 |
| by Clay N Ferno |
Digital comics retailer Comixology anticipated my heightened amplitude and heard my heartbeat though my chest in anticipation of Marvel’s Daredevil next week.
Comixology had a Daredevil sale and I revisited Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Daredevil: Yellow (2001). The all-star creative team was finished off by Matt Hollingsworth on colors and Richard Starkings with Wes Abbott on letters. Ask your LCS for a hard copy.
In preparation to mainline 12 hours of television next week (over a couple of days, I’m not entirely nuts!) I pulled Yellow and some other books off of the virtual shelf to get ready for Marvel’s first binge-worthy endeavor.
And until ‘binge-worthy’ is decreed out of the lexicon for being cringe-worthy, I’ll continue to use the word. Order in the court! Sustained!
I’ve always been a Daredevil fan, from Frank Miller’s The Elektra Saga, Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr.’s run starring Mephisto and Typhoid Mary in the late ‘80s and now Mark Waid’s current and less gloomy take on the character. I always get a lot of flack for saying so, but I don’t think our Batman Ben Affleck did a bad job in 2003’s feature length Daredevil movie. (Garner’s Elektra from 2005 remains indefensible, natch!).
Those two films, and others like it, predated the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe started by Iron Man (2008). In 2010, Yellow writer Jeph Loeb became Marvel’s Head of Television, curating the shared universe adaptations of the comic heroes. His resume with shows like Smallville, Lost and Heroes made him the obvious choice for the task.
If Loeb’s vision, presenting Daredevil: Yellow as an origin story for lawyer Matt Murdock influences the television show we can be sure that Hell’s Kitchen is seen the way the reader’s mind’s eye is projecting. Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brian Michael Bendis, Diggle, David Mack, Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, Alex Maleev, Bill Everett, Wally Wood, Lee Weeks and Chris Samnee, Greg Rucka among many others have created a Man Without Fear that comic fans have lived with for a long time.
There was one other time Daredevil was on TV, Rex Smith played the lawyer in 1989’s The Trial of the Incredible Hulk with one remarkable similarity to our current actor Charlie Cox. Initial previews of the costume are looking more like a ninja with a blindfold. Miller and Romita Jr. revisited this look for 1993’s Daredevil: The Man Without Fear mini.
In all, I think we can all agree this is Marvel TV going for the ultimate troll. Similar to a great beat in Daredevil: Yellow are we to believe we won’t see a red-suited bicorned by binge end? Or at least by The Defenders? Perhaps there is a reason, like Spidey and his first go-round with the wrestling costume, we get it, this is Daredevil’s origin after all. Costumes can and evolve over time (see Captain America: The First Avenger compared to his other movie suits).
One wonders now that if in the Batman casting tradition if Cox screen-tested in Affleck’s Daredevil cowl? Whoa…Mind blown!
Daredevil: Yellow exists in the series of color books Loeb and Sale. Spider-Man: Blue and Hulk: Gray complete the series, with only a #0 issue of Captain America: White in existence. That book has yet to be completed, and may not ever be.
These books serve as an early 2000s equivalent to Marvel’s Season One titles. Non-continuity distillations of the characters and plot points of the nearly 50 year old history. Find my thoughts on another great DD intro in my review of Daredevil Season One here.
We open on Foggy and Matt about to graduate law school and we are introduced to Matt’s boxing dad, Battlin’ Jack Murdock, who appears in yellow trunks in the ring.
Netflix’s Daredevil trailer has promised us an appearance of Jack with a red robe, yellow letters. Jack is murdered for not taking a fall in the bout, and in order to seek justice for his father, the super-powered blind lawyer first suits up in tribute in the original Bill Everett (and Kirby) design giving the titular character the canary costume.
Over the course of beautifully rendered pages from Sale and Hollingsworth, DD tracks down the gangsters responsible for his father’s murder. It should be said that the heightened other senses help his investigation, sniffing around for the guy chomping on pistachios. We all know Matt was blinded by a radioactive liquid, leaving him with echolocation powers hyper-smell and more, right? Safe to assume, but you can never be to careful these days. Maybe you’re a Boardwalk Empire or Law and Order fan checking out our site for the first time — welcome!
Foggy and Matt decide to hire a secretary, and after many losers they settle on the beautiful Karen Page, to be played by Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood) on the show.
This love triangle gets complicated, especially when Karen starts to fall for and date the anonymous man behind the mask that is saving her from The Owl!
Nelson and Murdock’s first real client comes in the form of Reed Richards and The Fantastic Four (who, it should be noted, have their own complicated relationship with live action adaptations!). One of the best scenes is when the Fantasticar zooms up to the firm’s window and Ben causes some billable damage!
Daredevil rogues The Purple Man, Electro and the aforementioned Owl taunt Matt over these few issues, all titled after boxing terms. Book Six is “Up Against The Ropes” and draws this chapter to a close.
Loeb did pack in tons of story and the combination these creators of Jeph and Tim Sale are the special kind. They introduced the world of Daredevil and the possibilities of heartbreak, and rainy alleyways to come while shifting from one hue to the next.
Hopefully, Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix will feel more like a long movie that fits into the MCU. Agent Carter was a period piece, lauded here for its consistency and high quality. Lessons can be learned from Daredevil: Yellow that you can tell a compelling introduction in six issues or 12 hours of TV with the rolling potential to build on the strong momentum you have.
I’m interested to see how they deal with his superpowers in this show, no special effects are required in my opinion, just great fight choreography like Sale and Loeb did here.
There are lots of books to read to prepare you for what is coming next week, but I recommend Daredevil: Yellow as the number one offering — and that’s bypassing years of my favorite Frank Miller stories!
Whatever you do, hey, it’s 12 hours. Don’t be a crazy person. Enjoy it. At least break it up into two days of binging!
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
