Hey everyone! My hiatus is officially over and I’m ready to go back to blogging on my usual semi-regular schedule. I had a nice break and while I didn’t get to finish everything I had planned, I did get some of my groove back and have lots of ideas for what I want to write about going forward.
Just to try something new, most of this post consists of a video in which I briefly mention the prose Daredevil story that Mark Waid has been talking about in interviews and which I’ll be reviewing in full in a few days. I also wanted to talk a little bit about my reaction to Bendis labeling Matt Murdock a “horndog” and why I disagree with it. We also see some off-camera interference from my cat Murdock (who needed to be disciplined in Swedish) and my accidentally saying “Mark Miller” instead of “Frank Miller” (yikes, right?). What can I say, there’s been a lot of talk about Mark Waid.
Anyway, here’s the video. Below you’ll find a list if links to things I only posted on this site’s Facebook page.
Alternatively, click Christine Talks Daredevil to see this video on Vimeo.
Links
From Marvel.com
- The World of Daredevil: Matt Murdock
- The World of Daredevil: The Villains
- The World of Daredevil: The Artists
- The World of Daredevil: The Supporting Cast
- The World of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear
There was also a podcast interview with Mark Waid done by Where Monsters Dwell in which he talks a little bit about Daredevil (starting at 1 hour and 33 minutes), but mostly about other things (the interview itself starts 28 minutes in), and it’s all interesting.
That’s all folks!
11 comments
Robert says:
Jun 20, 2011
Its actually a little surprising to hear Bendis describe Matt as a horndog. In his run on DD he really didn’t push that version of Matt at all and had him very devoted to Milla. Except for Dakota, which was a result of Matt being at rock bottom and close to out of his mind (again), he hasn’t been written as any kind of player in over a decade since Smith was writing. Even then he wasn’t shown to be a “horndog”, it was just talked about and suggested. I think a lot of writers and fans just like the idea of Matt Murdock getting lots of tail, even though the stories, as you have pointed out, don’t really back up that idea. He’s been shown to be almost obsessively monogamous, when not out of his gord.
All that said, I hope Waid hooks DD up with Mary Jane Watson (100 to 1 longshot, I know). Peter Parker is a pathetic and deranged little wimp who makes deals with Mephisto who deserves to watch his supermodel ex-wife hitting the town with a real man while he sits at home with his 80 yr old aunt
Andrew says:
Jun 20, 2011
@Robert Peter Parker is deranged? Frankly I find that comment odd considering you pointed out that DD himself has been “out of his gord” on multiple occasions. Maybe you just think it’s OK in his case as Matt Murdock is a “real man” and all. Whatever that means… But Peter Parker is not or has ever really been as “out of his gord” as the guy with devil horns.
Anyway, while I am no fan of OMD or of Joe Q’s rational for retconning Pete and MJ’s marriage, I don’t see how Peter could have made any other choice than the deal he made with Mephisto given the alternative (the death of another close loved one). Matt on the other hand probably could have avoided demon possession had he not joined the Hand. Also, Parker hasn’t lived with his Aunt in ages and has a quite successful career going as a published research scientist.
Sorry but I can’t let words like “deranged”, “pathetic” and “wimp” go unchallenged when applied to a hero who typically exemplifies the opposite of those insults. I do agree however with you about Bendis’s comments about Matt being a “horndog”. It’s simply not backed up by the stories.
Christine explained it pretty well. 8 or so relationships for a man presumably in his mid-30′s does not a player make (although he is fairing better than me..).
Robert says:
Jun 20, 2011
Andrew, I was joking about DD hooking up with MJ. Bad joke maybe at Spidey’s expense. I really don’t want that kind of drama for DD.
This is just how I see it in regards to Parker. I used to love Spider-man, but I jumped ship before before the whole OMD thing, and am very glad I did. I read a buddy’s copy of OMD just to see if it was as bad as everyone said. To me it breaks down like this:
Parker made a deal with the devil to save his senior citizen aunt by giving up his marriage to the wife he loved, sacrificing any children they might one day have, and insulting the memory of the child they lost. To me, everything about that is just wrong on an unforgivable level. If Parker can’t bear to lose his aunt on such an extreme level he has more parental issues than DD could imagine on his worst day.
Unless they pull a “Dallas” and have Peter wake up from a dream and OMD never happened, I can never root for Spider-man again. I love my wife more than anything. I have a great mom whom I also love, but I wouldn’t make a deal with anyone to save her if it meant losing my wife, and my mom wouldn’t want me too.
Andrew says:
Jun 20, 2011
@Robert It sure is easy taking a single story out of a characters half a century long history and using it to sum up who they are. I could never do that though. Using Daredevil as an example. Sure, it would have been easy to have given up on him after the Shadowland debacle, or any of the other awful things he has done like cheating on his wife. But I know there is more to him than one or two bad editorial/creative decisions.
Also your reasoning is absurd to me. You even suggested Peter Parker sacrificed his never-even-conceived of children. I suppose I should never leave a relationship then. How dare I sacrifice any potential children it could have created.
It’s nice that you’re absolutely sure you would never leave your marriage no matter whose life it would save, but you’re also never going to have to make that decision. Instead, you can comfortably judge a fictional character for having decided that being responsible for one more death wouldn’t be worth it.
Robert says:
Jun 20, 2011
I was using the potential children remark to illustrate just that, potential their marriage held. Lets just agree to disagree, and not clutter Christine’s wonderful site with any more arguing about Spider-man than we already have. I shouldn’t have run my joke off the rails like that insulting Spidey. I should have just said something like, “Murdock should date MJ just to tick off Parker at the Avengers meetings.”
Christine says:
Jun 21, 2011
@Robert: I agree that it was strange to see Bendis use a word like “horndog” to describe Matt given how he wrote the character himself. Again, this highlights my concern about Bendis writing Daredevil again. I think he’s totally lost his touch and I don’t trust him to treat the character right, and I’m saying this as someone who really appreciated his run on the title. Because of his history with the character (and a very successful one at that, for writer and title alike), it seems that Bendis has a sense of “ownership” of Daredevil that concerns me greatly. I really hope to be proven wrong, and I think Mark Waid will stand his ground if there is ever any conflict regarding what they want to do (and Waid should trump Bendis since he’s on the main title), but I’m not completely comfortable with this New Avengers development.
Robert says:
Jun 21, 2011
@Christine; Yeah his sense of ownership over most of Marvel has had me worried for a while. As I said in another post, if it was just Avengers I’d be less worried, then there’s End Of Days, which tells me Waid will be made to change his stories to fit Bendis, not the other way around as it should be.
Christine says:
Jun 21, 2011
End of Days doesn’t worry me too much as far as Waid’s work is concerned. I know that Bendis/Marvel keeps selling it as this in-continuity story, but I can’t fathom it taking place anywhere near the present time. I mean, Marvel should have no interest in not continuing to tell Daredevil stories for the forseeable future (Daredevil is not a huge seller by any means, but consistently ranks as a top-50 comic book and has proven to have more staying power than most other Marvel heroes who can’t seem to carry a book of their own).
I think “in continuity” has to be taken with as big grain of salt here since you can’t realistically have one mini-series put a strait jacket on all future storytelling. Also, would Bendis rewrite the entire story that he at least must have had a draft of at some point (there was even preview art) so that he can put hand-cuffs on Mark Waid instead of Ed Brubaker? What Bendis might try to do is reference current continuity in the telling of his “the end” story, but have it set twenty years in the future or something.
On the other hand, Bendis might be completely serious about this being in continuity and happening close to our current time and that would be a concern. However, if that’s how strict he wants to be about it, the story would quickly find itself out-of-continuity unless Marvel intends to stop publishing Daredevil for the sole reason of making it fit Bendis’s story. More than likely, the in-continuity label is probably more of a marketing trick than anything else, the same way an event always promises to “change the status quo of the Marvel Universe forever!” and then never actually does. At least this is what I keep telling myself while growing ever more fearful of what Bendis might do to my favorite character.
On a positive note, Mark Waid is also a comics heavy-weight with ambitious goals for his work on Daredevil. I can’t imagine his agreeing to compromise his vision for the character to suit the whims of another writer who is not – in fact – the writer on the character’s own title. To quote from Marvel.com’s interview series:
AP says:
Jun 21, 2011
Count me as concerned as well. Every interview Waid has given proves he has a great feel for DD and his history. I was intrigued when they announced DD will be joining the New Avengers, but the more I hear from Bendis the less enthusiastic I feel about it. It’s less about DD fitting and more “I miss playing with him! I want to be the guy that FINALLY made DD an Avenger!” But I agree that Waid will stand his ground. If what happened at MegaCon is any indication, I don’t think Waid will have any trouble protecting his territory.
Bee Clayton says:
Jun 25, 2011
Love the video Christine!
As for ‘horndog’, I would agree with your and everyone else’s assessments that such a description would fit if Matt were trolling singles bars every night or had multiple one-night stands.
But what this word inaccurately describes is actually an element that I believe is an essential part, and yes, appeal, of the character. Matt may have been with these numerous women, but it’s the emotional bonds, the ties of love, he had with each of them that raises this part of his life above Bendis’ petty description.
In a similar way that Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane have so DEFINED Spider-Man’s life, so it is with Elektra and Natasha, Karen, Milla, and the others. (For the record, my intro to DD coincided with Matt’s burgeoning relationship with Glorianna. When she and Foggy hooked up during Born Again, even if Matt was gonzo crazy at the time, it still made me mad. :p )
So I don’t see this as snide inside comic joke, but rather a testament to the strength of characterization Matt has gone through over the decades. Bendis just had a poor choice of words.
Söndagslänkar « Shazam.se says:
Jun 26, 2011
[...] Som en del kanske redan hört ska Mark Waid ta över Daredevil efter Andy Diggle, som en del i Marvels nya satsning Next Big Thing. Marvel lajvstreamade en presskonferens med Waid nyligen och den kan man fortfarande kolla in här. Kollegan Christine på Daredevil-bloggen The Other Murdock Papers har sina kommentarer här. [...]