The Devil in the Deeps

Daredevil #9

Someone has burgled a cemetery and stolen a lot of bodies, including the body of Fightin’ Jack Murdock, the father of blind New York lawyer Matt Murdock. So Daredevil goes on a trip deep underground, following the trail of the graverobbers. Turns out it’s a bunch of Moloids, the underground dwellers who serve the Mole Man. He has a few skirmishes with the Moloids and doesn’t even realize how close he gets to some of the Mole Man’s giant monsters. But the question remains — why is the Mole Man steal and desecrating corpses? And how is Daredevil going to stop him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, beautiful art and writing. It’s neat to see Daredevil in an environment where he’s on an equal level, at least as far as senses go, with his opponents. The sideplot, with the Black Cat searching Matt’s apartment for the trinket he stole from the world’s major criminal organizations, is also pretty interesting.

Snarked #5

Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, Queen Scarlett, and Prince Rusty have set sail on the Old Gertrude in search of the King — but they haven’t yet shared with the crew that the map to the King’s prison has mysteriously turned up blank. Or that they’re supposed to go to the dreaded Snark Island. That’s bad news, because the whole crew of the ship was been severely traumatized by a Snark-hunting incident years ago. And to add to the chaos, there’s a great big crocodile stalking the ship, determined to eat someone on board — and it’s just gobbled up Rusty! What are our heroes to do?!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Inspired and silly and glorious work here — even better than many of the previous issues. The threat of the crocodile, the flashback to the crew’s previous visits to Snark Island, the crewman who spends his whole life hiding inside a barrel — the whole thing is gloriously fun from beginning to end.

Wonder Woman #6

While Wonder Woman and Poseidon smack each other around, Lennox parleys with the wonderfully creepy Hades. After saving Zola from another pair of murderous centaurs, Wonder Woman reveals her plan to end the war to become Zeus’ replacement — by day, Heaven will be ruled by Poseidon, and by night, by Hades — and they’ll share Hera as the queen. Predictably, Hera is so infuriated at this suggestion that she shows up to confront everyone — and that’s when Wonder Woman’s new scheme against her goes into effect.

Verdict: Thumbs up — and a large part of that is how cool Hades looks: black-clad little tyke with a half dozen flaming candles on top of his head and fountains of melted wax covering half his face. It might be my favorite of Brian Azzarello’s reimaginings of the Greek pantheon.

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February 20, 2012 · Filed under Daredevil, Snarked, Wonder Woman

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