Waiting for the Trade - Daredevil

Waiting for the Trade

 

By Bill Miller

 

Daredevil: Fall from Grace

By D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel

Collects Daredevil 319-325

Why I Bought This: Way back in the day this was the first Venom story I didn’t buy. I’m a total 100-percent member of the cult of Venom that thinks he is just the coolest damn villain to ever show up in a comic book. But at some point in the 90s it became obvious his appearances in non-Spider-man titles were just gratuitous and unnecessary sales ploys that furthered no story function. And yet my curiosity about this story always lingered because it was heavily hyped at the time with DD getting a new costume and new direction. So flash-forward a couple of decades and I grabbed this off MyComicShop.com hoping for the better elements of 90’s nostalgia.

The Plot – In the early 1960s the CIA lost both a telepathic agent and a mystery virus that can restructure DNA near Hell’s Kitchen. The Hand becomes aware of this and decides they want both; and then, for reasons that are never adequately explained, about half the Marvel Universe becomes aware of the virus shortly thereafter as well leading to a plethora street-level and horror-themed characters seeking the virus too. Daredevil decides he has to prevent anyone from obtaining it and dons a new black costume to show he’s serious.

 

Chapter 0 – We see telepathic CIA agent Eddie Passim learn his superiors want to terminate him after he concludes his current assignment, so he disappears into the subway tunnels one night after throwing the virus randomly out the train window. In the present DD fights a crazy homeless person and we learn an epidemic of sudden violent insanity is spreading among the homeless. Meanwhile a random voodoo priest with a bad Cajun accent has captured the DarkDevil doppelganger from the Infinity War crossover. He manages to magically transfer his mind into the monster and renames himself Hellspawn. Next we meet another crazy person who thinks he is both the President of the United States and married to Elektra; when he is in-fact mostly dead and being kept in a suspended animation virtual reality world by SHIELD. Meanwhile at the Daily Bugle Jameson casually shuts down production because of some nebulous business man, causing Phil Urich to be annoyed because he has a hot story he can no longer publish. Meanwhile random foreign government types hire Silver Sable to find Eddie Passim. Back on the street DD discovers Eddie is behind the insanity epidemic--basically he’s been living as a homeless man all this time, recently went crazy and is now broadcasting insanity to other homeless people when he comes in contact with them. Meanwhile Urich asks some chick to hack into the Bugle computer files so he can self-publish his story. The Hand purchases a government dossier on Eddie and the virus. Meanwhile out in the Himalayas a random Hand agent is killed by a sai. Finally, two random SHIELD agents guarding the suspended animation dude (John Garrett) decide to blather about his back-story: he was a SHIELD agent who they made a cyborg; he then teamed with Elektra to try and assassinate a presidential candidate who had ties to the Hand. They fell in love and succeeded in their mission but afterwards SHIELD found him in his mostly-dead state with Elektra nowhere to be seen. As they finish their exposition we see Hand ninjas are listening in.

Chapter 1 – DD is fighting a mercenary named Crippler that works for Silver Sable. Crippler blows up a building but somehow the only effect is it rips DD’s costume. DD then puts him down with his billy club. Meanwhile the Hand prays to a demon and get female member Erynys to kill herself with a sai. Other Hand agents free Garrett (VR dude). In the Himalayas we met the Chaste, who are the good version of the Hand and they send Stone and a mysterious person wielding a sai out into the world to thwart the Hand’s plans. DD and Silver Sable fight to a stalemate until DD tells her the dude who hired you is up to no good, and even though he admits he has no proof Sable is like ‘well then I guess I should go home but if you’re lying I’ll be back.’ We will not see her in this story again. Meanwhile the hacker from last issue gets into Urich’s computer files and stumbles upon his unpublished story from “Born Again” that exposes DD’s secret identity. DD finds crazy Eddie (the telepathic homeless dude) and gets mind-blasted for his troubles. When he recovers Hellspawn is behind him.

Chapter 2 - Hellspawn is immune to DD’s radar sense, so he follows him home and learns his secret identity. DD builds a new black costume that includes body armor. Meanwhile in San Francisco Venom kills some drug dealers which somehow leads to him learning about the virus in Hells Kitchen and deciding he wants to use it to remove his weaknesses to fire and sonics. DD finds crazy Eddie again and subdues him but then Hellspawn attacks. It’s not a bad fight and DD has to use some interesting tactics to find his foe before setting him on fire and causing him to retreat. Meanwhile Nick Fury hires Deathlock to find his missing VR dude. We see the Hand has VR dude and is torturing him for information.

Chapter 3 – A flashback shows how Nick Fury discovered and shut down the general’s project that made the MacGuffin virus in the 1960s. In the present Crazy Eddie tells DD how the virus works, including that it could cure his blindness while Deathlock listens in and realizes it could cure his undead cyborg condition as well. Meanwhile the Hand is using VR Dude’s memories of Elektra to reconstruct her killer instinct and skills into Erynys so that they can have a loyal version of Elektra leading their assassins. Meanwhile Ben Urich discovers his apartment has been broken into and some of his paper files stolen. Meanwhile Venom arrives in NYC. Meanwhile Matt and Foggy have tensions (this has been an ongoing subplot the past few chapters and it always jump-cuts in-between fight scenes and in a way that seems to make no sense in terms of this story’s own timeline; case in point after the latest round of tension we jump cut to nightfall where DD & Deathlock team up to fight the Hand in a scene that looks like it should be taking place during all the “meanwhiles”—also apparently the American general in charge of the project in the 60s that used Eddie is now a Hand ninja; although if that’s true why did they need to purchase a dossier to learn about the virus and/or torture people for information. The general is about to kill DD when Elektra kills him with a sai in the back and then disappears making DD wonder if she was really there (she’s supposed to still be dead at this point, and with the crazy telepath influencing everyone’s perceptions it’s hard for DD to know what’s real or not). DD doesn’t have time to ponder it long because now Deathlock decides he wants to kill DD too.

Chapter 4 – A flashback shows how the general joined the Hand. In the present DD and Deathlock have inexplicably solved their differences from the cliffhanger off-panel and are back to fighting the Hand. They capture the general--who is somehow still alive pretty much nullifying everything that happened last chapter--and learn about the plan to create Erynys as this general is apparently the worst soldier in history: the way the scene plays out is DD is like ‘tell me about crazy Eddie and the virus’ and general’s like ‘hey here’s some other secret plan we have that has nothing to do with your original question that I’m going to spill the beans on now.’  Venom then shows up and wants to kidnap the general leading to Venom fighting DD and Deathlock. While it seems Venom is on the defensive, he eventually is able to web the general and escape with him. Meanwhile hacker chick takes Urich’s story on DD’s secret identity and gets it published in a tabloid. Back with Venom who is trying to get information from the general when the heroes arrive and initiate round 2. They fight to a stalemate at which point DD is able to talk Venom down by convincing him that overcoming his weaknesses to fire and sonic on his own make him more of a hero than Spider-man, and then Venom’s like ‘yea, you’re right’ and catches the next flight home. No sooner does he leave then DD and Deathlock are confronted by the woman who may be Elektra (we only see their reactions to her). Back at wherever The Hand is and they have successfully fused Elektra’s essence into Erynys.

Chapter 5 – We get flashbacks of both Elektra’s life as an assassin, and DD attempting to resurrect her with magic years ago only to fail and let a white ninja take her body; however she revives with the white ninja after DD has left. In the present, DD is being confronted by a male ninja named Stone who has rock hard skin and uses the sai as a weapon (this who they saw last issue and confused with Elektra because apparently Deathlock is also blind now). Also for no reason at all Morbius has shown up and created a three way fight, which soon becomes a four way when some random dude with a bow and arrow shows up too. (Also Deathlock has completely vanished with no explanation). Stone stabs Morbuis, he and DD drive off bow and arrow dude, then DD convinces Stone to team up with him to save Morbius. Then we jump-cut (flashback???) to Deathlock telling DD he needs to leave the story now because he doesn’t trust himself not to use the virus if they recover it. Meanwhile DD helps Morbius break into a hospital blood bank so he can heal himself; at which point Morbius inexplicably puts on a lab coat and runs an analysis on the virus somehow (even though they haven’t recovered it) and discovers it can cure his vampirism. DD’s like ‘it would be selfish to let you use it to cure yourself,’ so Morbius is all ‘go away, it’s not like I know where it is anyway’ but DD’s lie detector sense tells him that’s not true. Meanwhile the news story exposing Matt’s secret hits and we see Foggy and Urich react. DD then goes home and rearranges his furniture so it looks like a blind person lives there. Then we jump cut to DD and Stone following Morbius as he looks for the virus on his own. VR dude shows up--now rebuilt as yet another gun-wielding cyborg--and attacks DD and Stone. Erynys joins in the fight as well and she has Elektra’s memories of DD. She is able to fatally stab Stone somehow despite his stone-hard skin deflecting machine gun bullets just two pages ago. The villains have DD cornered when the real Elektra shows up albeit bald and dressed in white (looking a lot like Moondragon actually).

Chapter 6 – Before DD can react both he and Elektra are attacked by Hellspawn. A steam pipe then explodes and everyone goes their separate ways in search of the virus except DD and Elektra but she refuses to explain how she’s alive or what she’s been up to. She says she is only here to stop Erynys from using her evil-side for evil. Meanwhile hacker chick somehow gets the police to let her and a bunch of TV cameramen break into Matt’s apartment only to see it looks like a blind person’s home thus discrediting her story. Urich then has her arrested for computer fraud. Erynys and Garrett reunite with a cadre of Hand ninjas and gather under the subways. Morbius finds some other homeless dude he knows that also knows crazy Eddie and through him pieces together where in the subways Eddie lives/left the virus. DD and Elektra then appear and knock Morbius out. Matt is then able to make Elektra feel emotion and they hug. We then jump-cut to Matt and Karen Page talking about Elektra and Matt chooses Karen. Meanwhile Hellspawn finds the Hand and lurks in the shadows. Meanwhile DD and Elektra find the virus. They are instantly attacked by the Hand and Hellspawn. DD and Elektra don’t want anyone to get the virus, but for no adequate reason he doesn’t think dumping it down the drain would solve that problem. Instead he decides it’s better for Hellspawn to use it to change from a magic creature into a human than for the Hand to use it for whatever nefarious purpose they have.  Hellspawn drinks it only for Erynys to stab and kill Hellspawn. Elektra then battles Erynys and of course the original wins but instead of killing Erynys herself she makes DD do it with her sai which then makes her evil-side literally jump out of Erynys’ body as an angry red spirit and flow back into Elektra. The Hand retreats. Elektra cries for her lost innocence, while DD realizes ‘duh, 10 seconds ago when I was thinking I had to keep the virus away from the villains I could have drunk it and cured my blindness. Oh well, too late now.’ Hellspawn transforms into an exact duplicate of Matt and then dies from the sai wound. In the epilogue Elektra is cast out by the Chaste monks. DD uses the Hellspawn-Matt corpse to fake his own death, and Urich eulogizes him in print. Matt then meets with Night Mother and they confirm the hinted connection from Born Again of her being his biological mother and she gives him a new civilian identity of Jack.

Critical Thoughts: This book sucked a lot. Seriously it may be the worst comic I’ve ever read that doesn’t involve heroes making arbitrary deals with the Devil. I would say it’s everything people today make fun of about the 90s, and while it is, that’s unfair to the 90s because even by those standards this is a horrible failure of a story.

The story has no internal logic at all. Characters just wander in and out of this thing for the most arbitrary of reasons. New arrivals always know where everyone else is and any information learned by one character then becomes instantaneous knowledge of every other character in the story. Then we have the repeated jump cuts to Matt’s civilian life that seem to be taking place in a parallel universe. How else can that scene with Matt and Karen Page be explained? He and Elektra defeat Morbius and finally learn the location of the virus after seven interminable issues of random battles, and then Matt is like hang on I have to go home and assure my girlfriend I love her and not you even though she has no idea you’re alive and we’re solving crimes together at which point Elektra then apparently waits outside for him so they can go back to hunting in the sewers? Ditto the cut to Foggy in-between the Deathlock scenes.

Also let’s talk about the virus, which is what sets the “story” here in motion. Nothing about DD’s motivations regarding this virus make any sense. I can see why he doesn’t want the Hand or Venom to get it, but what possible reason does he have to be against letting a noble prize winning scientist cure himself of vampirism? Yea, Morbius is being a grim & gritty 90’s antihero at this point and not killing innocents; but he is still eating criminals and as a criminal defense attorney in his civilian identity Matt believes every man deserves his day in court, so why would Matt prefer a status quo that involves criminals being killed before they are arrested? Ditto Deathlock being I have to leave so I’m tempted to use the virus. I don’t know this Deathlock’s origin specifically (I think he’s the third character to use the name) but generally all of the Deathlocks are soldiers who die in action and are then reborn as undead cyborgs due to a secret military experiment and had no say in what they were turned into. Why the hell shouldn’t he use the virus to reclaim his life?  Then we have Hellspawn, whose character arc could not make less sense. In chapter 0 he’s already frickin' Human! He chooses to cast a spell and put his mind into the Doppelganger creature a few days ago, and now he wants to use the virus to become human? And not become human to return his own body because maybe he didn’t like being a demon once he tried it, which I could buy; or making himself a perfect human body that’s immune to disease and aging, which should be possible since everyone in this goes on and on about how the virus lets your remake your DNA into whatever you wish. No, he wants to become a BLIND attorney. ?????

Let me also say all the non-characters are so terrible, they are painful to read about. Heck it took me a couple of chapters to figure out Crazy Eddie and VR Dude weren’t the same person the first time I read this since both talk the same way, look exactly the same, and do the same type of conspiracy crap in the 60s flashbacks. Actually there isn’t a single reason they couldn’t be the same character and save time since by the time the Hand turns VR Dude into a cyborg, Crazy Eddie has already disappeared from the story in-between chapters three and four without any explanation and is never seen or heard from again., And here’s a little thing, why is crazy homeless dude’s name Eddie in a story that involves Venom. You’re creating a new character, who isn’t even really a characters as much as a plot device, and you have to give him the same name as one the eight real characters you’re using? Your convoluted mess of a story isn’t confusing enough? Unless of course they were making this up as they went along and didn’t know Venom was going to show up in chapter 2 when they created Crazy Eddie in chapter 0; which the way this reads would explain a lot actually.

Also what the hell is going on with Erynys? Here’s an example of an idea that could be pretty good: The Hand gets their own version of Elektra for future stories who could then become a recurring villain for DD and Elektra; DD particularly could have a lot of angst whenever he faces this remorseless shade of his former lover. Instead they kill her off willy nilly. It is not like they kill her to resurrect true Elektra, which would be an understandable end-goal-- no, true Elektra is already alive and living on a mountain when the story starts. So basically they kill her for no reason other than to make this story even more pointless than it already is. Also NOTHING about Erynys’s origin makes sense if you think about it for more than 10 seconds. Let’s start with how they recreate her. VR Dude has a copy of all of Elektra’s memories/dark side in his head because they dated when she was an assassin. This is why I was confusing him with the telepathic homeless dude in the early chapters, because if he’s not telepathic how the hell does that work? Also they dated for a few months, and then he spent 20 plus years in a VR fantasy world where they were married; so shouldn’t any memories of Elektra they extract from him be intermingled with (and likely subsumed by) his fantasy version of her? Also the Hand specifically says they want his memories of her because they are from the time before she met up with DD and turned on them, so this is a recreation of Elektra during her ruthless assassin years (which again I would be fine with if this was in a service of creating a new recurring character). But then when Erynys meets DD she goes into a rage because she can feel/remember Elektra’s emotions for him. Except you just said two chapters ago these are memories from BEFORE Elektra dated DD. (And yes, I know Elektra dated Matt off-camera in college but Elektra didn’t learn Matt was DD until the stories shortly before her death). This also brings up another gaping plot hole: if for whatever inexplicable reason Erynys knows DD’s secret through Elektra’s memories why hasn’t she immediately told the rest of the Hand? Finally rounding out the trifecta of WTF with this character we have her death scene. Which, 1) DD has refused to kill both Kingpin and Bullseye who have repeatedly done unimaginable horrible personal things to him, but this chick he just casually kills; and 2) why in the blue hell do implanted memories from a third party rise up like a ghost and flow back into Elektra when this chick dies?  Is it so hard to have Elektra just have natural human emotions and regret for her past?  This is just such a frankly bizarre roundabout way to get from point A to B.

Finally I feel compelled to also say the Daily Bugle stuff is terrible beyond words if you are a Spider-man reader. Read any issue of Spiderman ever and tell me why Jonah would shut down the Bugle over a shipping dispute? Jonah may be a blowhard when it comes to Spidey, but when it comes to the press he consistently treats it like a sacred trust. He’s stood up to threats to his life and livelihood from mobsters, corrupt politicians, terrorists and the various Goblins over the years and never once backed down from printing a story. But here he casually shuts the paper down just so we can have a subplot with Ben Urich that then never once has any bearing on either Matt’s personal life or the plot of this story. A subplot that ends with Urich turning in hacker chick to the FBI, which completely glosses over the fact that Urich hired her to break into the Bugle computer files in the first place!

Anyway I could probably rant for another page or two picking this thing apart but this story is terrible and not worthy of another minute of my time.

 

Grade F