Daredevil

We’ve entered a period where every year there will be major comic anniversaries. All of the iconic characters that were created during the 1960s—including most of Marvel’s most notable characters—have fiftieth anniversaries on the horizon. This year one of the most notable birthdays is Daredevil who turned fifty this month. Daredevil, created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, has been a popular character since his inception and has had an ongoing for most of that time. He’s been a swashbuckling hero full of joy and a gritty hero living in the darkness. He’s a disabled hero in a world of superhuman perfection. He’s been blessed with some of the best creative teams in the business and has the awards to prove it. He even made it to the big screen in an admittedly lackluster movie and next year is getting his own—hopefully much better—television show on Netflix.

This week instead of an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ABC aired a special about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe was basically a documentary discussing the process that Marvel Studios went through to create their series of interconnected movies and at the end gave a few teases for upcoming projects. My friends and I, and according to the website Television by the Numbers more than four million other people all tuned in to watch. Four million viewers isn’t going to win any time slots but it was still good enough to give ABC third place for the hour and drew significantly more viewers than the rerun of S.H.I.E.L.D. they aired on February 20th. More interesting to me was the fact that ABC was willing to air it at all. They have enough faith in the popularity of comic book entertainment that they were willing to air a documentary primarily about movies that people have already seen during primetime. If that isn’t a sign that we are living in a new golden age for comic fans I don’t know what is. However, unlike the Golden Age of Comic Books this new golden age is on the big and small screen. In honor of this new era of superhero entertainment I thought I’d take a look at the current and upcoming live action superhero movies and tv shows from both Marvel and DC.

The internet is abuzz about the recent news by 20th Century Fox to have Johnny Storm played by an African American actor in the next Fantastic Four movie. The featured image of this article should be a reminder that this isn’t the first time we’ve had this happen. Of course, that flip’s nowhere near as famous as the Nick Fury race flip.

Daredevil is a title that has been blessed with many excellent writers over the years. There are so many exceptional stories that it can be hard to pick favorites, but today I thought I would revisit one of mine. The five issue Decalogue arc written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Alex Maleev is one of my favorite Daredevil stories because it shows us how Daredevil fits into the lives of ordinary Hell’s Kitchen citizens. Decalogue is different than most comic stories because it shows us Daredevil through the eyes of the people whose lives he’s touched. The story opens in a church basement where a community support group is meeting. The people have convened there to discuss Daredevil (aka Matt Murdock) and his impact on their lives. The idea of a support group to deal with super hero encounters is a brilliant idea and an interesting look at how ordinary people might actually react to living in an extraordinary world.

Should a superhero kill? What happens if he does? Those are questions that are constantly being asked by creators and fans of superhero comics. Every character approaches that question differently: Batman never kills, but Superman has under extreme circumstances even though he has a strict moral code against it. Part of Wolverine’s popularity centers on the fact that he is a warrior who will do what he deems necessary, which includes killing. Then you have characters like the Punisher, who are popular because they feed into our id by killing criminals without hesitation and with great prejudice, the way we know we never can. ...

http://youtu.be/PczIkmgDcZM Dan is back for a Comic POW! Battle! Join us as we decide which is the better issue - Chew #31 or Saga Chapter Nine! Below are all the images used in the video: Daredevil #22 Chew #31 Chew #31 - Funeral scene Chew - Space Cakes FF Vol 2 #3 Saga #9 - Confused Saga #9 - Lying Cat Saga #9 - Lying Cat eats Saga #9 - Mama Sun Saga #9 - Messing Up Lightning Spell Saga #9 - My Partner Just Got Back from Sick Leave Saga #9 - Not Confused Saga #9 - Stalk is back Saga #9 - The Will and Slave Girl Saga #9 - The Will and Gwendolyn Saga Giant Balls Monster Yancy Street Gang and Ms Thing Yancy Street Gang

Generation Hope #15 Nightwing Vol 3 #5 - the main plot takes a break while Dick deals with Voodoo! Red Hood and the Outlaws #5 - the book once again looks exciting. We’ll see if #6 is disappointing or if Lobdell breaks the trend. Generation Hope #15 - Sebastian Shaw is brought back to Utopia and all hell breaks loose. Marvel once again teases that Hope will be the Phoenix in Avengers vs X-Men later this year Uncanny X-Men Vol 2 #5 - The X-Men unknowingly deal with the consequences of the recently ended Uncanny X-Force story line. Daredevil Vol 3 #8 - Part two of The Devil and Details (started in ASM) is AWESOME! Ties back into earlier Daredevil story lines and has great dialogue. Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2 #678 - Time travel has some unexpected side effects for Spidey Uncanny X-Force #20 - Fantomex must face trial for his murder of Apocalypse and Psylocke gets an interesting offer

[caption id=“attachment_451” align=“alignleft” width=“195” caption=“Batman #5”] [/caption] Eric’s Book Eric: I have to say that this week there was no shortage of great, great stories. I almost chose Daredevil #8 for my entry this week because I thought Waid did such a great job on the writing. There were neat twists, great dialogs, and an overall fun plot that ties into the story Dan selected in Week 5. Dan: Plus it would have been a neat twist to see a book that I read and champion being selected by you instead. ...

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“210” caption=“Nick Fury deals with the fallout of his first major defeat in this week’s The Ultimates.”] [/caption] Pretty small comics week for me. All I had was the aforementioned Daredevil #6 and the two Marvel comics listed below. The end of Spider-Island was good for my pocketbook, but bad for comic excitement. FF #12 - Despite sporting an art style that did not jive with me, FF #12 was a solid effort by Hickman yet again. I’m interested in seeing what this book becomes now that Fantastic Four seems to be ongoing again. How long can a book about the Future Foundation carry without Reed, Sue, Ben, and Spidey? ...

[caption id=“attachment_242” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Uncanny X-Men Vol 2 #2”] [/caption] Eric’s Book: Eric: Welcome to Week 5 of Comic POW! I hope all our US readers had a great Thanksgiving Dan: We were too busy eating turkey to talk about comics Eric: Yeah, the timing just didn’t work out with comics being released on Wed. Dan: I didn’t even buy last week’s comics until this week myself ...