Review: Daredevil Vol. 7 by Mark Waid

Quick Summary

Pros: Daredevil is still written well and brings both action and humor with him. The book’s ending is well executed and builds up a lot of excitement for the next volume.

Cons: Some of the book’s transitions feel a bit jarring. One of the storylines is rather lackluster.

Overall: Though not a bad book, there are a number of small problems that prevent this from being the high quality collection it could have been. Poor transitions in both story and themes clash with one lackluster storyline to hurt this collection. However, there are still plenty of positives here that keep the book entertaining. This is not the best book in this Daredevil series but it is still an alright book overall.

Story

As the final volume in this Daredevil series, Daredevil Vol. 7 by Mark Waid is somewhat underwhelming. It starts with an average quality Daredevil story, moves on to a lackluster one, and then concludes with a finalle that works well but feels separate from the themes that bind the rest of the collection. There is still a good deal of entertainment here, but some of the positives are lost due to a poor structure. Together, these stories do not create a bad book, they simply create one that feels more average than the high quality books which came earlier.

(spoilers start here)

The first story in this volume is an entertaining confrontation between Daredevil and Jester, a villain who can control the media. Jester manipulates a crowd into a mob and then sets a death trap for Daredevil. Luckily, Daredevil recieves some help from Hank Pym to calm the crowd and hilariously misses the death trap due to his blindness. The action and humor here is fun and makes this part of the story easy to like.

This is also where the story starts building up some underlying themes regarding the evils of racism. The Sons of the Serpent, Daredevil’s main enemy throughout this collection, are a group of white supremacists who have sewn racist undertones into the very fabric of society. This is a solid message on its own and a nice way to attack systemic racism in the world today.

The entertaining qualities found in this first story quickly give way as the following adventure feels more like a distracting subplot than anything else. Daredevil discovers the Sons of the Serpent are involved in the dark arts and travels to the middle of nowhere to learn more about this. While there, he encounters monsters and has a rather forgettable row with them before continuing on. This whole portion of the story feels so odd and out of place that it becomes hard to dig very deep into. The only real standout moment in this story is Kirsten McDuffie’s speech against racism, which works very well with the themes established earlier.

Then, the book and series move into their conclusion, where Daredevil is being blackmailed into helping the Sons of the Serpent. For the most part, this is a good story; there are some great Daredevil fight scenes, some charming romance between Matt and Kirsten, and some encouraging moments from Foggy. This chapter also sees Matt finally go public as Daredevil, a fantastically executed maneuver that gives this series even more potential than it already had. The only thing that sours this portion of the book is the transition from a story focused almost completely on racism to one focused almost completely on Daredevil as a person. Though this change is a bit jarring, it is still an alright ending to the series and a nice way to get readers excited for what is coming up next.

(spoilers end here)

Art

Chris Samnee’s artwork has come to define this Daredevil series almost as much as Mark Waid’s writing. Samnee’s stylistic approach to both lighthearted and serious matters perfectly matches Daredevil’s recent personality. All of this has helped this series as a whole and this volume specifically.

In addition, this volume has two chapters done by completely different artists. Issue #33 features artwork by Jason Copland, who’s work matches Samnee’s style almost perfectly and helps keep the book at a consistant level of quality. Issue #34 features artwork by Javier Rodriguez, who’s work is noticeably different but still blends in well with the rest of the collection. Together, all of these artists create a book that looks great no matter what page you turn to.

Continuity

Daredevil Vol. 7 is a direct continuation of the events in Daredevil Vol. 6 (Review).

The Daredevil Vol. 3 series ends with this volume. However, Daredevil’s story directly continues in the next series, which begins with Daredevil Vol. 1: Devil at Bay.

This volume also references stories from other comic books, all of which are detailed below:

• This collection contains a number of references to when Daredevil’s secret identity was revealed. This happened in Daredevil #32, collected in Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev Ultimate Collection – Book 1.
• It is mentioned that Daredevil used to live in California. He lived there from Daredevil #87-109, issues collected in Daredevil Masterworks Vol. 9 and Vol. 10.

 

Back to Daredevil Reviews