Daredevil #8: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?!

Weird issue kind of sums it up with a long winded speech on whether the judicial system works as intended, shockingly a lawyer and a criminal have opposing views. Suddenly in a drive by shooting (on the second floor? fly by? OWL???) results in Matt doing something actually interesting during the ensuing panic he saves a kid and knocks the elderly matriarch of the family down, breaking her hip. Although played as a minor plot point if she dies it could potentially put Matt in some crosshairs.

It is pretty cool that Izzy Libris was in the last issue during Fisk’s meeting with the crime families, leading sharp eyed fans to spot her before the reveal which I love. Also interesting that Matt hints at something mentioned during that meeting regarding drugs. Now I’m thinking I want to go back and check out other issues for stuff like this.

The base notion even of this dinner is so odd. Was Mindy trying to get Matt’s ass kicked so he would stop bothering her? Matt is a minor celebrity (his words) she had to know how this dinner would go and def didn’t know Matt could kick the crap out of the whole room if he wanted to. I really don’t get it but so far Chip Zdarsky has done an awesome job taking these odd plot points and making them work.

This buildup was particularly well done.

The art by Lalit Kumar Sharma (with inks by Jay Liesten and colors by Java Tartaglia) is generally serviceable with forays into pretty good with a couple odd exceptions. Fisk continues to look just so odd at times with a disembodied oversized head and oddly shaped body. The other black mark is Mindy, who seeks to change size randomly throughout the issue ranging from somewhat skinny to a little husky to looking like a large italian housewife off a spaghetti sauce jar. That said the art at other points is good, and whenever we delve into action it gets much better, although I think the terrible Fisk fight from part 1 makes me want to keep the big fella far away from the action.

I did want to mention the excellent cover by writer Chip Zdarsky, I REALLY like it for some reason and just wanted to say so. The use of shadow and color is great and it seems to tell a story in one image.