"Devil's Reign"

 

            The following is a review of the Marvel Comics Event “Devil’s Reign” as presented on Marvel Unlimited.

            When he was a teenager, Matthew Murdock saved a man from being hit by a truck. The truck was carrying a load of toxic chemicals. The chemicals hit Matt in the eyes and was blinded. However, Matt realized that his other four senses had been heightened. He also discovered that he had a 360 degree “radar sense,” akin to echolocation. Matt grew up to become a lawyer. While in college, Matt met a woman named Elektra Natchios, and the two fell in love. Elektra went on to become a deadly assassin. As an adult, Matt decided that he wanted to use his gifts to help other people and became the crime-fighting vigilante, Daredevil. Matt and Elektra shared an on-and-off romantic relationship. Later in his career as Daredevil, Daredevil was convicted for a serious crime he did not commit, but Matt found a loophole in the justice system that allowed Matt to serve his sentence as Daredevil. In his absence, Elektra took on the mantle of Daredevil and Matt’s rules of not causing fatal injuries to others. Matt/Daredevil was eventually released from jail under time served, but continued to have both himself and Elektra sharing the title of Daredevil.

            Wilson Fisk had a criminal empire that spanned dominance over the entire city of New York, as well as beyond the city. He was an infamous mobster called the Kingpin of Crime, yet always managed to beat the legal system. Kingpin and Daredevil became arch-nemeses and battled each other countless times in the following years. Somehow, Fisk was able to win a fair election and became the mayor of New York City. He later married the schizophrenic villain Mary Walker/Typhoid Mary. The couple retreated to the mayor’s mansion.

            Daredevil’s secret identity as Matt Murdock was once exposed to the general public. Through the help of the Purple Children, who are able to influence minds, Matt was able to erase the public’s knowledge and again reestablished his secret identity as Daredevil.

            Mayor Fisk was able to find a sealed file on Daredevil, which used to contain Daredevil’s secret identity, but was now a blank folder, causing Fisk to realize that at one point, he knew the true identity of Daredevil. Armed with this information, Fisk decided to stick it to Daredevil in the worst way possible: Fisk made a law that declared vigilantism in New York city was now illegal, and any superhero was now a criminal and would now be sent to prison in the Myrmidon, a prison made to contain arrested super-powered individuals. He used the mind control powers of Zebediah Killgrave/Purple Man to keep New York City in his thrall.

            Fisk’s first targets were the Fantastic Four, who lived in the Baxter Building. Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Susan Storm-Richards/Invisible Woman were arrested and sent to the Myrmidon, but Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Ben Grimm/Thing were able to avoid capture. Several other superheroes, including Marc Spector/Moon Knight were arrested and sent to the Myrmidon as well.

            The heroes of New York City decided to make a bold move against Fisk: the election was upcoming, and Fisk was running unopposed, so they needed a candidate in the super community to unseat Fisk as the mayor of New York City. The heroes decided to have Luke Cage be Fisk’s opponent.

            Fisk was aware of the true identity of Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman and targeted her through her young son, Gerry.

            Elektra is targeted by Fisk and must contend with the villainous Kraven the Hunter.

            Fisk gave the Baxter Building to super villain Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock decided to use Reed Richards’ laboratory for his own experiments, namely to create the Superior Four, an assortment of Otto’s variants from throughout the Multiverse, consisting of Otto Blaze/Ghost Rider, Otto Banner/Hulk, and Otto Howlett/Wolverine. However, their alliance was totally unsteady, and dominance of the quartet was up for grabs.

            Fisk decided that he had to have a hold on law enforcement and created a new team of Thunderbolts, consisting of former B- and C-list super villains, to tighten his grip of terror over New York City.

            James “Bucky” Barnes decided to take Fisk out of the picture by targeting Fisk’s mansion, but this mission ultimately ended in failure.

            The X-Men live in their Treehouse in Central Park. Despite the recognition of the mutants’ island home of Krakoa by some countries as a sovereign nation, they were unable to attain diplomatic immunity for their New York home and became targets of Fisk’s reign. He dredged up the past of the mutant Emma Frost in a supposed kidnapping and murder that supposedly occurred many years ago, but that was, in fact, false. The “victim” is very much alive and well and living in England.

            Another target of Fisk’s crackdown on New York’s vigilantes was Ben Reilly/Spider-Man. He was arrested but unable to be identified due to the beating Ben had taken to his face that obscured his features. Ben’s supporter at the Beyond Corporation, Marcus Momplaisir, was able to rescue Ben by placing himself as a decoy.

            Hunter’s Moon took on the duties as a Fist of Konshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon, who also shared his duties with Marc Spector/Moon Knight in Moon Knight’s mission.

            Matt Murdock’s twin brother Mike tried to hone in on Mayor Fisk by siding with Fisk’s son, Butch, while Fisk’s other son Richard also wanted payback against his corrupt father, but Mike soon had a target placed on his head by Wilson Fisk and his legion.

            In the Myrmidon, Marc Spector found himself undesirable to many of the prison’s other inmates. He ended up joining in on the prison’s fight club to ensure his survival.

            It now all comes down to Luke Cage, the election and the remaining heroes to try to stop Fisk and his reign of terror once and for all.

 

            Personally, I enjoyed the stories that comprise the event. I found them to be highly interesting, entertaining, and exciting. I was gripped into the event right from the start. BUT! This DID NOT feel new to me from Marvel. I done several reviews of different formats of Marvel’s “Civil War” events, and there were similarities. In “Civil War,” the Superhuman Registration Act was passed, requiring anyone who wanted to use their super powers in public had to register their identities with the government and join as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’re exactly the same thing. At least in “Civil War,” the super heroes had a choice. In “Devil’s Reign,” the heroes had no choice. And I have to say, Fisk’s first move against the Fantastic Four was rather harsh, walking into the Baxter Building and placing Reed and Sue in cuffs hours after the law was enacted, perhaps even too harsh. Nothing was said, they were just arrested. That seems highly wrong to me. And the Thunderbolts were pure hypocrisy. Heroes get nabbed, but his enforcement team being all former or current super villains is just fine and dandy? This really ruined the suspension of disbelief. And the desperation of Fisk creating this law just because he got ticked off seems to be too much. And also, it would take months of litigation, even after the election, before the anti-super human act could become law, but in this story it was just signed into law by the end of the first issue. Highly unrealistic. Now, like I said, I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but the realism was just not there. Also, this event seems to have no true ramifications on other Marvel characters and series. There were several other major story arcs occurring at the time that don’t seem to have had any impact created by “Devil’s Reign.” This was released during “Beyond,” “The Death of Doctor Strange,” and “The Reckoning War” and I saw absolutely no correlation there. There might be a few outcomes of “Devil’s Reign” that will stick, but as a regular devoted reader, I haven’t seen any yet.

            Now, you might want to know if I’ll refer this to you? I give a resounding “YES!” But I don’t think this story is for non-readers looking to start reading Marvel comics for the first time with no prior knowledge to anything Marvel. If you’ve never read Marvel before but have knowledge of the characters from movies and shows, you might enjoy this. For non-readers who have watched the Marvel Netflix series (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher), this might be a good start for you as this story heavily features the characters from the shows. If you’re an on again/off again Marvel reader, I think this might be enjoyable for you. If you’re currently Marvel reader by collecting stories in paperback, this is something I feel you should check out. I give this a high recommendation, but I think you need to have some background knowledge and expect that there are a lot of unrealistic parts of this event.

            Okay, let’s move on to the moment you’ve been waiting for: my numeric score. In every one of my literally dozens of reviews, I give a numeric score of a scale of one-to-ten, one being the worst, ten being the best. So let’s take it all into consideration. Now, also take into account that this focused on many different characters in many different titles and had many different artists that I honestly can’t credit all those who worked on this event into said consideration. I will say that as this is a “graphic novel,” the artwork is also important. I enjoyed most of the artwork, but this was still a reason to have my score knocked down. So, again, everything into account, I score this at… SEVEN! I think that this was a very good effort by the writers and artists, but if the realism was fixed a little better I’d have given this a higher score.

            So, before you go back to whatever you were doing before you read this post (and if you’re still reading at this point, you are THE BEST!), I have a few more things to say. First is that this blog has a lot of content on it, not just all reviews of Marvel books and events (which, I hate to say, is what most of this blog is). I feature other content, such as short stories (fiction and nonfiction), poetry, essays, editorials, and articles. I am a certified journalist who can’t find a true job because I’m disabled, and I want to get my words out there somehow, so this unpaid job is what I do. Also, I post rather frequently, maybe once every week or two. I have a series of pointless complaints called B’ings if you’re interested in reading more of my work. I’m also an aspiring author looking to one day get published and a volunteer group leader with the Mental Health Association in Putnam County, so I am a rather busy little bee and don’t always have the time to do this blog, so you’ll have to forgive me for that. Finally, I’ll say that I hope you come back for more and if you want you can keep reading more of what I’ve already posted and until then, Tim Cubbin… out!