Best of this Week: Daredevil #19 (Legacy #631) – Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Mattia Iacono and Clayton Cowles

Daredevil was dead.

After Daredevil miscalculated a baton throw which saw him accidentally kill a criminal, Matt Murdock has been on a path of redemption – hanging up his cowl as Daredevil to become something better, someone that Hell’s Kitchen could truly look to as a savior now that the legacy of Daredevil was tarnished by a horrible mistake. Matt looked to God and retired for a time, then Elektra sought to pick him up from his wallowing. With her help, he became something else, not quite Daredevil, but not Matt Murdock either.

But this grey area he operated in wasn’t working either, especially since Hell’s Kitchen was under new threats in The Owl and the insanely rich Stromwyn Twins that not even Kingpin could strike fear into. After convincing the enemy of vigilantes, Detective Cole North, to step up and stand against the tyranny of his corrupt police force, the pair seek to clean up Hell’s Kitchen, but they couldn’t anticipate the Inferno about to rain down on them.

The issue begins with an opening salvo of villains, Crossbones, Bullseye, Bullet and Rhino “Alex O’Hirn,” tearing through the streets. Checchetto does an excellent job of emphasizing the carnage that these four are capable of with Bullet pushing a car over, Rhino causing debris to fly in the background simbly by stomping and Bullseye and Crossbones just looking generally terrifying with knives and a grenade launcher respectively. Iacono does an excellent job of showing the carnage through vibrant orange embers in the foreground that contrast the bright blue sky in the background.

Zdarsky does well in showing the scale of the carnage as various people from Hell’s Kitchen watch the destruction take place in their town. Hector, the hispanic Daredevil impersonator from several issues back, sees the explosions and digs out his costume to help and so too does Janet, one of the first to assume the identity of Daredevil post his disappearance. Both characters see the destruction of their home and step up to protect it. More on that as we go on.

Truly, no one is safe whenever Bullseye shows up to the party and Zdarsky and Checchetto, emphasize just that as a woman tries to save her child and Bullseyes shoots the man trying to save her from the carnage. When Bullet lambasts him for killing the innocent man, Bullseye claims that he was only trying to spook her because she was, “…going to throw a baby at [him].” I won’t lie and say that it didn’t make me laugh, but it came out of the blue and shows Zdarsky knows how to do Bullseye’s demented humor well, especially as Chechetto draws his terrifying grins.

In the midst of all of the carnage, Z-List villain, Stilt-Man, shows up and his appearance is one of the most devastating pages in the book as all of the art team comes together amazingly. One of the metallic stilts comes down in front of the car that North and Murdock are using to get into the Kitchen and the force of it is intense! Chcechetto makes excellent use of speed lines, glass shattering, car crumpling and Matt FLYING through the destroyed windshield to sell the impact.

Iacono colors the background with a dark red and black to emphasize how devastating this was as well as the dust from the concrete that was blown up by it. Clayton Cowles pulls it all together with amazing “KRNCH” and “KRSHH” sound effect lettering, made transparent to see everything and make readers feel like they were in the car with them. It hurts and I feel like my body is aching from it.

Crossbones shoots more grenades and sends the few cops ignoring the order to stay out of Hell’s Kitchen flying as only their silhouettes are shown in the ensuing explosion. Hector, however, decides to tango with Bullseye after tackling to keep him from shooting more people. The fight is painfully one-sided with Bullseye stabbing him in the gut with ease. It’s painful, it’s distressing because moment earlier, we saw the poor man helping his elderly father before things went south.

Other major players see the attack on the Kitchen with different eyes. The Owl sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of the non-dirty cops and get more business through the protection money they’ll pay to avoid this again. The Owl has always been a weird criminal mastermind, but Zdarksy has turned him into a madman bent on owning Hell’s Kitchen through the chaos and fire as he leaps and flies into the thick of it.

Elsewhere, Rhino is destroying his way through the city and makes it to the Church that Matt Murdock used to call his other home and gives the nun, Sister Elizabeth, ten minutes to clear the church before he bulldozes it. When Elizabeth was first introduced so many issues ago, I thought she was just another run-of-the-mill nun for Matt to heave his crisis of faith woes on, but Zdarsky gives us an exciting return through some excellent symbolism.

Chechetto does well with subtlety giving the smallest hint when Elizabeth lights a candle and then more light by themselves with Cowles small “fwot” effects dotting the page. Iacono obscures half of her face with dark blacks before it’s revealed to be Typhoid Mary with a demented smile. Mary was last seen in the (mostly awful) Typhoid Fever storyline in which the Mary personality was suppressed by the combined might of Iron Fist and the X-Men. At some point it seems as though Matt placed her there, but in the chaos things seem to crumble.

Of course, the most telling reaction is the look of utter dejection from Wilson Fisk, the former Kingpin. It’s not a look of anger, nor is he smiling, he looks defeated and in many ways, the state of things is his fault. Wilson Fisk became the Mayor of New York City and slowly washed his hands of all of his illicit activity, leaving things to the other families of New York. Under Fisk, the crime was at a reasonable level, but between the gang war of the Owl and the Libris family and the Stromwyn real estate scheme, things have become absolutely dire in his absence.

Bringing us back to Hector, soon after the stabbing, Chechetto delights readers with an amazing shot of the various citizens of Hell’s Kitchen with makeshift weapons and Daredevil masks. They tell the criminals to get out of their neighborhood, not hesitating to swing baseball bats at known terrorists and mercenaries like Crossbones. These are Daredevil’s people and just like him, they stand for what’s their and won’t see these thugs destroy it all. Even Detective North hits a devastating right to Bullet’s jaw.

Checchetto and Iacono come together with two excellent pages of Matt Murdock and the people around him. As Hector struggles to get to Matt, we see his own strength as the blood streams from him as the background is mostly black and red from the fires, but shows brighter oranges around the pair. His last words were, “I tried…” as the blood spurts out of his mouth while Matt holds him in his final moments. Murdock had saved Hector previously after the brave citizen stepped up, but didn’t make it in time this time.

All around him, Checchetto draws Matt visualizing the people of Hell’s Kitchen fighting back and saving people wearing his mask. Checchetto pulls in close to Mudock’s face as he removes the black bandana that he used as a mask and sheds a tear for Hector. He realizes that Daredevil is a symbol and it’s a symbol bigger than him because the people have taken it and made it theirs. Made it something to be proud of outside of him.

Matt Murdock’s greatest sins are Pride and selfishness. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and feels like no one else but him can do it. This entire series thus far has been about breaking him down using his guilt as a driving force for his actions. The black bandana took him back to his roots as Elektra and Detective North rebuilt him through his senses and sense of duty – his body and mind respectively.

It wasn’t until he saw what Daredevil truly stood for in the eyes of the people that he could retake his name and become the hero that they needed him to be and the final few pages are powerful.

Chip Zdarsky absolutely slams this amazing issue by building to an epic conclusion with the first of hopefully many stories that he has for the Hero of Hell’s Kitchen. Without a doubt, Marco Checchetto and Mattia Iacono make for the perfect art team with dynamic visuals and colors that almost make you want to cry. Clayton Cowles stuns with excellent speech bubble placement and AMAZING sound effects throughout. 

If I had a proper rating system, this book would be damn near PERFECT and I stand by that and this series as a whole.

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