Daredevil #100 Review

DAREDEVIL #100
Written by Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark, John Romita Sr, Marko Djurdjevic, Gene Colan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Alexs Maleev & Lee Bermejo

Daredevil #100 is exactly what you would expect from a big anniversary celebration book. Lots of guest artists, some reprinted stories and a lot of extras. It handles these things as well as can be expected, especially the huge selection of artists, and manages to progress the current Mr Fear story arc ever so slightly while exploring the many facets of Daredevil's life and character throughout the years.

The book begins with a captured and beaten Daredevil at the mercy of Mr Fear. After some gloating and vague hints as to what happened to Matt's wife, Milla, Matt is dosed with Mr Fear's fear dust and thrown out a window to suffer from the various effects of the drug. The rest of the issue deals with the random visions and fears the drug brings out in the Man Without Fear. These hallucinations cause Matt to lash out various bystanders, including two policemen, a homeless person and a group of thugs that try to beat him up on orders from Mr Fear. These encounters serve as a gateway to the numerous guest artists on the book for this issue.

Typically the abrupt change in artists is a hindrance to books, but each dream sequence is handled by a different artist while the overarching story is handled by our regular team. This way, each change in artist flows naturally and each is matched up with a scene that plays on their various strengths and weaknesses. Each scene details the tragedies of Matt's life and the things he fears, typically involving the love of the women, like Karen Page and Black Widow, that have been in his life and what happens to them because of it. They deal with Matt coming to grip with his father's death and the numerous other major events that have been explored, and typically overused, in other stories in various Daredevil issues.

While much of the issue feels like a retread, I cannot help but enjoy it, as it is incredibly well done and the selection of artists from previous Daredevil runs are excellent and worth the price of admission alone. I have to criticize the book for, much like most of Brubaker's run with the exception of his first arc, Devil in Cell Block D, being far too drawn out and decompressed, for a lack of a better word. Pretty much nothing happens this issue and the story Brubaker has been building has stalled considerably, with the only movement being Matt finding out Milla has been taken to jail for murder, as seen in previous issues, due to Mr Fear's influence. For a 40 page oversized issue, that is a serious lack of progression. The look back on Matt's past and the trials and tribulations and how they affected him was enjoyable, but can only go so far.

The rest of this monster sized book is dedicated to some old, but appreciated, reprints of a Mr Fear story from the Gerry Conway days. Many new readers should enjoy these classic tales and even most long time readers should enjoy the refresher course. The extras include the typical uncoloured pencils of the various art in the book and a sequence for the cover in various stages of completion.

This is a great book that anyone can pick up and enjoy. There is very little reference to the main storyline Brubaker is building here, and current readers might complain about that, but the issue was so well done, I cannot really bring myself to fault the book for it. Feel free to pick this one up when you get the rest of your books this week, you will not regret it.

Verdict - Must Read

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