Tag Archives: Tenfingers

Oct 26 2017

The Universal Immigrant Experience in Daredevil 28

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

For a long time, America celebrated the fact that it was a country made up of immigrants. People pointed to visionaries such as Albert Einstein, John Muir, and Hakeem Olajuwon to show that immigrants not only contributed to our country, but led it. However, the narrative around immigrants has changed lately, and, like all things these days, has been politicized. The result of this is that America has forgotten the value of immigrants, and with that has forgotten to care about them as human beings. This, in turn, is what drives Sam Chung to betray Daredevil, but it’s also why it’s so easy to understand why he did it. Continue reading →

Oct 18 2017

Killing Hope in Daredevil 27

by Drew Baumgartner

Daredevil 27

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

When you walk through the garden
You gotta watch your back.
Well I beg your pardon
Walk the straight and narrow track.
If you walk with Jesus
He’s gonna save your soul.
You gotta keep the devil
Way down in the hole.

Tom Waits, Way Down in the Hole

There are plenty of great morals to learn from The Wire, but one that left the biggest impression on me is the thought that many Americans simply don’t have access to the American Dream. Each successive series does a great job of detailing why both policing and education fail to end the drug trade, why politics fail to fix the police or the schools, and why the press fails to fix politics. It’s a disheartening lesson to learn, for sure, but it’s one we must reconcile with before we can mount any meaningful solutions. Unfortunately, many American’s are still too enamored of the old narrative of the American Dream — the kind represented by Matt Murdock’s “orphaned fighter’s son to high-powered attorney” origin — to accept that not everyone has access to that dream. Continue reading →

Apr 6 2016

Marvel Round-Up: Comics Released 3/30/16

marvel roundup24

We try to stay up on what’s going on at Marvel, but we can’t always dig deep into every issue. The solution? Our weekly round-up of titles coming out of Marvel Comics. Today, we’re discussing Daredevil 5, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur 5, and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 6.

slim-banner4 Continue reading →

Mar 2 2016

Daredevil 4

daredevil 4

Today, Ryan D. and Spencer are discussing Daredevil 4, originally released February 24th, 2016.

Ryan D.: Sometimes, as a lover of comics, I feel like I need to make even my objective voice take a step back. A friend asked who my favorite superhero is. I answered with Daredevil. I love DD for the fact that he is very mortal in a multiverse of gods and supermen. His human story of a boy who grew up blind and parentless while still having the temerity to finish law school and start his own practice is just as compelling as his mask. I related to the Irish-Catholic-American guilt with which the character often struggles, and I love that, unlike many characters who guard the earth from cosmic threats such as Galactus, Daredevil just wants to keep his neighborhood safe. The noir-rich Brubaker and Bendis runs on the series opened my eyes to places I did not know superheroes could go, and the Mark Waid return to the swashbuckler proved to be a delight.

But we have a “new and improved” Daredevil now, one who has One More Day‘d away his previously very public identity, who now sits on the side of prosecution instead of defense and even totes a sidekick. Taking my step back and knowing that this run has no intentions of being the DD of yore, I have been interested in seeing when the character, plot, and art might all fall into their respective, complimentary rhythms, and I am unsure as to whether issue number four takes any steps forward or backward in this regard. Continue reading →

Dec 3 2015

Daredevil 1

Alternating Currents: Daredevil 1, Drew and Patrick

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Daredevil 1, originally released December 2nd, 2015.

You might know me as Matt Murdock, defence attorney, here to help. That guy’s gone.

Matt Murdock, Daredevil 1

Drew: We’re living in the age of the comics auteur. We may not have yet settled exactly who the auteur is in a work that is written, drawn, colored, lettered, and edited by five (or more) different people, but so long as they work together in largely uninterrupted runs, we don’t really need to. That is to say, we may not be able to assign auteurship to one individual on, say, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s run on Daredevil, but we can appreciate that they brought a distinct set of sensibilities to the character that are unique to their collaboration. On the whole, I think this is a good thing — it allows creators to play to their own strengths and follow their own interests — but it makes the prospect of following a beloved run particularly daunting. What works for one creative team might not work for another, which means that anything from costumes and character designs to theme and overall tone might be subject to change. Indeed, with the freedom (and perhaps pressure) for each team to bring their own take on the character, those changes are unavoidable. Daredevil 1 features plenty of changes from its previous volume, but writer Charles Soule and artist Ron Garney quickly set about showing why those changes are going to work. Continue reading →