Daredevil #3: The New Mission

The existence of superhero vigilantes rests on a belief that the wheels of justice, for whatever reason, aren’t getting the job done. Maybe the system can’t quite handle the threats levied against it. Maybe it’s hopelessly corrupt. Whatever the reason, the superhero proceeds from the premise that what they’re doing is right and necessary. But what if they decide the system needs to be replaced, and they’re the person to do it? In Daredevil #3, Matt Murdock is building a power base to do just that.

Chip Zdarsky’s current Daredevil run centers around a Matt Murdock that almost everyone believes is dead. From Matt’s point of view, this gives him an advantage. He can operate as Daredevil fully, giving himself over to his alter ego to save the world, to make it better. In basic concept, what Zdarsky is doing isn’t new. Most major superheroes have gone down this road (with varying degrees of success). Daredevil #3 sees the first real development of this storyline, and Zdarsky seems to be headed into uncharted territory with the character.

The main thrust of the issue is Matt’s attempt to add allies to his new mission. The two people he tries to enlist are a cop named Cole and the newly minted mayor, Luke Cage. The choice feels deliberate, as though Matt’s first foray into undoing the current system and replacing it with a new one is to start removing the most effective pieces of that system. It’s especially interesting in the case of Luke Cage, where Matt discounts any possibility that the mayor’s office can achieve anything.

This kind of attempt to effect change on a global level is a new ambition for Matt. Daredevil #3’s dialogue makes clear that Matt’s goals go beyond simply defeating the Hand with Elektra, and he’s aware that there are no guideposts to keep him from straying into dark choices. Zdarsky is smart in the way he sets up this storyline and doesn’t present Matt as naive enough to believe his own hype. Planting this idea in the reader’s mind is beneficial in multiple ways. The most obvious is simple foreshadowing for Matt’s character arc. But it could just as well set Matt up to recognize this kind of fall in another character. Or perhaps nothing will come of it, with the apparent foreshadowing proving to be a red herring to distract from something else altogether.

Zdarsky does hit a bit of a stumbling block in the final pages of Daredevil #3, though. There are multiple invocations of an unspecified prophecy and a fight between Daredevil and a character connected to Elektra. The scenes suggest that this is a continuation of story elements begun in Zdarsky’s previous run. Unfortunately, with no attempt to place the scenes in some kind of context, they prove less compelling than everything that came before, and an issue that is strong for the first two-thirds ends with a bit of a whimper.

Rafael De Latorre handles the art for this issue. His work is somewhat soft, which is most readily seen in his characters. De Latorre’s style tends toward characters whose faces have less dimension and emotional expressiveness. This is most apparent in the Matt and Cole scene and the Matt and Luke scene, whether neither Cole nor Luke displays much range as Matt lays out his plans.

The way Daredevil #3 presents Matt’s physicality as Daredevil is quite effective, though. De Latorre combines blunt force and acrobatic grace just as well in basic movement through the city as he does in fight sequences. This is the first issue in the young series to showcase Daredevil fighting, and it’s a strong beginning.