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Off The Rack Comic Review: Daredevil Yellow
Image Credit: Marvel Comics
Loading...As I write this, I am in the middle of “social distancing”.
Even though I’m not that far ahead on articles—only about two or three weeks nowadays, whoof—I’m curious where we as a society will be by the time this is published.
Coronavirusmania is currently running wild. All public schools are closed for the next two weeks in my state. The NBA and NHL seasons are on hold. Disneyworld and Broadway are dark. Wrestlemania is still set to go, but it’s seeming less likely by the minute that it will actually happen. (EDIT: Obviously this has since changed, and we’re not getting ready for HouseShowMania).
I must confess to some feelings of guilt here. I had laughed off COVID-19 for the first many weeks of its existence because it felt like something we’d all been through before. SARs, H1N1, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola… every three years or so, the media fixated on a new disease of which we all had to be terrified. So Coronavirus just felt like another “Here we go again!” moment.
But nope… turns out this one is more of an actual thing. Or, at least, it’s certainly being treated more as a real thing that I remember any of those others. So now I am distancing myself socially in the confides of my house. Which is great! I have toilet paper and Crystal Light and Cheez-Its and Max Raids on Pokemon Shield. But my wife, meanwhile, who never wants to do anything but watch TV to begin with, was bored within the first few hours.
So here is hoping that in a few weeks’ time when you are reading this, Coronavirus is more of a “I’m glad that blew over already!” thing and less of a “I have to fistfight this mutant to death to secure my cans of beans!” kind of thing.
TITLE: Daredevil Yellow
Writer and Artist: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
Publisher: Marvel
Protagonists: Daredevil
Antagonists: The Owl, The Purple Man, Electro, others
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale may be most known for their work on the Batman tales “The Long Halloween” and “Dark Victory”, but they had a successful run of mini-series over at the House of Ideas, as well! They ran a color themed gamut of books, including Spider-Man: Blue, Hulk: Grey, Captain America: White, and this story of Matt Murdock’s early days where he met Karen Page and first started fighting crime as Daredevil.
Of these, I have only read the Spider-Man and Daredevil iterations. So maybe I will get into the Hulk and Cap ones for a future article… if you have any interest in such.
Yellow sees a modern day Matt Murdock writing letters to his deceased former lover Karen Page to help himself cope with his loss. Karen was, of course, murdered by Bullseye in Kevin Smith’s Daredevil run, and she has never, as far as I know, been brought back. Hey, good job, comics! A death that still matters.
We get some Hornhead 101 in Yellow with a retelling of the death of Matt’s father when he refused to take a dive in a boxing match. This is the impetus for Matt making the costume to bring the killers to justice.
From there, he and Foggy Nelson open up their own law office, take on the Fantastic Four as their first clients, and start interviewing for a secretary. Karen Page is the first stand-out candidate and is hired immediately, whereupon both lawyers fall head-over-heels for her.
She is very damsel-in-distress-y here, getting kidnapped and rescued twice in just the short span of issues (first by The Owl and then by Purple Man). She is also a very pure Silver Age portrayal of herself; she is coy and quietly respectful and very innocent. It’s a far cry from the character she would become in the Daredevil mythos, there there is a hint to that when another character tells her that someday Karen will have a secret, and she will see what it is worth to her…
Daredevil Yellow is extremely reminiscent of Spider-Man Blue in that both stories feature a character coping with the loss of their blonde first girlfriend by recording a message she will never hear. Both are retellings of the past regarding how the couples met. Without having read Hulk Grey or Captain America White, I can’t say whether this was a theme on all the Loeb/Sale Marvel projects or just a weird coincidence here. I’d imagine its the former? Now I really need to check those out.
Sale remains a fantastic artist who I am perpetually in awe of, but his style seems less suited for this story and these characters than it was for Batman and Spider-Man. It’s not bad—his art could never be bad—but it doesn’t feel like it’s contributing as much here as usual. Karen Page is a little too mousey and lacks the bombshell appeal of Sale’s Catwoman or Gwen Stacy. His Daredevil lacks the dark mystery of Batman or the almost inhuman athleticism of Spider-Man.
As far as the story goes, retellings are what they are. There is certainly a place for them, and it can be great to see classic ideas get updated or have new details thrown in. But ultimately, a great original tale will always be better than a great reimagining of an older one.
Is that fair? I mean, ultimately, Long Halloween was a retelling of Two-Face’s origin. Dark Victory was an update on Robin’s. But with those Batman stories, the retellings felt simply coincidental to the brand new story at the forefront. The Long Halloween is an untold story of Batman solving a year-long case… oh, and by the way, it’s during that year that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face.
With Daredevil Yellow it JUST feels like “This is how Daredevil met Karen Page”. If Loeb and Sale had 12 issues again to tell a first-time-ever DD story and tie it in to the timeframe in which he met Karen, I’m sure it would be better, but… that’s not what we get here.
It’s still a good read. Loeb and Sale are as much Chocolate-and-Peanut-Butter as any creative pair in comics. The biggest downside to Yellow is that reading it makes me wish I was reading their better work.
Talking Point: What is your favorite underrated Writer/Artist pairing the have worked on multiple characters? Bonus points if they, too, have stayed together across companies!
And while you’re thinking on that, if you want to enjoy more comic book related blogs and a weekly podcast, visit Ghosts of the Stratosphere. Our podcast is full of debates, top ten lists, and comic reviews, and we update daily!
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