Daredevil #26: Elektra the Wicked Warden

In all my years reading comics, I don’t think I’ve seen better tie-ins to a big event than the King in Black ones except for maybe the first Secret Wars and the first Crisis. Each creative team has come up with a way for their books to tie-in to the main series and they’ve made them both accessible to people who aren’t reading King In Black, and most of all, logical, which is probably the most important factor here. Not to be left out, author Chip Zdarsky comes up with a couple of different ways for the King In Black story to intersect with Matt’s story, which is in no short supply of drama and action, anyway. Not only does the KIB interact with Matt, but also a very important supporting character. It’s pretty amazing how Zdarsky interweaves the two stories so that they collide with an inevitable outcome that’s logical and surprising. What I’ve come to love about this series is how Zdarsky stirs in other genres besides the standard superhero story while keeping the superheroics the first and foremost element in the reader’s mind, Daredevil is a street-level hero so, besides fighting villains, there’s basic human relationships, crime, and the basic goings-on in a metropolitan neighborhood. Zdarsky really makes Hell’s Kitchen a character that makes moves and has its own motives, He is without a doubt one of the best comic writers around today,

Artists Marco Checchetto & Mike Hawthorne are on duties this issue and talk about a dream team! Either one is fantastic on their own, but putting both of them on this book really turns it up to eleven, This story runs the gambit from inside a run-down prison, to fighting in the city to cosmic beings and none of it seems out of place or “off” in the least, The pages that focus on Matt are indeed on the darker side, good old grim and gritty, if you will, The pages that take place outside of the prison are like night and day in comparison, The natural light flows in and there’s a really different tone, even when the mood is dark. I’d love to see more team-up issues with these artists.