Ed Brubaker, Story
Michael Lark, pencils
Stefano Gaudiano, inks
Matt Hollingsworth, colors
Marvel
review by David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon

I think everybody was duly impressed by Brubaker’s coming-out party with Matt Murdock, the excellent “Devil From Cell Block D” storyline that ran from Daredevil v2 #82-87, directly following Bendis’s run. It took everything Bendis had repopularized about the character and pumped it to the next level by creating a thrilling crime epic that incorporated and twisted the cliches of crime fiction, prison operas and the superhero story. It was pretty goddamn great.

But then… seeming stagnancy. We’re almost two years past that point, and all we’ve gotten are echoes and reaffirmations of Bendis’s ballsy changes - the there-but-not-quite secret identity, the blurring of the line between public and private personae, the perma-tortured outlook that ultimately comes off like a parody of Frank Miller. I think everyone was pretty sick of Murdock getting his life shat all over in a neverending vicious cycle, from Smith to Mack to Bendis to Brubaker. It was time for a change.

So the legendary team of Gotham Central was brought together for “Cruel & Unusual,” a shockingly straightforward Daredevil-fights-the-shitty-people-with-brawn-and-wits story that didn’t sacrifice complexity and intelligence for traditionalism. It certainly wasn’t hurt by the nerd-oh-wow factor of reuniting the legendary Gotham Central team of Brubaker, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark. And now we’ve got the spark for the next (according to Brubaker) three stories ignited in the first part of his latest arc, “Lady Bullseye.”

I know there’s been a lot of fairly understandable negative fan reaction to the concept, as it seems to be another iteration of the pattern that led to Mighty Avengers‘ Lady Ultron, as well as the herald of an invasion by DC’s fundamental “legacy character” concept. After reading the issue, I’m certainly not going to claim either camp will be completely satisfied, but it’s clear that there is a reason for this new character and she likely would have existed in one form or another regardless of her namesake’s current pseudo-incapacitation with the Thunderbolts.

Really, though, the question is, how’s the issue? And the best response I can give is that, for the first time in quite a while, Daredevil has shifted from being a book I maintained a steady but largely academic interest in to something I am pretty goddamn excited about reading the next installment of. The first part of “Lady Bullseye” is concise and effective, establishing the narrative topography for new readers while stimulatingly clarifying it for old. Most importantly, though, it reestablishes that sense of the unknown that permeated the best parts of Bendis’s run, such as “Out” and “Hardcore,” taking place in a no-man’s-land where it really feels like anything can go as long as it stands within the boundaries of these characters. And due to recent events, the characters in Daredevil have formulated pretty damn wide boundaries.

Is it an utterly perfect issue? No - Brubaker’s recognized issues with overdramatic monologue are still pretty apparent, and the arc’s titular character has an almost obnoxiously cliched backstory (at least in its initial telling). However, for the first time in quite a while, I’m excited about the future of the story, and I feel that Brubaker may yet live up to the creative pedigree established by Miller, Nocenti and Bendis despite a seemingly-repetitive recent section of his run. He’s clearly learned from his recent experience working with Matt Fraction on Iron Fist, and fans of that sort of history-spanning examination of previously-obscured elements of the Marvel Universe will probably find a lot to enjoy in this opening chapter.