"Daredevil: The Devil in Cell-Block D"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Daredevil: The Devil in Cell-Block D” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Blind lawyer/vigilante Matt Murdock/Daredevil had been arrested on suspicion of being the vigilante Daredevil. He was being held on Ryker’s Island in the Protected Custody Wing awaiting trial. He was kept out of General Population due to the fact that he was blind and was deemed unable to defend himself should he have any trouble with the other inmates. Meanwhile, someone else was running around Hell’s Kitchen, New York City dressed as Daredevil and fighting crime. Matt’s best friend and law partner Franklin “Foggy” Nelson was working on Matt’s defense, along with his assistant Becky Blake, and their investigator Dakota North was working on the case. The Federal Government decided that since Matt was Daredevil, he would be able to defend himself and moved to transfer Matt to Gen Pop. After being approached by gang leader Carlos LaMuerto/Black Tarantula in the prison infirmary, Matt was being walked back to his cell when he was attacked by Hammerhead and his thugs. Matt was able to defend himself but was placed in solitary confinement. Foggy and Dakota went to visit Matt in prison to inform him of the Feds’ plan, and while they were leaving, Foggy and Dakota were attacked, and Foggy was killed. After Foggy’s funeral, Matt and Becky went before the judge, and the Feds’ motion to have Matt placed in Gen Pop was granted due to Matt placing several of Hammerhead’s thugs in the infirmary, showing that he could defend himself and placed in Cell-Block D. Matt was approached by another prison gang leader named Morgan, who offered Matt to join his crew, but Matt declined. Tabloid Newspaper the Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich, and friend of Matt and Daredevil offered to help Dakota clear Matt’s name. Serial killer Bullseye was brought to Ryker’s, and every precaution was given to prevent him from harming any of the guards, fellow prisoners, or from escaping. Matt confronted Hammerhead to try to learn who stabbed Foggy, but Hammerhead didn’t know. Dakota and Ben got a lead on a lawyer named Alton Lennox, who was working with the imposter Daredevil, who was also involved in Foggy’s attack. Wilson Fisk/Kingpin was transferred from solitary confinement to Cell-Block D. After reading of Matt’s exploits at Ryker’s in The Daily Bugle, Frank Castle/Punisher turned himself in so he could get sent to Ryker’s. Fisk asked for a meeting with Matt. LaMuerto left Matt a shiv should things go bad. Matt confronted Fisk and accused Fisk of being behind Foggy’s attack, but Fisk denied Matt’s accusations. Hammerhead, LaMuerto, and Morgan planned to start a riot and take out Matt and Fisk. Matt was visited by his wife Milla Donovan, who tried to appeal to Matt’s gentler side. Becky told Matt about Ben and Dakota’s lead. Fisk prepared for the riot and attempt on his life by having Turk Barret and his gang get Bullseye freed and supplied with weapons. Matt, Fisk, and Bullseye were able to survive the riot, and Matt defeated Fisk and Bullseye. Matt turned to the Punisher, who faked kidnapping Matt, and the two were able to escape Ryker’s. Matt found the imposter Daredevil and engaged him in combat, but once the imposter unmasked, the fight came to an end. Both Daredevils, Ben and Dakota found their way to Lennox’s office, which was abandoned, but Dakota was able to reprint an e-ticket to Monaco from Lennox’s fax machine. Matt dyed his hair, bought contact lenses, got a fake passport as Michael Murdock, and flew to Monaco to find Lennox and the person behind Foggy’s attack.

            Matt learned Lennox’s only client was a mob-boss named Tybold Lucca, who lived on an estate in Monte Carlo, and Matt took on the identity Ray Mallory and booked passage to Monte Carlo. Matt did his best to get noticed in the casinos, hoping to get an invite to Lucca’s estate. One night, he caught the attention of Lily Lucca, Tybold Lucca’s daughter, who invited Ray to a party at Lucca’s estate. Matt was entranced to her due to her scent, which reminded him of his former lover Karen Page, who tragically died in his arms. Matt went to Lucca’s party, which was featuring a Matador. After putting on a performance, the Matador killed Lucca. Daredevil fought and defeated the Matador, and Alton Lennox and Lily were able to escape during the fight. Matt tracked down Lennox in Portugal, only to find he had been killed by Lonnie Lincoln/Tombstone, who had now taken Lily. Matt followed them to Paris, where he learned Tombstone, the Matador and Lily were all working for the woman who ordered Foggy’s attack. Matt defeated Tombstone and the Matador and learned from Lily who was behind Foggy’s attack. Matt made his way to Zurich, Switzerland and confronted the mastermind, who confessed to Foggy’s attack and offered to clear all of Matt’s legal troubles if he represented Fisk. Matt declined her offer, but when he turned on the television, he found that the charges against him were being dropped. Matt returned to Hell’s Kitchen and to his life with Milla and had a surprise reunion. Following this, Matt decided to uphold the deal he made and got the charges against Fisk dropped and Fisk was released from jail.

            Matt was fighting as Daredevil while battling the flu. Carlos LaMuerto was released from prison on parole. LaMuerto was given a corrupt parole officer who demanded money from him, so LaMuerto went to Matt looking for a job. Matt agreed to allow LaMuerto to work with Dakota. LaMuerto had a run in with Little Loco, a former underling of LaMuerto’s from when he was a gang leader, who was now in charge of a gang of his own. Daredevil and Black Tarantula teamed up to take down the Yakuza. Dakota and LaMuerto worked on a case that led to Little Loco and led to a fight between Daredevil and Black Tarantula.

            Okay, that sums up the story, now it’s time for me to put in the review bits. We’re going to start with my personal reflections on this book. First off, I will say that I felt like I was missing a piece of the background before reading this book. For some reason, Marvel decided to release the Volumes of Daredevil Modern Era Epic Collections out of order. They published Vols 2 through 4, then skipped to Vol 6, and I feel like this gap impacted my enjoyment of this particular Volume, so through no actual fault of its own, I had a dislike to this Collection, and I do feel bad about that, but I have to be honest here. The story in this book did not begin at what I consider a proper starting point, there I background context missing, and I have no prior knowledge of it, so it really harms my opinion of this book. As it stands, I found some level of enjoyability to this book, but it wasn’t exceedingly high. I was rather disappointed. I just found that I couldn’t fully get excited about the stories. The whole concept of the book just fell flat for me. All-in-all, I didn’t really like the story. I can say that there were plot twists I didn’t see coming, but they honestly didn’t help me enjoy the book to any further extent. If anything, the biggest one only just made my already low opinion fall even lower. Also, I was expecting something different based on the title and my prior knowledge of the Marvel time period, which I honestly shouldn’t have made the assumption I did, but it just happens. The issues contained in this Volume were originally published between 2006-2007, so I was expecting the incarceration to have something to do with the Superhuman Registration Act from “Civil War,” which was kind of dumb for me to just preconceive it to be and get disappointed by it not being what I wanted it to be, and if you read my review of “Daredevil: Out” I did the same thing, so my preconceived notions have hurt my enjoyment of reading what the book actually is, and it’s really not fair to the writers or editors, but it’s just how things happen, I guess, I can’t help it. And when we go into the other consideration of a graphic novel, the graphic part itself, I also found myself disappointed. The artwork completely failed to appeal to me throughout this entire book, I did not like the way this book visually appeared. This book entirely failed to hit the mark for me.

            Next up on our docket, we’re going to discuss accessibility. I know I’ve said this over six dozen times at this point, and I know there are some of you who already know what I mean when I say this because I know I have some readers who have been with me for awhile now, but there’s always new readers with every post I do, so I have to include an explanation of my meaning every time I do a new post for you newbs, so here I go. When I say the word “accessibility” I mean if this book can be picked up and read and be completely understood by any reader, even a reader who knows nothing about Daredevil or Marvel Comics. As you can tell from the previous paragraph, I feel like the accessibility rating is low as it is due to the missing background. There are also plenty of threads that pick up from past Daredevil stories that new readers would have difficulty picking up on. I really would not say that this is a book for a person who wants to start reading Marvel Comic books to begin with.

            Okay, I’ve prattled on for a while now, I think we’re getting to the point where we’re ready to discuss my numeric score. So, my system is extremely simple: I score on a scale of one to ten. One is the lowest score I can possibly give and that means that this book is not worth reading at all. Ten is the highest score that I could possibly give and that means that this book is sheer perfection. Now my regular readers know how picky I am and that I don’t like just handing out tens to books, and that to get a ten, the book has to be really special, with a flawless story and stunning art. This book did not deliver on either. The story was not engaging to me, I couldn’t find myself enjoying myself to the extent that I hope to hit while reading a graphic novel, and the visuals did not appeal to me at all, so obviously we’re talking an exceptionally low score here. So, putting all the ingredients into my metaphorical blender, the story I wasn’t too thrilled with, and the art I found to be atrocious, turning the blender on, mixing it until it is completely smooth, then stopping it, pouring it out into a cup and looking at it, the score I see is… a two. This book was a huge letdown for me, and I really did not enjoy it.

            Well, I think it’s time we moved on to the next point, the recommendation. This segment has two questions. Do I personally recommend this book? And who do I think should read this book? As for the personal recommendation, this book does not receive that from me. I cannot, in good faith, tell you to read this book. However, if you are a diehard Daredevil fan, I think you’re the target audience for this book. And if you like prisonbreak stories in comic books, this book is for you. Or if you’re a fan of Ed Brubaker’s work, this isn’t, in my opinion, his best work, but you might find this enjoyable. Otherwise, I honestly really don’t recommend this book to many readers.

            Okay, we are approaching my signoff point. I have a few end of post announcements first. This blog has over 160 posts on it. I’ve written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, as well as about six dozen book reviews like this one, so if you enjoyed this post, there’s plenty more content to explore, just check out timcubbin.blogspot.com for other posts. I post on a very frequent basis. The current focus of this blog is reviews of Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Marvel Ultimate Epic Collections, but I might shake things up and add something else in soon, you never know. I collect every Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after their release and try to post a review when I’m finished reading them if possible, so you can usually expect at least one post a month, if not more. I’ve done a review of almost every Modern Era Epic Collection with the exception of four volumes that I couldn’t review due to the lack of having a device to draft the posts on at the time, but that could eventually change, we’ll have to wait and see on that, and I have reviewed every Ultimate Epic Collection released so far. At the time of my drafting this post, there is a new Modern Era Epic Collection coming out in one week, so you can probably expect another review upcoming sometime in the next four weeks. If this review seems professional, it’s because I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, but alas, I don’t get paid for this, I just do this as a side project on my days off from my actual job where I work in a grocery store, but you honestly don’t care about what I do for a living, so that’s enough said about that. Anyway, keep checking back for more, I will keep doing this until either I can no longer see or type, so expect this to keep going for quite a while. If you’re still reading at this point, you are THE BEST! I appreciate your support. Feel free to like, retweet, comment, share, leave something behind for me to let me know what you think, that would be greatly appreciated, I would honestly love to hear from you, my readers, feedback would be very much enjoyed. Anyway, I think that’s all for now, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!