Both Daredevil and Kingpin are lost and are trying to find their way back to who they were. The only difference is, Kingpin has a lot more blood on his hands. Spoilers for Daredevil #13 follow.
Throughout Chip Zdarsky’s run on Daredevil so far, there has been pretty much one focus and one focus alone, character. There has been action present, but it has definitely taken a backseat to the character work that’s being done. Because of this focus on character though, the series has soared and with this latest issue, it may be at its highest point yet.
What’s been so phenomenal about Zdarsky’s run so far has been his focus on Matt Murdock and not Daredevil. In fact, the Daredevil suit hasn’t even shown up in the series since the first couple of issues. As such, the character work that has been done so far with Matt has been fantastic and we finally get a kind of even-keeled Matt in this issue. Thanks to the work with Matt so far in this series, the fact that he’s training yet again makes sense. It doesn’t seem superfluous like needing to it in a sequel of a videogame. Here, it feels important to the character and the world around him. He’s been lost for so long that to see him finally finding himself again, you can slowly let a sigh of relief. The reason that it’s slowly though is that this is Matt Murdock we’re talking about, his life will fall apart again in probably six issues.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s Kingpin. Somehow, this issue makes his fall back into his old ways absolutely heartbreaking. He’s murdered a man and now covers up his death, leading to another man being murdered for use in the cover-up. There’s no reason to feel sorry for him at all yet, you do. Maybe it’s because he finally was changing, but couldn’t get past his own faults. Maybe because he’s being manipulated by Wesley. Or even because you just intrinsically want someone to find redemption. Any way you look at it, it’s disappointing to see Wilson fall and become even more lost, which is something that one would almost never associate with The Kingpin.
Marco Checchetto’s art is one of the reasons that this issue ends up working so well too. His art carries the emotional weight of the issue in a spectacular fashion. Every panel tells a story and subsequently bleeds into the next panel incredibly well. At times, it’s almost like looking at a film reel rather than a comic page. There are several pages in this issue that, by themselves, tell an emotional story and combine that with every other page, it creates a phenomenal visual treat.
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