Daredevil Saga

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Daredevil Saga
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2008
Writer: Ed Brubaker, Anthony Flamini
Artist: Michael Lark, David Aja, Gene Colan, Marko Djurdjevic, Paul Azaceta, Clay Mann
Editor: Ed Brubaker

This is a promotional freebie from Marvel Comics that recaps a series of Daredevil issues written by Ed Brubaker, centered around Matt Murdoch's Daredevil identity being exposed and Murdoch ending up in prison alongside the Kingpin and a whole rogues gallery of past foes. This recap book is, of course, loaded with spoilers for the actual comics.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well this book functioned. In spite of the nature of being a summary, there were enough details left to be filled in that it did do its job of getting me interested in reading the stories that it recapped. I was particularly impressed with Brubaker's ability to smoothly incorporate some of the more ridiculous classic villains into a modern noir story. It was fun to see serious takes on guys like Hammerhead, the Owl, Tombstone, and the Enforcers

The final few pages are devoted to a nice wordless showcase of Clay Mann's artwork and the introduction of Lady Bullseye.

This was an effective promotional item if you don't mind the spoilers.

Rating: 6/10

Irredeemable Volume 4

Here's another find from the going-out-of-business sale at my local Borders.

Title: Irredeemable
Issue: Volume 4
Date: September 2010
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Diego Barreto, Paul Azaceta, Emma Rios, Howard Chaykin
Colorist: Andrew Dalhouse, Matthew Wilson, Alfred Rockefeller
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Cover: Chriscross

This is a trade paperback collection that includes issues 13-15 of the comic series, plus the Irredeemable Special. The basic premise is that Superman (represented here by a character called the Plutonian, who is for all intents and purposes Superman) has "snapped" and gone very very bad. Bad as in entire cities destroyed, populations wiped out, and brutal murders of his fellow superbeings (who were never really in the Plutonian's league power-wise).

Alan Moore did this same story much better in Miracleman.

There. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I did find Irredeemable to be fairly entertaining. There are some likable characters, and not all of them are used as cannon fodder (some are, though). There is a pretty complex set of subplots, which serve to add a nice level of suspense to the storyline, even though they also mire the story in the cliches of the genre that it is attempting to rise above.

Thanks to the presence of the Irredeemable Special in this volume, I got a nice recap of the story, as well as some background on characters that appear in the regular issues, which helped make it easier to jump right in with Volume 4.

The artwork is generally quite good. There are a few moments of unnecessary gore (well, I'm sure they were seen as necessary to remind the reader that this is a superhero story for grownups), and there were some fight scenes where it was a bit hard to tell what was going on, but the artistic handling of a very tricky climactic sequence involving a bullet and a teleportation effect was brilliant work.

I wasn't too impressed when I first heard the premise of this, so I would have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the degree to which I found it entertaining.

Rating: 6.5/10