told.
I wanted to jump around because, even though his two major stories — Parts of a Hole and Vision Quest — are separated by a number of years, it felt right to read them together.
Parts of a Hole — his first major Marvel work, predominantly with Quesada and Palmiotti — is a great look at how collaborators can see the value in each other.
Quesada and Palmiotti were already established names and clearly had enough clout to be brought in to run Marvel Knights. They didn’t need to embrace Mack’s storytelling sensibilities because, while he was a critical darling at the time, it could be argued that Daredevil was his most high profile gig to date. But embrace it they certainly did, with Quesada working off of Mack’s page layouts — differentiating his work from Guardian Devil with touches of greater fluidity.
The layouts and Mack’s script for Parts of a Hole encourage meditative moments, where you slow down to really take in what’s happening, to sit with the characters’ stories. It’s one of the greatest strengths of Mack’s writing — and you see this even more clearly in Vision Quest.
While Parts of a Hole still punctuated that meditative flow with enough action sequences for a Marvel comic in the late nineties, Vision Quest is almost completely devoid of action. Well… external action at least. Instead, it’s driven more by an internal conflict — Maya’s — her struggle to find her identity, after her sense of self was shattered both by Fisk’s lies and her split from Matt.
In that way, this story shares way more in common with Mack’s creator-owned series, Kabuki — especially its later volumes — than it does with other Daredevil comics. So, naturally, Mack is the main creative force here, doing what he does best: making introspection utterly compelling — from the textured, multimedia artwork to the layouts that further engage the reader and, yes, his thoughtful, sometimes even poetic scripts.
Waking Up and Warming Up
It seems only fitting, since I started talking about Mack by focusing on his work with artistic collaborators, that we segue to focus on Bendis by talking about Wake Up, his first Daredevil collaboration with Mack.
Wake Up, like Vision Quest, is a quote-unquote small story, where the super is even more of a backdrop to the human. It’s also similar to Vision Quest, in the sense that the title character is less the star and more of a presence.
Instead, the protagonist is Ben Urich, who’s trying to piece together what happened to the b-lister, Leap-Frog, and how it’s affected the villain’s son. There are some callbacks to “The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man” here—a story that did way more in way fewer pages.
What really elevates Wake Up though is Mack’s art. Again, his work engages the reader in a much more impactful way, which is doubly important with a story that’s certainly touching, but is otherwise fairly straightforward.
It’s definitely my favourite of the two Daredevil stories that Bendis wrote before he took over the main title with Alex Maleev. The other was Daredevil: Ninja, which is even more straightforward than Wake Up. Simply put, it’s a Daredevil-vs-The-Hand type story—yet far, far less touching.
It’s worth shouting out Rob Haynes here though, who—while not as popular as Quesada and Palmiotti or as experimental as Mack—does his job well, both in Daredevil: Ninja and in an earlier, fill-in issue that took place during Parts of a Hole.
The whole story is fun enough for what it is (even if it comes to a very sudden and wholly unsatisfying end), but compared to everything else I’ve talked about—and will talk about—in this post, it seems pretty throwaway.
From the Devil to the King
There are some things about Bendis and Maleev’s run that still bug me.
Bendis’ trademark dialogue can be a bit too distracting at times. There are a couple of arcs—the Black Widow one in particular—that read like filler. And Milla Donovan feels hollow as a character.
While there’s certainly no excusing that last one, those other two though seem almost like nitpicking when you look at Bendis and Maleev’s run on a whole—a run that has easily stood the test of time and remains arguably one of the best stints on the title ever.
That central idea of Daredevil getting outed in the press is a fantastic premise—one that hadn’t been explored all that much in the superhero genre at the time, let alone at Marvel.
A great idea, however, can easily lose steam if it isn’t built upon, which is precisely what Bendis and Maleev did—from looking at the legal ramifications of Matt being outed to how the circus that results from it (together with the relatively recent murder of Karen Page) takes a toll on his sanity—all resulting in some absolutely brilliant character moments (and some badass moments too).
Those character moments more than make up for that Bendis-y dialogue already. When you pair it with Maleev’s fittingly moody art and effective visual storytelling though, what is normally the thing that takes me out of Bendis’ other work becomes, at worst, a mild annoyance.
And make no mistake: Maleev absolutely deserves a whole lot of credit for making this entire sstint work so damn well. Bendis has said that Maleev draws the way he wishes he could, which might explain why Maleev’s work complements his scripts so perfectly.
I used to say that the Bendis and Maleev run was better than Miller’s on the title. I’ve since revised that statement. The two stints are, in my opinion, evenly matched—but that has more to do with a greater appreciation for Miller’s time on Daredevil.
Even though it’s not as flawless as I felt it was when I first read it, Bendis and Maleev’s Daredevil remains one of the best eras of the character—or any character from Marvel and DC, honestly.
In the End…
This is about as fitting a way to bring this part of my re-read to a close as you could get—and not just because this tells the story of the end of Matt Murdock.
End of Days is a culmination of most of the artistic voices that shaped this version of the character for me: Janson, Sienkiewicz, Mack, Maleev and Bendis. Now, because of the names involved, you’d think this would be some kind of epic, final word on the character.
But that’s only partly true. Yes, it feels like these creators are saying goodbye to Matt—but it’s a goodbye that’s punctuated with an ellipsis, not an exclamation point.
Just like Wake Up, it’s a smaller story focused on Ben Urich with Matt almost as a looming presence. Again, it’s a straightforward story—one that feels like a last look at Matt’s world. Not a bold closing statement, but a quiet exit. Even though I’m re-reading it, its pacing still takes me by surprise. It takes some getting used to, but once you buy into it, it makes sense.
Janson’s art is wonderfully gritty—a far cry from what it was when he took over from Miller, but considering how many years separate this story from that initial run, that’s not surprising. There’s also the fact that he’s inked by Sienkiewicz, who adds so much to Janson’s pencils. It reminds me a little of when he inked Sal Buscema during their time together on Spectacular Spider-Man, which I loved.
And then there are the pages where Sienkiewicz takes over completely, or Mack or Maleev handle the art—clever storytelling choices that complement the characters in focus, sure, but also the perfect way to encapsulate the rich history of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
End of Days is a suitably grim story, a What-If swan song to the version of Daredevil that people are most familiar with. But it also ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. Which ties in nicely with the next part of this series—the final entry of my Daredevil re-read.
