So what lessons have I learned so far
1 Don't try and write so many comic books simultaneously
Stan Lee has been the attirbuted writer on every issue to date, although one issue was co-written by Denny O'Neill. Given that he was also attributed the writing of a fair amount of the rest of the Marvel superhero pantheon at this time, it's not surprising that the quality control on some of the stories dips considerably. This is a shame as, in the early issues in particular, he shows considerable flair for writing characters with flaws that hold them back or as he often puts it himself, heroes with feet of clay. It's what brought Marvel to prominence. For me, the less successful issues of the run to date are those where there's just a big, stupid scrap and very little else regarding character development.
2 Don't always listen to what your father tells you
Back in the first issue, Jack Murdock clearly suppressed his son's own desire to be one of the neighbourhood boys, fighting, scraping, adventuring, in order to concentrate on studying law books. Now, to a degree, this has put Matt in very good stead. He runs a successful law practice, after all. However, all this studying repressed in Matt in his innate urge to be his father's son - to run around the city hitting bad guys. The side effect of this is that he frequently appears to have multiple personality disorder, which, of course, brings us to...
3 Don't ever, EVER, pretend to be your twin brother
I suspect that there would be little argument that the one glaring faux pas of the first 50 issues was the decision for Matt to become 'Mike' Murdock. It's clear that Stan and Gene had fun making up the dialogue and drawing his groovy, garish costumes of the would be stoner, however any semblance of credibility with the character was shredded by the sheer fact that Matt had never, ever mentioned a brother to his college roomie, Foggy. Once again we can blame Jack for suppressing his son's natural effervescence that ultimately assured that Matt had to vomit out this part of his Id (or is that the ego, I'm not that hot on Freud) onto his friends and colleagues.
4 Don't eat so much, Foggy
When Mr Nelson first appeared in the comic, he was relatively slim. I don't think that the intention ever was for Foggy to be Mr Universe, however, early artists didn't tend to draw him too pudgy. All this was to change on Gene Colan's run when the admirable lawyer began to develop a shapely do-nut round his middle. Having said that, it's not Gene's fault. No, I put it down to the continual put downs of manic Mike Murdock and his continual references to his colleague's weight. Now that's just nasty, Matt.
5 Don't be a woman
Or rather don't be a woman to begin with... Karen starts out as a simpering Betty Brant-esque secretary, hanging on to her employer's every word, wanting to be whisked away and held in manly arms... (steady on there, fella). I think to be fair to Stan, however, by the end of these 50 issues, with his own interest in civil rights and social issues, he's trying to give his female characters a bit more scope, purpose and drive. Debbie, almost a femme fatale to begin with, has practically become a campaigning pacifist child of the revolution. Karen hasn't quite become a liberated woman just yet but at least she's become a Welfare Officer (for now anyway).
6 Don't be an arch enemy if you have a boring job
Spidey had industrialist Norman Osborne's Green Goblin, the FF had deadly despot, Doctor Doom and the X-Men megalomaniacal Magneto. Everyone has an arch rival but, after 50 issues, Daredevil's nemesis is yet to be established. The closest I think, especially from the way he was set up, appears to have been the Masked Marauder. However, he clearly didn't really work and ended up falling to his doom (or has he...?). The main reason for this is simple. MM's alias, Frank Farnum, is a building supervisor. That's right. A building supervisor. Sure there's plenty of room for simmering resentment, but he isn't going to challenge Dr Doom any time soon in the overflowing with power stakes, is he? I'm now wondering whether all the henchmen the Marauder had were tenants who had got behind in the rent and he'd persuaded them to indulge in some payment in lieu. Ah, we'll never know.
7 Don't be ruthless...
There was quite a famous scientific study done some years back where it was discovered that the vast majority of soldiers in the army tended not to aim directly at their combatants (i.e. they didn't want to kill them). This research is useful to note when you consider how Daredevil's villains are often reluctant to finish their hero off. Electro, Mr Hyde and others have had our hero on the ropes, with all the time and opportunity in the world to dispose of the man without fear once and for all. And do they do it? Do they 'eck. No, instead it's "Wait, I have a fitting method for Daredevil's demise", blah, blah, blah. Actually, what they're subconsciously acknowledging is the research noted above. Simply, subconsciously, they don't actually want to kill anyone. Either that or Stan Lee didn't want the comic book to end.
8 ...but Do be good at science
I'm staggered at the sheer quality of inventive intelligence in the criminal underworld. Ray guns, mind transporters, body transporters etc. as well as submarines, jets and property portfolios to die for. Seriously, why bother chasing around a two bit hero, when you've got all this gear to burn. They may be scientific genii but when it comes to common sense, that part of the brain must have been lobotomised.
9 Do be scared about how frightening it might be to draw a blind man's eyes in a comic book
There's been a really interesting reluctance to draw Matt's eyes in this book, leading sometimes to the ridiculous scenario that when he removes his mask, he's actually wearing glasses underneath. It seems to be an interesting foible of the times that a blind man can fight and scrap like the best of them, but actually draw attention to the disability too obviously seems, well, perhaps distasteful. I'm not sure how else I can explain the artists' reluctance to tackle this to date. Seems a shame though.
10 Do have a glaring loophole where another famous hero's knowledge of your secret identity is never fully explained
Okay. The whole Mike Murdock thing emerged out of one unfortunate letter that was sent to Matt from a certain hero stating that he knew his true identity. That's right, folks, Spidey, using his spider-sense, sussed out who was behind the mask. Surely there's a story to be told here about how this can be resolved or explained away. But no. Whilst Matt created Mike to take Foggy and Karen off the scent, he's never hung out with wallcrawler to explain who he is/isn't. In fact, we never establish whether it really was Spidey who sent the letter.
So there you go. That's what I've learned these past six months. Sorry for the slowness of posting at the moment. I'm away from home during the week and can't easily contribute. But a review of issue 51 will be up pretty soon. Hopefully.
0 comments:
Post a Comment