DAREDEVIL #14

A not-so-wise man once said, 'Arghhh! Arrrrgh!!! AAAAARRGHHH! Get it off me. Quickly! Or else you may mangle my Marvel'. And do you know what I have to say to that? To that I say, 'Ha! Serves you right! As that will teach you to stop reading my comics without my permission!'. It's January, 2016, and it's time for Daredevil in review, created by Charles Soule and Ron Garney.

TO QUOTE Mahatma Gandhi: 'An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind'.

THE REVIEW:

Have you ever been a witness to a roadside accident? If so, then you'd know all to well how shocking this sight could be. One minute you could be walking down the road, minding your own business, and the next minute, BANG!, you'd see some poor sap slapped for a six by a Suzuki. It's not a nice sight at all, not for anyone. If anything, this type of event could be a life-changer, and show you just how fragile we are as human beings.

Now I'm sure you're wondering to yourself why I'm telling you this, here, in my supposed review of Daredevil #14. Well, my reasons are pretty obvious, as this is my way of explaining to you how shocked I was while reading it.

On the whole I felt that the story started off on a pretty pedestrian level, as it plodded along, one scene at a time, like any generic plot-line. Primarily the first scene focused on Daredevil acknowledging the fact that Blindspot is missing, presumably kidnapped or killed during his confrontation with Muse last month. The second scene then showed us, yes, Blindspot has been kidnapped by Muse, and yes, from the looks of it, he's going to be transformed into a work of art, along with the rest of Muse's other victims. But in the third scene, the scene where Daredevil showed up to confront Muse, overall this confrontation turned out to be so shocking, car-crash shocking, that from here on in I have to be fairly vague for fear of spoilers.

For arguments sake, let's just say that someone gets hurt, really hurt, and someone else gets taken into custody by Frank McGee and his Inhuman Task-Force. However, what I would like to emphasize, is that the manner in which this person is hurt is done so as if you were witnessing a car accident -- Bang! Ouch! What the ffuuuu? This analogy then plays out even more so during the aftermath, because once, coff-coff, is detained, the way in which he's caught is carried out in such a procedural manner, it kind of reminded me of a victim being taken off to hospital, or morgue, depending on the breaks.

How this book's conclusion will affect the future of this series is anyone's guess. For a couple of months obviously someone will not be showing up all that often. But that said, it's quite possible that this same someone may get a boost because of his injuries, or better yet, maybe even an enhancement.

Quickly moving on to the artwork provided for this issue by Ron Garney, and I must say, once again, that I really did appreciate what I saw here. Near the end of the book there was this one scene where Daredevil fought Muse inside some sort of underground abattoir, and I thought this scene was so stark, so eerie, and so, dare I say it, emotional, that it made me blurt out, 'My God! That Muse is one evil b*stard'. I mention this because, firstly, he is, and secondly, Ron's pencil-work in this scene, plus many others throughout, actually managed to make Muse's stark quality and evil nature amplify on the page. This happened to such an extent, for a moment there I almost forgot this was a comic book, Ha!

But hey, it is. Thank God it is. It's a great comic book which was created by a great creative team, Charles Soule and Ron Garney, both of whom are worthy successors to the previous creative team, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. And trust me, I didn't think I would ever hear myself say that. Good job, guys. Let's see what happens next month.

THE MUSIC:

In a very ironic fashion I'd now like to musically match-up this issue with the Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons song, 'Can't Take My Eyes off You'. If you want to know why I've done this, I'm afraid you're going to have to pick up this book.

THE COMPARISON:

In 1959, Roger Corman directed a film for AIP starring Dick Miller called 'A Bucket of Blood', which was about a deranged artist who turned his victims into works of art. Now doesn't that sound familiar to you, Charles Soule? Comparison made, wink-wink!

THE CONCLUSION:

At the very end of this issue Muse takes off his mask and reveals his true face. So out of curiosity, who, or what, do you think he looks like? Could he look something like...