Daredevil #4: (Know Fear pt. 4)

You’ll find out just where the line is from both sides of it. You’ll go deep into how heroes like Daredevil see the Punisher and how he sees them. There’s not much respect shared, and things get ugly very quickly.

Starting with the subtle change in Marco Checchetto’s pencil’s, this issue gets a little rough around the edges. Things become a little tenser and Checchetto reflects that in his art. It’s unsettling, it’s claustrophobic, secluded, and really speaks to the schizophrenic energy as the action unfolds between Frank and Matt.

Checchetto lets fans of Daredevil know he respects what’s come before with artistic callbacks to David Mazzucchelli and John Romita Jr. But his layouts, his character work, and the way he builds out the terse feel of the script are nearly sublime. He draws great action without getting too lost in pin-up stances and splash page happy.

A big nod to the level of detail in his location work. His backgrounds are so detail-heavy that they take on a life of there own and are worth flipping through once you’ve finished reading again just to appreciate the effort.

Sunny Gho’s coloring is a perfect match for the art and themes of the story. Washed in greys and sinister tones, the bleak nature of the great color work hits all that much harder when interrupted by the gunfights and jarring moments of violence. The use of reds and whites to break up the grunge are all the more effective and so well utilized.

Now for Chip Zdarsky. Isn’t he supposed to be the funny guy? More in the vein of writers who write with humor and banter and bright, bounding, heroes?

He makes this issue a descent. A constant stare down as Frank tries to pull Daredevil down to his level and Matt, for all his been through in the events of this opening arc, struggles to deny that.

It’s brilliant writing as Daredevil so casually writes the Punisher off as a psychopath, but Frank is written with such self-assurance, such a clear grasp on his character. Even the small inconsistencies in the writing only play further to the dichotomy and the divide between the two. There’s a change in the way Frank and Matt’s relationship has been previously written. Just a subtle one. But it is the true strength of this issue.

Even though this interlude of sorts takes up the bulk of the issue there’s still ample space given to the wider story arc. The fallout from the last issue for Detective Cole, the NYPD, and the Kingpin is handled efficiently but still has a lot of meat on it. It touches on previous issues and moves the story into the next issue.