Sunday, February 26, 2012

Dardevil #8: "Devil and the Details" Part 2

**** (four of five stars)

Favorite Quote:  "I think this is my super villain origin."  -- Spidey, observing DD and the Cat kissing, with possibly the funniest single line I've ever seen him utter

Summary
Foggy Nelson is at a cemetery demanding answers about shifting earth and unsafe conditions, an inquiry made all the more important given that Dardevil's father's grave is being affected.  Meanwhile, underground, DD destroys the fuse box powering the electrical cables currently electrocuting Spidey and tackles the Black Cat.  She demands to know if DD is in cahoots with Spidey for framing her for the theft of the holographic device, something she thinks Spidey did by putting the Spider-Tracer on her costume because she wouldn't sleep with him.  Pete denies it, saying he didn't put the Tracer on her, and notes that they've both been framed.  The trio head to the apartment of the scientist who created the device and find him in a panic room.  He confesses to "stealing" his own device, and Spidey fills in the blanks, suggesting that he planned to sell it "to a third party for crazy money."  The scientist confirms that he was intending to sell it to a company called Terra-One and that it was the buyers' idea to frame the Cat and turn her against Spidey (so she wouldn't go to him for help).  Just as Spidey is wondering why the buyers let him live to frame him, Daredevil smells poison in his sweat, announcing that he has ten minutes to live.  Spidey takes the scientist to the hospital while the Cat and DD head to Terra-One to recover the device.  DD hypothesizes that Terra-One is a front for a criminal organization, expositing that his possession of something called the Omegadrive detailing the operations of the world's largest crime organizations has made him paranoid.  The Cat and DD split to investigate Terra-One's HQ and DD recovers the device (after easily making his way through a group of holographic villains).  Felicia seduces him on the rooftop while DD ponders two loose ends, namely who implicated the Cat and why?  In a flashback, it's revealed that Felicia, while exploring the HQ, runs into the mastermind, who reveals he's with the Black Spectre criminal organization and arranged the entire frame, hoping to offer her unconditional freedom in order to convince her to steal the Omegadrive from DD.  (Now, he offers her money.)  DD and the Cat continue kissing on the rooftop, which Spidey observes, and move to DD's apartment, where they're interrupted by a call from Foggy, who informs Matt that his father's casket is gone.

The Review
I normally read these cross-over issues and think, "Does [fill-in-the-blank comic-book company] really think I'm going to buy a new comic because of this cross-over event?  Idiots."  Um, maybe they're not that big of idiots.  Waid leaves us all sorts of hints at things to come in "Daredevil," like whether or not Black Cat will steal the Omegadrive, whether he and the Cat will develop a "relationship," and where exactly DD's father's body went.  It's early enough in the series that I can reasonably procure the other seven issues, something I had already been thinking of doing given the praise I've heard for it.  Damn it.  I have a job, Marvel!  I can't read ALL your comics.  [Sigh.]  Anyway, this issue rocked, if you couldn't tell.

The Good
1) Waid shows a real skill here for keeping Spidey and DD distinct.  Whereas (as we saw in the first issue of this cross-over), Peter sucks at the flirting, we see here that Matt rocks at the flirting.  The Cat had always had an advantage over Peter in the flirting department, often leaving him confused and flustered, but she may have met her equal in Matt, who has no problem parrying her thrusts.  (I swear I walked into that one.)  It had never dawned on me how good the two of them could be together, but Waid has totally opened that door.  I demand Cat/DD as the next super-couple!  Moreover, beyond the flirting, they have power sets that compliment one another, so I feel like a certain number of stories probably write themselves.

2) I liked the bait-and-switch here on the villains and their motives.  At first, when we discovered half-way through the issue that the creator of the device simply wanted to sell it to an upstart telecommunications company, I was like, "That's it?"  But, Waid has some tricks up his sleeve, revealing that the company is probably a front for any number of criminal organizations who'd want to get their hands on the device, and that one of said criminal organizations arranged framing the Cat in order to get her to steal the Omegadrive from DD.  All these revelations are really well done.  They never feel forced, like Waid just created them to advance the plot, feeling instead like they were lurking in the background the entire time.

3) I thought it was clever the way Waid sent Spidey to get the scientist to the hospital, opening the way for the rest of the issue to be DD-centric.  It is his book, after all.

The Bad
Did Felicia really think Spidey had turned her into the cops because she wouldn't sleep with him?  Really?  Does that really seem like the sort of thing Spidey would do?  Moreover, I'm still not entirely clear how she lured DD and Spidey underground.  I get that I'm supposed to believe that her bad-luck powers caused the tunnel to collapse, but am I also supposed to believe that they can conjure holographic kidnappings?  I mean, they're bad-luck powers, not wish-fulfillment powers.  I actually almost gave this issue a three because these two points bothered me so much.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, the BC/DD pairing was pretty good here, wasn't it? If done correctly(and I'm extremely confident Waid COULD do it correctly) they could be a great couple. I always liked the DD/Black Widow pairing, and would be fine with BC becoming a reoccurring character here.

    And the Spidey/Black Cat thing(where she thought Spidey set her up) was kind of dumb... With how straight-laced Spidey is, how could she possibly think Spidey would be capable of a move like that... I didn't really think of that before, but that was a bit strange...

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