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pluckyredhead · 7 years

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Daredevil 101: The Blind Boxer Comes Home

CONTENT WARNING: Child abuse (in a dream sequence).

After a harrowing trip to Albany/Hell, Matt has returned home to New York City. But his adventure has done a number on his psyche, and he’s losing his grip on reality again:

He’s so disoriented that he winds up with near-complete amnesia: he’s pretty sure his name is Jack Murdock, but that’s about it. He's also not sure why he can kind of see but not. He winds up letting himself get beaten up by street toughs rather than fight, and it’s in this state that he’s found by none other than our old friend Bullseye:

Bullseye knows an opportunity when he sees one, and promptly switches clothes with an obliging Matt. He then goes merrily about the business of destroying Daredevil’s reputation:

However, since he tries a tack of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, he just becomes even more of a hero to ordinary New Yorkers, and becomes increasingly unhinged as the desire to destroy Daredevil battles with the desire to be Daredevil.

Meanwhile, Matt gets a job boxing blindfolded, and takes up with a street artist/thief named Nyla. Rumors of a blind boxer quickly draw the Kingpin to the ring to confirm his suspicion that Matt’s back in New York, but Matt doesn’t quite recognize Fisk yet:

Meanwhile, Ben Urich is troubled by these rumors that Daredevil’s gone bad, so he tracks down the one person who might know more than he does:

We haven’t seen Foggy in ages at this point, ever since he quit working for Fisk/Kelco, but he’s apparently spent all that time working on clearly Matt’s name and restoring his finances. I’m loving Ben’s “lol u love him” face in that last panel.

Matt, meanwhile, still can’t remember who he is while he’s away, but his dreams have some very familiar figures in them:

This dream isn’t about anything that happened in real life - Matt and Elektra didn’t mean until they were 18 at the youngest, and Elektra didn’t meet Stick until after she’d broken up with Matt - but baby Matt and Elektra being trained by Stick is my emotional kryptonite and I am weeping as I type this. MY SMOL SAD NINJA BABIES. COME HERE TO MY ARMS.

Bullseye, meanwhile, is getting ever more ruthless in his efforts to...well, even he’s lost the thread of it by now:

And Fisk, as usual, decides to Get Revenge Once And For All on Matt by meddling in his love life, because he is a weird criminal yente. Okay actually he just kidnaps Nyla while Matt is boxing, and when the owner of the ring tells Matt about it it throws Matt of his game and he nearly loses the fight.

Luckily, Ben has finally tracked Matt down and is there to Mufasa him into remembering who he is:

Matt wins the fight, because priorities I guess, then runs off to “rescue” Nyla, which mostly consists of walking into Fisk’s office, yelling at him, and walking off with Nyla in tow. Fisk is unperturbed:

Here we see that Nocenti seems to have briefly forgotten that Matt is blind. How could you possibly know Fisk’s smile, Matt?

Also, Nocenti’s run is nearly over, so...not clear what this convoluted plan is, because kidnapping Nyla never goes anywhere. In fact, this is the last we see of her. It’s a bummer because there are very few black women in Daredevil stories, but I’m honestly relieved that she made it out alive, considering the usual fate of Matt’s love interests.

Now all that’s left is to stop Bullseye from terrorizing the city as Daredevil, so Matt goes to Bullseye’s lair and puts on the Bullseye costume, then trolls the fuck out of Bullseye:

Again, when you’re looking at these panels, remember that the guy in the Bullseye costume is Matt, and the guy in the Daredevil costume is Bullseye. Here Matt is basically poking at all of Bullseye’s psychological weaknesses to make him too enraged and confused to fight properly - and it’s working.

Meanwhile, Foggy is being THE SADDEST EVER:

HE’S JUST SITTING THERE TALKING TO AN IMAGINARY MATT. FOGGY, MY DARLING. YOU SAD BOY.

Again, we see that the narrative is really firmly opposed to Foggy in this moral debate: Foggy was wrong to defend Kelco, end of story. I still maintain that it’s more complicated than that, and even if it’s not, Foggy didn’t personally wrong Matt despite the narrative acting like he did, but whatever. The important thing is Foggy talking about Matt being his inspiration and (on the next page) saying that he’s gotten Matt’s license back, and “All I need is you.” #truelove

Please also note that Glori has apparently dumped Foggy and left New York, even though the last we saw her she was defiantly standing by her, and then he quit the job she disliked so much, so it’s really unclear why she would dump him after that. I’m mostly annoyed that this happens off page because it’s the last we’ll see of Glori for years until, like Heather, she’s unceremoniously brought back into the comics only to be killed off. (Again, Nyla escaped by the skin of her teeth, seriously.)

Meanwhile, the Bullseye!Daredevil/Daredevil!Bullseye fight continues:

That’s nice for you that you’ve come to a place of understanding with your enemy and all, Matt, but he killed Elektra. (Who is alive again at this point, but Matt doesn’t know that.) I just hate any story where Matt reaches any kind of understanding or sympathy for Bullseye, because this fucker killed Elektra - and later Karen - and that’s not something to understand, period. (There’s a whole genre of stories where male superheroes magnanimously come to forgive and sympathize with villains who’ve brutalized the women they love, and they all make me throw up in my mouth.)

Annnyhoodle, back to Sad Sad Foggy Who Is Sad:

*raises hand* Why...why does Matt have photographs? Why does he have a glamour shot of Elektra, bounty hunter and assassin, in costume? (Foggy rescued all this stuff from Matt’s exploded house, apparently.)

Anyway, Foggy’s dialogue is So Much. “All I remember is your face...I’ll hate myself every living moment until I know you forgive me.” WOW, FRANKLIN.

But never fear! With Bullseye dispatched, the cathartic reunion is upon us!

Awwwww yeah. Hug it out, boys.

(No, they never discuss any of what happened or talk about their feelings. #men)

Next up: back to basics!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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skellyscribs · 5 years

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I finally finished a full thing :0

@harchibudytgorichi owo

#i love them so much #you don't even know #<3333333333333 #lucille lucitor #evangeline diaz #kelco child #tomkie child #tomkie #kellco #kelco #svtfoe oc #svtfoe #my art

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skellyscribs · 5 years

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This is quite a way to meet isn’t that right @fremynstein ;3

#svtfoe OC #svfoe #my art #friends ocs #Ramona Lucitor #Rod Diaz #kelco child #kelco #tomkie child #tomkie

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skellyscribs · 5 years

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So those new episodes huh

Anywho! Here's my new gal her name is Evangeline she's a complete mess

She's in the same universe as Bella and Kierra!

#my art #svtfoe oc #svtfoe #kelco child #kelly x marco #Evangeline #kelco #kellco

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skellyscribs · 5 years

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Bunch of doodles before I enter an exam!!

Atmos belongs to @harchibudytgorichi

Leon belongs to @fremynstein

#i'm curious if you can get who's child is the girl with the rose #any who gtg #leon lucitor #mavis butterfly #atmos butterfly #xiavera butterfly #tomco child #startom child #starkie child #starco child #svtfoe oc #svtfoe #my art #kierra diaz #kelco child #belladonna lucitor

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skellyscribs · 6 years

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My kelco kid has been added to the family say hello to Kierra she is Bella's best friend

#my art #svtfoe oc #svtfoe #kierra diaz #she is thicc #kelco child #star vs the forces of evil

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pluckyredhead · 7 years

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Daredevil 101: Gay Panic Roadtrip to Albany/Hell

That title sounds like the world’s most amazing concept album.

CONTENT WARNING: Homophobia, transphobia, animal abuse.

Anyway! When last we left our hero, his entire life had been ruined yet again: he had cheated on Karen with Typhoid Mary, lost his home and place of employment, and had the shit kicked out of him by basically all of his rogues. He’s still floundering around at rock bottom when he decides to drink his woes away at a bar (not Josie’s, but very Josie’s-esque), and is joined by a Mysterious Stranger:

Though Matt doesn’t notice anything odd about the stranger, everyone else in the bar very clearly gets a bad vibe off of her. They also all seem to perceive her differently.

As the stranger speaks cryptically about the nature of good and evil and the terrible things she’s witnessed, tensions in the bar rise. Two brothers who were having a friendly conversation at a back table start fighting. As the fight escalates, Matt is inexorably drawn to the stranger:

Matt sort of dazedly realizes that something has gone terribly wrong, but it’s too late - a man is dead. “You could have stopped it if you weren’t busy making out with that guy!” some rando accuses.

“A guy???” Matt asks.

Well, yes and no:

This is Mephisto, who is basically Satan in the Marvel universe. Mephisto generally presents as male (so I’ll be using male pronouns from here on out) but doesn’t really have a gender per se, being the embodiment of evil rather than a living being. That said, there is definitely a strong element of homophobia/transphobia in this encounter. Like. “You hook up with a hot chick at the bar but she turns out to be a dude and also the actual devil???” That is vile transphobia. (This comic is 27 years old, but still. There’s using dated terminology, and there’s playing out harmful tropes that get people killed.)

This also picks up on a lot of the themes we’ve seen with Typhoid Mary, with Matt as a relatively passive figure who is deceived and violated by a gender-bending/gender role-flouting woman. This is his rock bottom, though: from here on out, conventional gender roles start to reassert themselves.

Anyway, this is the last straw for Matt. He burns all of his and Karen’s remaining belongings (excuse you, Matthew, not all of those are yours) and hits the road, traveling upstate towards Albany. Along the way, he witnesses a private plane crashing, and springs into action to rescue its pilot. However the pilot, a wealthy farmer named Skip Ash, turns out to be hella shady:

Curious about Skip’s strange behavior and illegal cargo, Matt decides to abandon his aimless northward wandering in favor of looking into this guy a bit more.

Meanwhile, Mephisto has created a demon “son” named Blackheart to torment the people of upstate New York. As if they don’t have enough to deal with already. #newyorkjoke

Blackheart attacks Matt (and randomly appearing guest star Spider-Man) for an issue but it’s boring so I’m skipping it.

Meanwhile Skip Ash has returned to his factory farm, run on ill-gotten drug money and dedicated to getting the most profit possible out of his stock, no matter the cost to the animals:

This is Skip telling his scientist to bioengineer legless pigs so that they can just sit in their overcrowded cages to be force-fed until they’re slaughtered. Skip is a fucking monster.

But that’s just the tip of his monster iceberg, because Skip is also experimenting on humans. Specially, young women and girls who have been made insecure by the beauty-industrial complex and come to his farm/lab to be “perfected” - and he’s selected his favorite to be his future wife:

SKIP YOU ARE A CREEP AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL

One person in complete agreement with me on that is his daughter, Brandy. When she realized what kind of man her father was, she stormed out, but still lives on the money he sends her. She’s also become an animal rights activist, and Matt - who has been following Skip around - catches her planning to set off some (harmless to humans and animals) explosions at Skip’s farm to draw media attention to his inhumane practices:

Matt is sooo smug here, which is especially rich considering that his whole attitude during this arc is “ugh it’s hard to care about people and things, why won’t everyone with problems leave me alone?” Yeah, Brandy’s activism is more about anger at her dad and there’s no follow-through that actually helps the animals, and yes, she’s arguably a hypocrite for living off her father’s drug money. But one could just as easily say that Matt’s heroism is more about thrillseeking and there’s no follow-through that actually reduces crime, and that he’s a hypocrite (and in violation of his own professional oaths) for getting paid to try cases in which he has a conflict of interest as Daredevil. So.

Brandy is something of a straw activist (and later, we’ll see, a straw feminist) - shrill and angry but not actually effective, and with very selfish and personal motives. It’s notable that she shows up around 1990, on the cusp of the capitalist 80s and disaffected 90s - her character would’ve been treated very differently in the 70s.

(It’s also interesting that Nocenti's run is fiercely environmentalist, between Kelco’s pollution and Skip’s factory farm, and yet actual environmentalists are consistently portrayed as ineffectual idiots. Not totally sure what her point was there besides nihilism.)

Anyway, Matt rides along with Brandy as she sets off her explosions, which have the unintended effect of freeing the human experiment we saw earlier, Number Nine. However, Skip’s scientists and guards have no intention of letting their prize go that easily:

Luckily, Number Nine has a healing factor, so she’s okay. Matt and Brandy take her back to Brandy’s house to recuperate, where they discover that she’s...well, very odd. She’s been programmed to cook, clean, primp, and fawn over men, to the point of being manic about it, and also keeps having flashbacks to the traumatic things she witnessed while being experimented on.

Brandy, of course, has no patience with Number Nine’s “perfect woman” behavior:

“Haven’t you ever heard of feminism?” “No, but it sounds awful.” Woof. I mean, Number Nine isn’t exactly a reliable narrator either, but she’s certainly more pleasant than abrasive Brandy. (Who I fucking love, I WILL FIGHT YOU.) Matt certainly enjoys Number Nine’s fawning. What a relief after Typhoid Mary, huh, tough guy?

Skip, meanwhile, wants his property back, so he hires this guy, who is a precursor to literally everything about 90s comics:

Look at that ridiculous gun! Look at those shades! Look at those spiked gloves! This is so silly. Also this character is called “Shotgun” even though that is DEFINITELY NOT A SHOTGUN.

Anyway, a couple dangerous skirmishes with Shotgun ensue, but Matt manages to keep Number Nine safe, though he can’t keep her and Brandy from fighting:

As annoyed as I am by The Reasonable Man rubbing his temples and soothingly saying “Girls, girls!” as Those Crazy Women scream at each other, I am genuinely amused by “GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!”

Anyway my best guess is that the Brandy/Number Nine conflict is some sort of embodiment of the conflict that women still have between being independent/feminist/liberated and performing femininity to an acceptable level, but which was especially difficult to navigate at a time when more and more women were getting divorced and/or working outside of the home and/or keeping their maiden names, etc. Like. I do think that Nocenti was trying to tell a feminist story here, especially since Number Nine was driven to subject herself to Skip’s experiments because of unreasonable beauty standards in the media, just like I think she was trying to subvert gender roles with Typhoid Mary. But it gets muddy.

After a few battles with Skip and Shotgun, Matt and Brandy basically tell Skip they have access to his various stockpiles of contraband and will turn him in if he doesn’t leave them - and most importantly, Number Nine - alone:

Skip gives up and sort of wanders out of the story at this point...but here’s where it takes a trippy turn:

So some of Skip’s illegal contraband is from Attilan, a city on the moon. Attilan is the home of the Inhumans, who, if you don’t watch Agents of SHIELD or read the comics, are very similar to mutants - a genetic variation from humans who each have their own superpower and sometimes a very visible mutation. Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan is probably the best known Inhuman these days.

The Inhumans are ruled by King Black Bolt and Queen Medusa, who at this point in continuity had recently had a son, who was taken away from them and sent to Earth because of his potentially dangerous powers. Two cousins of the royal family, Gorgon and Karnak, decide to go to Earth and look for the child so that they can return him to his parents.

So Gorgon and Karnak turn up basically out of nowhere, and Matt, Brandy, and Number Nine are like “Sure, superpowered strangers, we’d love to go on a road trip with you in this pickup truck to find a missing space prince.” It’s bizarre.

It’s on this road trip that they encounter Blackheart (remember Blackheart?), who has taken human form so as to fuck with humans more subtly. He’s hitchhiking, so they give him a ride, and he immediately starts playing up the tension between Gorgon and Karnak and their mutual interest in Number Nine:

That’s Gorgon driving the truck and Karnak in the weird hat in the backseat. Gorgon, by the way, has goat legs and the power of stomping, which is 100% not what the gorgons of mythology were. Karnak has the ability to see - and hit - the weakness in anything. They are some of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s more ridiculous creations.

Anyway, Blackheart - the balding dude in the turtleneck - spurs them into a fight that wrecks the truck. Matt, who can’t see Blackheart’s disguise, picks up on the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this dude, and attacks:

Blackheart, you creepy.

The humans - and Inhumans - manage to calm themselves down and make up, and Blackheart, frustrated, moves on to fuck with some other people. Specifically, the people in the small town that our missing Inhuman prince - currently going by the name “Pope,” though his real name is Ahura - has landed in. Pope, as we’ll see, is kind of an odd and creepy kid:

Yeah, Pope’s power is the Evil Eye. He didn’t mean to kill the sheep, but...shit happens, I guess?

The town, somewhat understandably, decides he’s a demon and they need to kill him, but Matt shows up OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE - seriously, I have no idea how he found Pope - and stops them:

Blackheart, frustrated by his failure to corrupt anyone, turns to Mephisto for help, and Mephisto pulls all of our major players at this point - Matt, Brandy, Number Nine, Gorgon, Karnak, and Pope - down into Hell.

Yes, actual Hell.

They’re separated into groups by the fall. Brandy and Pope find themselves trying to climb out of a vast canyon, and they meet an angel:

The angel wakes up and is lovely and wonderful and kind, but Brandy is so shrill that eventually just peaces the fuck out of there, leaving Brandy and Pope to make the climb alone.

Number Nine, meanwhile, finds herself in a “Heaven” that is actually her version of Hell:

She winds up being dazzled by hunky angels but befriending a nerdy one named Lucifer? The metaphors are all over the place here.

Gorgon and Karnak are boring, so I’m skipping them...and Matt? Well, he finds himself in a snowy wasteland with nothing in it but a confessional. He breaks off the cross on top and uses it to start a fire:

Only Mephisto is permitted to make fire in Hell, so Mephisto LOSES HIS SHIT. He attacks Matt with demons, and for a while Matt fights off wave after wave of them before realizing that the only way to win is to stop fighting. Sure enough, this stops the attack on him and his friends, and he makes plans to walk out - but an enraged Mephisto proves that he still has power:

That’s Brandy in the last panel, and yes, she’s dead. :(

Then the Silver Surfer shows up out of nowhere to fight Mephisto??? SURE, JAN. Whatever, it gives Matt & Co. the necessary cover they need to get out of there and they return to the mortal world, shaken and grieving but alive.

And Brandy?

I...guess that’s a happy ending for her? I’m still pretty troubled by how the straw feminist doesn’t get to be loved by an angel because of how shrill she is until she ACTUALLY DIES, but again, the metaphors are so incoherent that it’s tough to suss out exactly what the message here is. (Also, Gorgon and Karnak take Pope home, and we never see Number Nine again.)

Anyway, that’s the end of Romita’s run on the main Daredevil book, though Nocenti’s got one last arc to go. Tune in next time when Matt returns to New York, confronts Bullseye, and finally reunites with Foggy!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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pluckyredhead · 7 years

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Daredevil 101: Typhoid Mary, Part 2

CONTENT WARNING: Same as last time - dubcon, attempted sexual assault, sexual violence, infidelity, child abuse, ableist depictions of mental illness.

When we last left the Nocenti/Romita run of Daredevil, Matt had begun cheating on Karen with the sweet, innocent Mary Walker, little guessing her other identity as the unhinged killer Typhoid. He was also about to face off against Foggy in the courtroom, via a proxy at least, with Foggy representing the slimy corporation Kelco, whose illegal toxic waste dumping had blinded a little boy named Tyrone, and Matt coaching Tyrone’s inexperienced lawyer.

Foggy, canonically one of the best and most expensive lawyers in the MU, somewhat pityingly expects to run rings around his opposition - until Matt walks in (just as an audience member), and he completely falls apart:

Get a haircut, Matt.

While the jury deliberates, Matt goes to the apartment Foggy now shares with Glori to rub it in:

“What happened to your morality, Foggy? P.S. I have literally attempted murder multiple times."

Foggy doesn’t say a word in this whole sequence, which just...baby. My sweet baby. MATT’S GOOD OPINION MEANS SO MUCH TO HIM.

Anyway Matt concludes his speechifying by offering Foggy a job at the clinic and is about to leave when Glori hauls him into the other room and reads him the riot act, pointing out that Matt is acting like this at least in part because he’s pissed that Foggy and Glori started dating after Glori dumped Matt. Matt ignores this and high-and-mighties his way out of the apartment, and...that’s, um, kind of the last we see of Glori for a really long time??? Which is so weird??? I love you, Glori, I’m sorry that you, like most of Matt’s love interests, eventually come to a Tragic End (TM).

The jury deliberation goes on for long enough to Daredevil to fight Typhoid again, but just as she’s about to kill him:

Mary loves Matt so much (apparently...this is not a relationship that has much emotional weight, since we basically only ever see them sucking face while neglecting a blind child and never, like, having things in common) that she’s managed to exert some sort of control over Typhoid for the first time. Matt, meanwhile, is still completely oblivious.

Matt dries off, and the jury reconvenes:

SOMEONE GET TYRONE AWAY FROM MATT, JESUS.

Meanwhile, Foggy finally does what he’s known he has to do for issues and issues now, and quits.

(That second panel in the second row is a reference to Fisk having attempted to pay off a juror, which Matt managed to put a stop to.)

Anyway, Tyrone’s family wins their lawsuit! Hooray! Fisk is furious, and also increasingly jealous of Typhoid’s toying with Matt:

I’m pretty sure this is supposed to make us thing Typhoid is even more evil and disgusting, which, you can move right along with your slut-shaming and your fatphobia, Daredevil comics.

This raises the question of whether Fisk is committing infidelity here, since he is technically still married, though Vanessa is currently institutionalized in Europe due to the trauma she sustained at the hands of the, um, sewer people. Or, what I find more interesting - whether Fisk thinks he’s committing infidelity, because the overall morality of having what is technically an affair when one’s partner is ill and indefinitely incapable of consent is certainly not something I feel equipped to make a call on. But Fisk is very invested in the sanctity of marriage - note his meddling in the Nelson marriage - and I don’t think he's shown with anyone besides Vanessa or Typhoid. It’s also worth noting that Matt, who is in a similar situation many years later, does consider himself to have cheated.

And speaking of cheating!

Any guy who ever said to me “Oh, darling...you’re like a child” would immediately find himself dumped so hard, even if he did look like Matt Murdock/Charlie Cox/kind of a redheaded Robert Redford in terrible sunglasses. But this is what I’m talking about when I say that Mary is all supplicant and innocent and sweet, and also what I’m talking about when I say this is a full-on affair where Matt is considering leaving Karen, and not just the occasional dubcon-y stolen kiss.

Also, for those of you who were not yet born in the 80s, that dress is real.

Typhoid has realized that Mary won’t allow her to kill Daredevil - oh, and Fisk explicitly told her not to, because he wants Matt broken, not dead - but she decides to get someone else to do her dirty work anyway, and uses Fisk’s IBM Henchman Database to hire all of Matt’s rogues from this particular era (none particularly interesting...Bullet, Bushwacker, I’m already asleep) to beat the shit out of him instead:

That last line is such a cliche I can’t even make a joke about it. I’m so tired.

Brief interlude for Matt and Karen to rescue some missing kids with the help of the Fatboys, and then for Matt to be adorable:

I love the consistent canon that Matt is great with kids, and this scene is so heartbreaking and sweet (even if Butch hasn’t shown up since like 1990 and Matt hasn’t thought about him once, but what can you do?).

ANYWAY. Back to Typhoid destroying Matt’s life!

There are a lot of covers during this run with Matt in a tattered costume and a subject position, but this one might be the most explicit - especially with the hints of pink on the torn underside of the costume and the massive phallic object between Mary’s legs. (And the liquid trickling down Matt’s face towards his open mouth, can’t forget that!) Over and over again we see Matt weak and in peril, defeated and violated, both by Mary and later by the gender-bending Mephisto.

What strikes me is that Matt’s not just victimized here - he’s sexualized. He’s objectified. Matt’s always been a fairly lithe, graceful hero as opposed to your Supermans, your Caps, your Punishers, and in these covers - which, remember, are a marketing tool, meant to entice customers to buy - he’s portrayed as beautiful and eroticized in an entirely submissive, feminine way. And this was during the chest-thumping, uber macho, xenophobic 80s!

But it’s part of the handwringing, too. The fact that he’s an eroticized victim is part of what makes Typhoid so threatening. If part of Matt didn’t “want it,” she wouldn’t be scary. (PLEASE NOTE I am not saying that sexual assault survivors want their assault in any way! I’m talking about the unhealthy construction of this narrative and the underlying anxiety of it, especially to the straight male reader.)

And while we’re talking about the underlying anxiety of changing gender roles and also power dynamics and also kink...

Yeah, I don’t even know what to do with that last panel.

This is after Typhoid has sicced Matt’s rogues on him and they’ve all beaten him to hell and back. He starts hallucinating that his father’s ghost is yelling at him in an alley, and is then rolled by some random petty criminals and beaten further. So yeah, he’s calling some random mook “daddy” there.

I honestly don’t know if it’s intended to be kinky, but...I kind of think it is? Again, so much of this run is about the dangerous subversion of gender roles. Early on Matt gets hit on by a dude in a seedy bar (“Well, well, well...red spandex, tight as a drum. You pitching or catching, Redman?”); in the next post, he’ll kiss someone who normally presents as male and it will UPEND THE MORAL FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE, I’M NOT KIDDING.

So yeah...when I look at Matt here - chest bared, head bowed, legs spread, calling the person beating him “Daddy” - I can’t help thinking that this is yet another lesson on the dangerous enticement that is male submission.

Matt eventually tangles with Typhoid while still in this sorry state, and she manages to push Mary down far enough to strike the killing blow and throw him off a bridge (though she does shed a solitary tear over it):

Matt doesn’t die. (Surprise! They do still publish Daredevil comics, after all. In fact, Matt’s never totally died and come back, though he has faked his death at least four times that I can think of off the top of my head.) He just lies there under the bridge until he’s attacked by an evil vacuum cleaner.

...Yeah, so this had something to do with the big company-wide “Inferno” crossover, which I didn’t read, but all the electronics in the city come to life and attack people? And there’s a vacuum cleaner under this bridge?

Anyway Matt fights it of, and then who should show up to take him to the hospital?

Why, it’s Typhoid Mary of the incredibly obvious name! Judging by her hair not being in weird inexplicable dreads and her speech bubbles being white and not pink - and the fact that Matt recognizes her as Mary - I guess she’s attained some sort of compromise between her two personalities for the moment?

Meanwhile, Karen has been keeping the Fatboys safe with the help of a guest-starring Natasha and worrying herself sick over Matt’s disappearance. She’s confused when Mary shows up at the hospital to see Matt as well, and especially when Mary (who appears to be fully Mary now, no Typhoid) calmly tells Karen that she knows all about Karen but it’s Mary that he really loves:

Karen leaves the hospital in tears and doesn’t return to their apartment.

The city burns. Matt eventually hauls himself out of bed and fights demons until the crossover is (almost) over.

The legal clinic is closed on the basis of Matt operating without a license. The Fatboys hate Matt now for cheating on Karen. Mary was an illusion.

Matt’s reaching rock bottom, and he’ll hit it in the next adventure: Gay Panic Road Trip to Albany! There are genetically engineered pigs and straw feminists, it’s pretty exciting.

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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pluckyredhead · 7 years

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Daredevil 101: Typhoid Mary, Part 1

Hello, friends! With Miller back off the main Daredevil book for good after “Born Again” (though not done with Daredevil forever, as we’ll see), it’s time for Ann Nocenti’s run (mostly with John Romita, Jr. on pencils), which is most notable for introducing the villain Typhoid Mary.

In recent years Nocenti’s Daredevil has been lauded as an underrated gem of DD canon. I...disagree. I find her run to be a real slog to get through, boring and histrionic by turns, and frankly deeply misogynistic. Because she’s a woman, I keep second-guessing that last judgment call, wondering if there are nuances here I’m somehow missing, but so far...yeah, to me it’s just virulently sexist. She’s definitely consciously doing stuff with gender, deliberately subverting some norms, but in the end I think it falls flat. But let me know what you think!

CONTENT WARNING: Dubcon, attempted sexual assault, sexual violence, infidelity, child abuse, ableist depictions of mental illness.

In the aftermath of “Born Again,” Matt was left disbarred and homeless, squatting in a tenement in Hell’s Kitchen with ex-junkie Karen and working as a short order cook at a diner, but very happy about it. He’s totally content to let that state of affairs continue, but Karen is not:

Like. Can we just appreciate Karen for a moment here? You saw her last week, she was barely walking upright. Now she’s applying for grants and opening a legal clinic/drug addiction hotline while Matt’s obliviously flipping burgers in his blousey-waisted pants. She’s amazing.

Matt throws a big whiny tantrum about how that part of his life is over now Karen!!! Don’t you understand!!! but gets with the program eventually.

He also wanders off to the park and chats with a little boy who is sailing his toy sailboat:

As Matt’s radar-sensing, though, a truck dumps chemicals into the water - chemicals that have a very bad effect on poor Tyrone:

Matt rushes Tyrone to get medical assistance, but it’s too late - he’s permanently blinded. Matt, naturally, is very personally affected by his case and determined to help his family in any way he can.

Meanwhile, the clinic is bustling:

I like this because it’s really the first time we’ve seen the Hell’s Kitchen community form around Matt. This is the closest the comics ever get to what N&M looks like at the beginning of Season 2, I think.

I also want to point out the little kids in the first panel: the Fatboys, a little gang of skateboarding urchins who hero-worship Matt, Karen, and Daredevil. I love them so much and want them to show up in the comics again. Here’s another little bit with some of the more central ones:

So cute!

Meanwhile, what’s Foggy up to? Well, he’s gotten an extremely plush job in a corporate firm that, unbeknownst to him, is owned by Fisk. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, it’s the same company that dumped the toxic materials that blinded Tyrone, and Tyrone’s family is now suing. So Foggy goes to check out the company’s usual waste disposal site:

Foggy is horrified by how disgusting and irresponsible Kelco is, but they’re still his client, and he still needs to defend them, even though Glori thinks that he shouldn’t and that Matt wouldn’t. (Matt probably wouldn’t. It is, however, literally Foggy’s job.)

Okay, you’re saying, but where’s the character this post is named after already?

Here you go:

...Yeah. Welcome to the late 80s, folks!

That narration on the side, by the way, is part of why I’m not a fan of Nocenti’s writing. It’s...it’s pretty incoherent, huh? There’s a lot of that in her run. It’s worse in the dialogue.

I also want to talk about the art for a second. Starting a couple pages up we’ve got John Romita, Jr., one of the artists most associated with Daredevil thanks to this run and his work on the Miller-written miniseries “Man Without Fear.” I can’t really say that I like Romita’s work but I find it really interesting. His shapes and poses and choices are all really blunt and strange and striking. (I feel similarly about Miller’s art, actually.) He’s also one of those artists whose attempts to draw aggressive male power often come out very, well, fetish-y (his Frank is a straight-up sexy bear). It winds up working really well for this story which is in a lot of ways all about sexual dominance and gender roles.

Anyway, Typhoid Mary has a split personality: “Mary Walker” is sweet and innocent, and “Typhoid” is a sadistic killer, who comes to New York and starts mowing down criminals because eh, why not. (Matt isn’t particularly troubled by this, even though he freaks out whenever Frank does it.) Mary has no knowledge of Typhoid, somehow, but Typhoid hates Mary. Typhoid is also telekinetic, pyrokinetic, and has some kind of pheromone powers that give her limited mind control over men. Oh, and her heartbeat and scent are completely different between the two personalities.

Basically, she’s a random assortment of powers and physiological quirks that target Matt’s weaknesses specifically. It’s preeeetty contrived. Plus she’s her own madonna/whore complex, compounded when contrasted further with patient, loving, good girl Karen.

She’s also sexually dominant, which is portrayed as extremely transgressive and dangerous:

Yeah, she fucks this random guy in a burning warehouse next to a bunch of corpses. On top, because Typhoid is evil you guys!!! Siiiigh.

Meanwhile, Matt is trying desperately to teach Tyrone to use his other senses the way Matt does:

Matt’s using a milder version of what Stick did to him as an attempt to jumpstart Tyrone’s “abilities,” but Tyrone doesn’t have Matt’s abilities, so this is basically just Matt breaking into a disabled child’s hospital room in the middle of the night to berate and imperil him. On one level it’s an interesting contrast to Miller’s argument that anyone can do what Matt and Stick do - that they don’t have special abilities, they’re just tapped into their awareness more than ordinary people. On the other hand...Matthew, stop. He’s clearly projecting, but...STOP.

(Tyrone also displays an acceptance of his own blindness in that last panel that Matt never has - he always speaks of his blindness in terms of his powers being a compensation for it, and in Nocenti’s run in particular he’s extremely self-loathing about being “a blind man,” which Nocenti for some reason thinks is one word. “A blindman.” It’s weird.)

Meanwhile, Fisk has heard of Typhoid, and thinks she could be useful to him:

This is one of those strategems that you’re like “Okay, okay,” when you’re reading it and then you think about it and you’re like “...Wait. Why is the ruler of crime in the largest city in America hiring a street person to break someone’s heart?” JUST SHOOT HIM, WILSON. This is so silly.

So Typhoid sets off to win Matt’s heart:

THIS DIALOGUE IS TERRIBLE. NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT. UGH.

Again, I’m so frustrated by how contrived the Mary/Typhoid split is and how the rules change in order to make the plot work. This is definitely Mary - we see Mary later, unaware of Typhoid’s interference and very much in love with Matt - but Typhoid’s the one who gets them the job working with Tyrone, who makes up the story about a blind father, who uses her poorly-defined powers in the first panel to compel Matt to sit with her. It just seems lazy to me.

Matt is captivated, and uses his work “helping” Tyrone (he is now serving as a “ghost lawyer” for Tyrone’s father and the affordable baby lawyer they’ve hired) as an excuse to see Mary and, well, basically begin an affair with her:

1. MATT THERE IS A TERRIFIED BLIND CHILD YOU ARE NEGLECTING YOU SELFISH PIECE OF SHIT

2. MATT YOU CHEATING BASTARD

3. MATT I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU LET STRANGERS HEAR KAREN CALL YOU “BIG M,” SHE SHOULD BREAK UP WITH YOU JUST FOR THAT

Seriously, Matt is The Worst. It’s unclear how far he and Mary go (though he does discuss leaving Karen for her), and also, to be fair to him, unclear how much of this is happening of Matt’s volition, given Typhoid’s powers. But then, Mary’s consent is just as dubious as Matt’s. This is all so fucked up.

(I should also note that a few years after this plotline, after Karen has left him and they’ve painstakingly rebuilt their relationship for the second time, he cheats on her again with Elektra, this time in full control of his body and mind. So Matt You Cheating Bastard still stands.)

Meanwhile, the Tyrone v. Kelco case finally makes it to the courts, and Foggy is finally confronted with his old friends:

You know, Karen, you’re awfully high-and-mighty there for someone who last saw Foggy when you showed up on his doorstep as a strung-out junkie and then broke a lamp over his head and disappeared, leaving like a dozen dead bodies on his street.

Look. I freely admit that I am biased in Foggy’s favor and tend to give him more of a pass than I should, and the narrative is very, very clear that he is in the wrong in defending Kelco. Though Foggy is right that the legal system only works when everyone has the right to dedicated legal counsel doing their best to win, Matt and Karen are also right that sticking up for a company whose willful neglect caused massive environmental destruction as well as the blinding of a little boy is not exactly Foggy’s most shining moment. (Matt also makes the point later that Foggy should’ve known he was working for Fisk, but I think a suicidally depressed, recently divorced lawyer who just lost his livelihood and whose partner was just disbarred probably isn’t gonna look any job offer horses in the mouth.)

But Karen and Matt both act like Foggy has committed some horrible personal crime against them when Foggy stuck his neck out for both of them in “Born Again,” did everything he possibly could to help him, and they both disappeared and from what I can tell didn’t even bother to let him know they were alive. By the time of this story Foggy knows about the clinic and that they’re together, but it’s not clear how - legal scuttlebutt?

Basically, Matt and Karen have a lot of nerve, and if there’s anyone who owes anyone else a personal apology here, it’s not Foggy.

While Karen is snubbing Foggy, Daredevil is finally battling Typhoid, who he does not recognize as Mary (even though, ironically, a sighted person probably would):

Oh, I forgot, she also disrupts Matt’s radar. Sure. Whatever. *throws hands up in the air*

Anyway please note Matt calling her “bewitching” and Mary’s seductive dialogue and pose in the second panel.

Matt’s attracted to and repulsed by her simultaneously. She’s hot, feverish, burning - desirable and sickening at once. He’s confused by her dominance before violently rejecting it. She’s screwed up the gender roles he’s used to - dominant and submissive, pursuer and pursued - and it’s literally making him ill even as it fascinates him. (It’s worth noting that Mary, who he’s enchanted by, is totally helpless and submissive around him, constantly begging him to hold her and guide her and make her feel safe.)

Again, if this had been written by a man, I’d write it off the combination of the madonna/whore complex and the transgressiveness of female domination instantly as gross misogyny. Since it wasn’t, I can’t help feeling like Nocenti was trying for...something? Some subversion of what are very, very old comic book tropes? (“Nice lady with villainous split personality” has been around since the 40s, for example.) But maybe I’m giving her too much credit.

Up next: Matt and Foggy reunite, and Typhoid kills Daredevil!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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