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pluckyredhead · 6 years

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Daredevil 101: Kingpin Murdock

Last time, Matt went out on a disastrous date with Milla Donovan and took out the Owl’s criminal organization. Things continue to go wrong personally and right criminally in this installment.

Content warning: harmful displays of mental illness, violence against women, domestic violence, some fairly sadistic violence from Matt, mention of suicide, threats against sex workers.

We begin with Fisk - out of the hospital and with his vision restored - putting his house back in order. For starters, he gives the FBI enough evidence to put the Owl away for a very long time:

FBI Man Whose Name I Forget isn’t thrilled to be working with Fisk, but he doesn’t have anything on him so he has to go along with it.

Fisk also finds Typhoid Mary. She has had extensive therapy, mostly hypnotism focused, that has helped her lock away her Typhoid personality and actually become a successful soap opera actress in her Mary personality. Fisk basically backhands her across the face, which undoes the hypnotism and turns her back into Typhoid. It’s pretty fucked up.

Meanwhile, Matt has asked Milla out again and despite the misgivings we saw last time she accepts. Once again, we don’t see the date itself, just see them returning home, accompanied by Jessica as Matt’s bodyguard...when Typhoid attacks and uses her pyrokinesis to set Matt on fire:

Luckily, Luke has just arrived on the scene to take Jessica to lunch, and between him and Jessica they manage to take Typhoid down:

Yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable with two superpowered people beating up a deeply unwell woman while she screams. I think this scene is supposed to be funny? But it’s just disturbing.

The police take Mary away, Luke and Jessica go on their date, and Foggy puts Milla to bed (she’s very shaken) while Matt meditates in his underwear because, well, he’s Matt.

Once Milla wakes up, Matt climbs in bed with her. She starts feeling out the scars on his torso, but accidentally touches the wrong one:

Okay. So this scene is legitimately pretty hot - the low light and the intimacy and the fondling and the hey hey. I’m into it. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to see real chemistry between Matt and Milla...

...and then he hits her.

It’s just a smack on the hand, and he doesn’t really hurt her, even if she is still rubbing her hand in the next panel. But. This is only the fourth time they’ve met, and their second date. Milla knows Matt’s a vigilante. She knows he’s a person of interest in a murder. She knows after their second date, he went and beat the Owl to a pulp. Their first date ended with a police investigation, and their second with Matt’s ex setting him on fire. And now he’s telling her that two women he loved were murdered. AND HE HIT HER. Surely this is where she walks out the door, right?

Again: we haven’t seen either of their dates. We have no idea why Milla is fond of Matt. And this is what frustrates me so much about how Bendis writes women who aren’t Jessica, because - okay, so I like to joke that Bendis has a crush on Matt, because every single other character he writes does. Every woman in the world falls in love with him. (At one point in her own series even Jessica thinks she’s in love with him.) None of them ever get over him. Natasha and Elektra are constantly trying to get into his pants no matter how married he is. There is an issue of Avengers written by Bendis that is almost entirely talking heads of all the Avengers talking about how wonderful Matt is, and in the next issue Squirrel Girl hits on him. As far as Bendis is concerned, Matt exists and that’s a good enough reason for Milla to want to stick around (and Milla’s feet smell like vanilla for some reason, which is apparently a good enough reason for Matt to want to subject her to the horror show that is his love life).

Every other love interest Matt has ever had up until now either fell for him as Matt Murdock and then had to deal with Daredevil, or was a ninja. But this comic has not shown us any reason Milla would want to be with Matt except hearsay about how nice his tushy is. AND HE HIT HER. ON THE SECOND DATE.

Note to all of my readers, especially the young ones: IF SOMEONE HITS YOU ON THE SECOND DATE (or ever), THAT IS A SCREAMINGLY HUGE RED FLAG AND YOU SHOULD LEAVE.

(And no, Matt is not habitually physically abusive, but MILLA DOESN’T KNOW THAT. What she does know is that Matt hits people until they’re unconscious every single night. And Matt was physically rough with Heather, and also emotionally abused her, so there’s precedent.)

So yeah, Bendis writes women to have no damn sense around Matt, and it pisses me way the hell off.

ANYWAY. Matt knows Fisk is behind Typhoid’s attack, so he heads off to deal with him and tells Milla that she’s welcome to stay, which she does. As soon as Matt leaves, Milla gets a visitor:

This is around the time that writers were not only fridging female characters left and right, they were really reveling in it by giving villains lots of creepy speeches about how much they loved hurting women. Milla isn’t fridged (...yet), but this is very, very on trend. And gross.

Also please note Bullseye’s new look to match the movie.

Luckily for Milla, Matt returns!

Yeah so I guess Bullseye’s real first name is Lester? We never find out his last name or any of the other stuff Matt’s talking about.

Then Matt, as he tends to do when Bullseye’s involved, kind of goes off the deep end:

I’m not going to transcribe all of that dialogue, but basically Matt is screaming at Bullseye that his tattoo is dumb and he should kill himself. Then he picks up a large, jagged rock (of which we have so very many on the streets of New York City) and carves a bullseye over the tattoo, screaming that the first circle is for Elektra and the second is for Karen.

Luckily for Bullseye, the FBI (who are constantly surveilling Matt anyway) show up at this point:

Despite all this secret identity stuff, Matt’s willing to unmask if he needs to to keep Bullseye in jail.

He leaves Bullseye with the FBI and heads back inside to Milla, who is hiding, terrified, in the closet, which: fair enough, God knows I would.

Milla, he CARVED OPEN A GUY’S FOREHEAD. Please think this through.

Despite the close call, Matt decides to leave Milla again, this time to deal with Fisk for realsies. But first, a very important cover:

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Anyway. Fisk is pleased to see Matt because it’s tauntin’ time:

They fight. Matt wins:

But dressing up like the devil and beating up a crime boss isn’t nearly Extra enough for Matt anymore, so he takes Fisk’s unconscious body, loads it onto the hood of a car, and drives it through the front window of Josie’s. And he doesn’t even have a license:

Matt, Josie didn’t do anything to you.

Anyway, you think Matt’s gone extra now? YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET:

HE UNMASKS!!! AND TELLS THEM HE’S THE NEW KINGPIN!!! WHAT!!!!!!!

(Matt Hell’s Kitchen isn’t a city.)

(Matt leave the prostitutes alone, go after the pimps.)

(Milla please dump him.)

Next time: Matt’s the fucking kingpin you guys, I don’t even know.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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