Dr. Strange & Daredevil

The other two issues I received this month were Dr. Strange #4 and Daredevil #93. DD is one of my all-time favorite characters simply because of what he stands for: justice, and justice - like Matthew Murdock, himself - is blind. Just a great superhero concept and one that never really reached its heights until Frank Miller plumbed its depths. Strange was exactly that to me: strange. He had a Lovecraftian quality to him which I always appreciated, but it was thoroughly steeped in the modern-day Mysticism bullshit of the 1970s, which I always found incredibly cheesy. I have tried to get into Dr. Strange many times over the years and had little success, but there have been some exceptional exceptions. In fact, for those who didn't know, Dr. Stephen Strange was the one who banished all vampires from the face of the Earth and is where Blade first appeared.

The good thing to note is that this issue of Dr. Strange, the 4th in a mini-series of 5, is really good! I mean really good: it deftly moves from the serious to the light-hearted, has a rich and dedicated storyline, stays true to the characters and even manages to make Stephen Strange more accessible than previous incarnations. The art is good, but obviously early work from the talent; in particular, I noticed the awkward paneling. It seems like the artist really wanted to cut loose with the panels, but was afraid to deviate from the script, so he just "kind of" played around, here and there. The art suffered for it and both the artist and writer should be aware of this for future reference. The real strength here is the story and writing itself and I not only look forward to the conclusion, but also to collecting the back issues I missed.

[SPOILERS FOR DAREDEVIL]

As for DD... what can I say? I'm a Johnny-come-lately to this particular incarnation of the title. I've been meaning to pick it up for literally years now, but the price was the major consideration. Let's face it: comics cost too damn much and we aren't getting a whole lot more bang for our buck these days, so it took me a long time to finally decide to bite the bullet. Once I did, of course, DD was the first title I bet on. And I'm not sure what to think yet.

This issue - the first I've received - is obviously the conclusion of a major story arc and it seems to me that it tied up a lot of loose ends a little too cleanly. Again, this is just a first impression and I have to admit, I wasn't at all disappointed by the developments, even though they didn't all make a lot of sense to me. The artwork is good and the writing is solid; in particular, I was impressed by the handling of Foggy Nelson's character and the crowd scenes. Not to beat a dead horse (pun intended), but crowd scenes are hard and only Vince Locke's have ever really stood out for me; even my own crowd scenes are shortcuts, but that has a lot to do with my highschool art teacher, who was an Impressionist at heart. I was also intrigued by the handling of Kingpin's character, but hated the "slimmer" look; Kingpin is a fat, fat man - he's a fat cat - that's the whole point, guys! To put it politely, eff political correctness; make Kingpin ugly and obese!

Yet another title I look forward to reading each month and the most important thing to note here is that now is the time to get going on Daredevil! This issue tied-up the storylines that have been going on up to now, so everything from this point forward is a new chapter in the Man Without Fear's life.