…who knows? Apparently someone besides Matt Murdock, although it’s not clear what this means or even if there’s anything earth-shattering at the core of these hints that Marvel has been making.
I’m in Berlin with my mom over the weekend and spending a lot of time away from the computer. Yes, in the middle of Comic-Con International in San Diego. My bad. Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when this rumor was forwarded to me in the comments of my last post. Naturally, I had to try to get more info on it (even though it meant annoying my mom and traveling buddy by pulling out my iPhone in the middle of the KaDeWe department store).
What I learned is that since it was first hinted in the Mondo Marvel panel that Nova(!) would be the new Man Without Fear after Shadowland, other mentions have been made at the X-men panel (where Gambit was allegedly the new Man Without Fear) as well as at the Avengers panel (where an image was shown of Falcon).
An Image of the character in question was shown at each panel, but none of them are available online. So, basically, no one – except the people at Marvel – know much of anything at this point or even what to do with this information. I’m about to hit the town in a few minutes, but will try to follow up on this story as best I can. If anyone learns anything more about this, please post a comment.
In other non-Daredevil news: I will launch another redesign of this site early next week. This has nothing to do with my being restless or terribly unhappy with how The Other Murdock Papers looks now, but everything to do with the recent controversy in the WordPress community where it’s come to my (and many others’) attention that the Thesis theme framework, which this site is built on, is in violation of the WordPress GPL (by not being adhering to the same license). No one is forcing me to switch to a different theme, but I’m doing it anyway since it feels like the right thing to do. So, behind the scenes I’m customizing another theme that I will be ready to reveal early next week. It will still feel like The Other Murdock Papers (same fonts and color scheme), but might have some nice new features. See you then!
I really hope thats not true about a new man without fear, that would be an awful idea. If there had to be one then iron fist would be the obvious choice as he`s done it before, but still a very bad idea.
I`m quite worried now.
Wow! How is the Thesis theme in violation of the WordPress GPL?
I hope this gimmick is some sort of misdirection on Marvels part, but given their track record I doubt it. Daredevil has been one of, if not ,THE best book Marvel has published for more than a decade precisely because they avoided things like this. DD has been my favorite character for a long time and I can say without hesitation I will drop the title if this crap happens. I would hope other readers would do the same. If you don’t then you’re part of the problem. I’ve already dropped most everything else I used to collect from Marvel. Marvel and DC both seem to be bringing back the same gimmicks that nearly destroyed the industry in the 90s.
Well, if we all dropped the book, how will we know if maybe this leads to interesting developments? I say we wait and see.
I hope the fansite doesn’t need to get a new name!
I think this is misdirection on Marvel’s part. Based on everything they’ve already done, I don’t think the current creative team would let the book sink that low and I would hope editorial wouldn’t change the very things that make the book great. They don’t have to do something stupid and gimmicky with DD like they do with most of their other characters to produce good stories, character growth and “interesting developments.” The last 10 years of Daredevil issues prove that. All it takes is good writing and a willingness to challenge the reader a little. But if this “new Man Without Fear” thing is their idea of innovation and interesting plot, I don’t want to see what else is behind that door.
Besides loving the character and his supporting cast, a big reason I read DD is because it avoids all the gimmicky crap and bad storytelling that Marvel does with some of their other books. If they want to take DD down that road, I’m happy to sit back and re-read everything else I love while the book regresses and *maybe* pick DD back up when they decide to stop being self-destructive. I’m not going to waste my time and money on bad storytelling.
I have a bad feeling about Shadowland and the repercussions it will have on Daredevil/Matt Murdock after hearing this announcement. Are they going to remove “The Man Without Fear” slogan from the cover of Daredevil? Shaking things up in comics is fine, I get that. But how angry do you think people would be if they removed “The Amazing” from Spider-Man’s title. Ok, so I’m jumping to conclusions, but these teasers are really getting out of hand. That said, it’s doing exactly what Marvel wants them to do…get people talking, even if they’re furious.