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im lazy!!!!!!!!

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alright mike-enjoyers, this can't be an accident, right? like. this has gotta be on purpose, right?

after mike murdock becomes a real person, the first place we see him is 'the bar with no name.' in ish 7 of vol 8, matt encounters wolverine possessed by the demon lust in 'the bar with no name.'

after having a rather transformative fight where lust is exorcised from wolverine and matt's white suit is stained red, we are given the above line from logan about matt 'denying' who he is.

so far, each demon has represented a sin that matt has committed by continuing to deny who he really is (daredevil). mike murdock's character was invented by matt to express parts of himself that he denies. mike murdock was also originally daredevil (according to the lies that matt told).

with this particular demon, lust, it is referencing not only matt's lust for a fight, but his lust for life and how he defines it. that includes taking risks, doing morally gray things, living on the edge etc. matt expressing those parts of himself was the original intent of mike's character/persona.

not only that, I feel like the bright shirt matt is wearing could be a nod to mike as well. but logan (standing in the bar where mike was introduced as a real person) and talking about how matt needs to make 'peace' rather than 'denying' himself feels like a pretty clear nod to me.

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Absolutely not. The last thing I want to do here is get involved in a debate about this, but I need people to understand that this is a profoundly unhealthy and inappropriate way of reacting to not liking a comic book, or any other piece of media for that matter. Nobody is forcing you to read things you hate; if a comic is truly making you this upset (I've been there! I know!), stop reading it. Take a breath. Go read something else. I promise you that the creative teams behind these comics are not out there maliciously scheming about how to make you miserable, and attacking them or threatening violence, even jokingly, is majorly crossing a line. As a comic fan, I do not want comic fans to be seen this way. We need to be better.

the comic fan’s creed

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Daredevil vol. 8 #8, "Life in Hell's Kitchen" by Ty Templeton

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BE AWARE: It's looking like many (possibly all?) of the physical copies of Daredevil volume 8 #8 that came out today are missing pages. I don't have mine yet, but here are some more details from people who received theirs today. It sounds like they're planning to do a corrective re-print.

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It's been a few years and it's one of my most prized possessions, and I want to show off once more what incredible work the artists did on this, so here it is again: the Mike Murdock-themed 2021 calendar!

    I recently had the great pleasure of teaming up with @metaderivative, @muse-of-astronomy, @mikemurdock and a bunch of other Mike Murdock fans to put together a dream project: a Mike-themed 2021 calendar! It was a lot of fun and the artists produced absolutely stunning work, so I wanted to show it off. 

Our fabulous artists were:

January and October: @artbymintcookies

February, May, and November: @foggy-with-a-matt

March: @zeapear

April: @pomegranate-belle

June: @deniigi

July and August: @a-mrrt

September: @71teenidles

December: @puffins-studio

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Preview for Spider-Punk: Arms Race #3 by Cody Ziglar, Justin Mason, Morry Hollowell, Rico Renzi, and Travis Lanham, in stores today!

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heart locket mike gif

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I'm going to need to know your FULL opinion on the erosion of Elektra Natchios in The Red Fist Saga ASAP!

OOF. Okay, here goes...

Elektra's role in the Red Fist Saga directly follows the Woman Without Fear mini-series, so I feel like I should start there, especially since I haven't really talked about it yet on this blog. Woman Without Fear was an Elektra solo comic that came out just as Devil's Reign was ending and the creative team was gearing up for the Red Fist Saga. The mini-series's purpose was to introduce big, shocking changes to Elektra's origin story. These changes didn't end up having much to do at all with the Red Fist Saga, or with anything else really, but they did functionally strip her of her agency and autonomy and made her motivations instead revolve around Matt. Now, Elektra's origin story has changed before. Frank Miller himself gave us three versions: the original, introduced in Daredevil volume 1 #168 and #190, a slight variation in Elektra: Assassin (he changed the timeline a bit and modified the character of Elektra's father), and then an entirely new, in my opinion much less interesting version in Man Without Fear-- which was not intended to be part of the 616 continuity, though that didn't stop later writers from drawing from it, including Zdarsky, who seems to have used it as a core text to inform his characterization of Elektra in general.

I know you know Elektra's original origin story, but I'll provide the general gist for anyone who might be unfamiliar: Elektra Nachios was the daughter of a rich Greek diplomat and his wife. Her mother was gunned down by assassins while pregnant, but Elektra survived. Her father, now paranoid and fearful, put Elektra in martial arts classes from a young age, while also keeping her sheltered to protect her from harm. She ended up attending college in the US, where she met Matt Murdock, another sheltered kid with a beloved but overprotective father. They fell in love, but the magic was destroyed when Elektra and her father were taken hostage by terrorists. Matt tried to be a hero, and Elektra's father ended up getting killed. Shattered by grief, Elektra left school and traveled across the world to train with Stick, who had trained her childhood martial arts teacher before casting him out (in Elektra: Assassin, the timeline is slightly different; Elektra trained with Stick before attending Columbia, though the end result is the same). Stick saw Elektra's skill, but judged that she was too emotionally compromised to complete the training and kicked her out. Elektra devised a desperate plan to prove herself to Stick: infiltrating the Hand and taking them down from the inside. She failed tragically. Turned cynical by grief and hardship, she used the skills she had picked up from all of her training as weapons to protect herself from a harsh and unforgiving world. She carved herself a life from the tragedies she had endured. She became an assassin.

Note that I mentioned Matt's name a grand total of two times in that synopsis. It's not to say that Matt isn't important to Elektra, of course he is, but he isn't that important to her origin story. The star of this beautiful tragedy is Elektra, as she should be.

Woman Without Fear introduces something new-- at least, new to the comics (more on that in a moment). It takes the Elektra: Assassin timeline and suggests that she trained with Stick when she was still a child. (It also brings in things from the Man Without Fear Elektra origin, but I don't think I'm going to get into that here because that is a whole other rant and this post is long and tangent-y enough already). It then suggests that when Stick rejected her, she still ended up with the Hand-- but not of her own will, with the intention of destroying them. No! She was successfully recruited. And once the Hand had her in their clutches, they sent her out to go after another target: Matt Murdock. In this shiny new backstory, Elektra and Matt run into each other at college not as two kindred spirits, but because Elektra was ordered to hang out with him in order to bag him for the Hand...before, oh no!, accidentally falling in love with him. To add extra insult to this character assassination, we're told in the main series that even her behavior during her father's hostage situation was intended as a test for Matt.

What this change indicates to me is a fundamental lack of understanding of Elektra's character; or worse, a lack of respect for her complexity, or a conviction that she operates at her best as a tool to further Matt's narrative.

What is possibly most baffling to me about all of this is that this change had pretty much no bearing on the Red Fist Saga. Why was it made? What was the point? The term "MCU-ification", referring to changes being made in Marvel's comics that seem aimed at aligning them more closely with the MCU, gets thrown around a lot-- possibly too much-- but this really does seem like a case where there's no other clear explanation for the change other than to shift 616 Elektra's backstory closer to that of her live action counterpart. (In the Netflix show, Elektra recruited Matt for Stick; something I, as a huge Stick and Elektra fan, actually thought was a cool What If?/alternate universe because it presented an opportunity to explore a different take on their relationship). The new backstory is mentioned a few times in the main Daredevil series, but otherwise it seems irrelevant to the plot. And that's because Elektra herself is kind of irrelevant to the plot. She seems to have three purposes in this story: 1. To serve alongside Stick as an exposition machine and provide details about the Hand/Fist/Pinky Toe/etc.; 2. To be someone Matt loves and thinks about in moments of danger and conflict (despite the fact that they have very few moments of actual emotional connection in this story, despite getting married!), and 3. As a warm body onto which Matt can project his perpetual internal musings on good and evil ("Elektra was Bad, but she is Good now. She, like all people who have done bad things, is still worthy of God's love and is capable of rehabilitation, and look! Her decision to take on the Daredevil identity is proof that she is now Good! She has become a worthy soldier of God." Man, I wish I was exaggerating.)

Elektra's appearances in Daredevil comics have always centered around Matt to some degree, simply because it is his comic. There's miles of difference between reading a DD comic with Elektra cameos and reading an Elektra solo series. But that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating to have comics like the Blackman/Del Mundo run, or the Dark Reign solo tie-in, that delve so deeply into Elektra's rich psyche, that truly do look at her worldview in a way that is complex and morally difficult and so, so compelling, and then to have comics like this where she barely even feels present because so little effort has been made to do anything other than slap some vague morality lessons onto her and make sure she and Matt sleep together every other issue.

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I can't get over the fact that Daredevil roasting Tony in Civil War ("Sleep well, Judas") is supposed to be Danny and not Matt

What can I say? Danny's good at what he does.

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TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY!

Milla Appreciation Day 2024

We are only one month away from one of my favorite events of the year: Milla Appreciation Day! For anyone who might be unfamiliar, Milla Appreciation Day is a time to celebrate, remember, and all-around nerd out about Milla Donovan, an extremely cool Daredevil character who has been trapped in comic book limbo for sixteen years now. (If there's anyone who has not yet had the pleasure of meeting Milla, go check out my reading list for her.)

Milla Appreciation Day falls annually on May 4th, Milla and Matt's wedding anniversary, and I always love when people join me in celebrating-- by posting favorite comic panels, fan fiction, fan art, memes, analysis...anything Milla-related. If you do decide to join in, please tag your posts #Milla Appreciation Day, so that I can be sure to see them!

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Daredevil vol. 1 #354 by Karl Kesel, Cary Nord, Rick Leonardi, Christie Scheele, Matt Ryan, Ul Higgins, and Jim Novak

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I was thinking about how folks visualize Daredevil’s powers, I get why it’s usually kept fairly simple for the sake of time but I feel like it never gets across how busy the world is.

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opinions on the red fist saga? :0

Resoundingly negative, unfortunately. I actually only just read it, because I was having a rough time with it while the issues were coming out and so decided to put it off until I was in a better headspace for it (or until I saw a preview for an issue that excited me and gave me the motivation to catch up, which is what happened with next week's anthology issue).

As I said, I disliked this story very much, so if you aren't interested in hearing me rant (perfectly fine! I wouldn't blame you!), read no further. I really hope you liked it. I really don't want to get you down if you did. This whole run was just the epitome of Not For Me.

Ahem.

The "Red Fist Saga" is, in my opinion, a flimsy "Shadowland" knock-off, centered around the abrasive, moralizing religious zealot who has been inhabiting Matt Murdock's body for the past few years. Elektra Natchios, an incredibly complex character whom I love dearly, had her backstory savaged to remove its autonomy and complexity (that's a rant for another post...) and exists in this story as an accessory to this Matt look-alike and as a handy target of his moralizing (at one point he comes to the revelation that this recent journey she has been on has been worthwhile because it was all about God saving her from her wicked ways!!, at which point I may have blacked out from rage for a few seconds). Matt and Elektra GET MARRIED, and the implications of this massive shift in their relationship are not explored at all. And phew...the less said about Sam Chung's single scene, the better. As was true throughout Zdarsky's entire run, Matt speaks and thinks in this story like he is reading a prepared speech at all times, making grand-yet-hollow pronouncements about the nature of good and evil. He doesn't sound like a real person, but rather like a robot that has been fed a steady diet of religious texts, along with a few surface-level social/systemic reform concepts. His personality consists of being alternately sad, angry, and making lofty proclamations about "fighting evil in the service of God's plan", and I just have no emotional investment in that. I'm not Catholic (and neither, until recently, was Matt Murdock, making this whole thing profoundly weird).

There were some cool elements to this story. I'm a huge Stick fan and I'm thrilled that he is finally back from the dead after all these years. I love Stilt-Man. I love Speed Demon (for some real Speed Demon goodness, go read Superior Foes of Spider-Man, one of my favorite comics of all time). Foggy had a few good panels. I got to read Milla's name; always a treat. Kirsten didn't actually die. Mike was...mentioned (I've already griped about his death; I won't do it again here). The twist that Foggy and Stick were actually already dead was effective and very cool and I didn't see it coming at all, so I will give full credit for that. And I'm someone who genuinely does enjoy Hand shenanigans. I love that stuff when it's done well. But the degree to which I could not stand this new Matt and did not care what happened to him or what he was doing, plus the fact that I had seen all of these plot points executed already, and better, by previous Daredevil teams, meant that this story was just a protracted slog through painful writing, past scene after scene that could have been so much better in the hands of a different creative team or centered around a version of Matt Murdock who was actually a compelling protagonist.

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never thought I'd see Stilt-Man fight a dragon, and yet

I know, right?! I'm just now finally getting around to reading that story arc, after putting it off for way too long, and that certainly was one of the cooler moments. I love seeing Stilt-Man get the spotlight and demonstrating his full stilt-potential.

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Preview of Daredevil vol. 8 #8, the special 60th anniversary issue, by Saladin Ahmed, Aaron Kuder, Jesus Aburtov, Ann Nocenti, D.G. Chichester, Elsa Sjunneson, Erica Schultz, et al., in stores April 24!

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michael jonathon murdock if you don't crawl your ass out of that grave right this second.