Them

ART IMITATES ART

SOMEONE PLEASE GET THIS MAN SOME SUPERHEALING POWER ASAP

Daredevil vol. 4 #13 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Caramagna

I've talked before about the degree to which Kirsten, as a character, is in conversation with the tradition of women in Daredevil comics—and, in fact, with the history of superhero love interests as a whole, which is a theme Mark Waid tends to enjoy examining (for my Flash readers: Kirsten shares many traits with Waid's rendition of Linda Park). She is independent, she is strong-willed, and she takes up space within the story beyond the boundaries of her relationship with the hero. She even says aloud, directly on-panel, that she does not want to be relegated to the role of "Daredevil's girlfriend"—meaning, of course, within her life and world, but it's also a statement of intent from the creative team. Here, we get possibly my favorite story element highlighting this autonomy: the fact that Kirsten has her own enemies from her life as a successful lawyer, long before she met Matt.

This particular issue is all about the echoes of Matt's bloody dating history and how he is choosing to deal with that now that he is in a relationship again, particularly now that he has a public identity. Another theme of this run is Matt healing and trying to move on from past traumas, and one way it does this is through light-hearted, jokey elements being overlaid onto very serious topics: Matt's famous "I'm Not Daredevil" shirt from volume 3 is one example, and this scene is another. I've also talked before about the particular parallels between Kirsten and Milla (another character who was, at least initially, created to engage with and subvert DD love interest tropes). Kirsten is doing something here that we saw Milla do as well: downplaying the seriousness of Matt's fears for her safety. There are two levels to this: an understanding of why Matt is so afraid (Kirsten wasn't there, but we, having read those issues, know exactly what he is scared of), but also a joy, at least for me, in something Kirsten always does so well, which is to undermine Matt's self-important posturing, drag him down off his Angsting Perch (you know the one), and force him to genuinely engage with life and the people around him. Kirsten is not supposed to be thrilled to have had her life threatened, that is not in the established script, and it upsets Matt, but the fact of the matter is that she's fine (in a way Milla was not allowed to be), and even better, she's had the chance to get one up on Matt by being attacked by someone whose interest is in her, not him! I love Kirsten having her own arch-foe. I love how smug she is about it. I want her to have a whole rogues gallery.

we all agree that wasn’t actually frank, right? it has to be one of the cops who idolize him or something. i refuse to believe that’s actually our frank.

i need more of matt murdock knowing touch that isn’t painful

I love pat the kittens

crazy how this was the whole show and nothing bad happened after!

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN

S01 E01 : Heaven's Half Hour | dir. Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN 1.02: Optics

on season 2 of making my mother watch daredevil;

she is OUTRAGED that they ditched the karen/foggy storyline. honestly i can’t blame her

as much as i am. so excited. for daredevil: born again, i am also a little disappointed that fisk isnt actually going to stay in prison forever.

i know that in the comics and whatnot kingpin is the most important villain for daredevil, but the speech and crash out at the end of season 3 where matt is telling fisk that he beat him (you know the part) was so incredibly impactful and emotional and final to me and i hate to see that get undone.

does anyone feel similarly?

i love the idea of the writers being like “mwahaha then the viewers will think FRANK killed Hector” and then literally not one single person watching believes it was actually frank for a single second.