Matt Murdock makes his life a giant mess in this Daredevil #10 exclusive
Matt Murdock will always find a way to mess up his life. Whether or not he’s Daredevil, opportunities for mess always come his way, and he always grabs them against his better judgment. In the current Daredevil series, Matt befriends a lovely bookstore owner married to a member of one of the city’s crime families. He could end the relationship once he finds out this significant conflict of interest, but instead he takes the friendship to the next level and starts sleeping with Mindy. Matt knows it’s a bad idea, but he does it anyway. And that’s why it’s so much fun to read Daredevil comics.
Writer Chip Zdarsky understands this. Zdarsky illuminates a path that will lead Matt to a more stable, healthy lifestyle, and then sends him running through a bramble patch of bad decisions. Zdarsky doubles down on the religious tension at the core of Matt’s character, and interactions with members of the church bring a lot of depth to Matt’s spirituality and reveal how it informs his actions as a vigilante that dresses up like the devil. The characters’ personal lives feel essential to this book in a way they haven’t in a while, and with both Matt and his archnemesis, Mayor Wilson Fisk, Zdarsky is advancing character arcs by pushing them into complicated new circumstances. This is one hell of a Daredevil comic, and with this week’s issue #10, Zdarsky welcomes a phenomenal new art team to take the story to new heights.
Artist Jorge Fornés and colorist Jordie Bellaire have recently been sharpening their superhero crime noir skills on Batman, and this exclusive preview immediately shows how in sync they are with the emotional storytelling. As Detective North sadly looks at his beaten partner, a tight close-up of his eyes is framed by the red lines on the heartbeat monitor. The background is also red, showing how the beeping sound fully surrounds the detective. Earlier in this run, the rocky transition from the tight detail and gritty atmosphere of Marco Checchetto to Lalit Kumar Sharma’s much looser, almost cartoony artwork created dissonance with the tone of Zdarsky’s story. This new art team is the ideal fit, with a high-contrast, heavy ink style that maintains weight and verisimilitude while using bold graphic elements to heighten narrative beats.
