Essential Daredevil, Vol. 4 by Gerry Conway

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Man Without Fear's fourth black and white reprint volume covers Issues 76-101 with Avengers #111 thrown in for good measure leading us through 1970s Daredevil. The book has many positive points and some negatives.

Positives:
--The book features the end of what feels like an eternal break up session between Matt Murdoch and Karen Page. The mismatched couple finally break up for good (for now) in Daredevil Issue #85 when realizing the obvious: Karen can't give Matt what he needs (a woman who can stand beside him while he fights as Daredevil.) and Matt can't give Karen what she needs (a stable relationship with someone who won't get herself killed.) The two finally realize this after Matt takes a beating as Daredevil. Finally.

--The new relationship with Black Widow: As a concept, the new relationship with Black Widow was great. Unlike with Karen, Matt would have someone who had danger in her blood: a true fellow traveler. This was a great concept. The execution wasn't so great (see negatives) but the idea was fun and a major of upgrade on the depress-o-rama that was Page-Murdock.

--The Move to San Francisco: Readers who complain about the move to San Francisco taking away Daredevil's Hell's Kitchen's roots are using an anachronism. At this point, he had no Hell's Kitchen roots. The book prior to the move was focused on fighting villains over Manhattan. This was a good early moved that recognized that there was more to America than New York City and that there would be heroes in other places. The Silver Age New York City was just overrun with superheroes. While it didn't last, I thought it was a solid idea.

---Gene Colan's artwork: The man drew Daredevil in an amazing way. Each page was a wonder to behold. Sadly, this is the last book of Colan's main run on the title, although he did pencil sporadically throughout the '70s.

---Villain Relaunch: I have some problems with Conway, but I have to admit that I like how he tweaked a lot of Daredevil's silver age villains included the Purple Man, Killgrave (Purple Man), and a new Dr. Fear. Also I liked some of the new villains such as Man-Bull, a nice Rhino-type villain and Dark Messiah.

---Avengers team up. A beleaguered Avengers team invites Daredevil and Black Widow to join them in a battle against Magneto. Daredevil rarely faces that type of heavy hitter, so it's nice to include this. Also Hawkeye appeared and refused to fight Magneto due to his issues with the Avengers despite the face of mankind riding on it. i'm only up to Avengers #24 in the Essentials but it's good to know he hasn't changed much.

Now on to the negatives:

---Inability to manage the Daredevil-Black Widow relationship. As I stated, this wasn't as bad as Karen Page, but what would we be? The problem is that Conway started adding tension right from the beginning of the relationship with us getting no time to develop actual caring about it. Black Widow constantly asserting herself as an, "I am Woman" feminist. Daredevil helps the act, but at times being condescending to her and making decisions for her, something he never did for Karen Page. Matt Murdoch in his relations with Black Widow was a type of feminist punching bag for clueless men. On top of this, Black Widow is completely inconsiderate of Matt and denigrates their relationship, never mind that Matt moved cross country and into an apartment in Widow's house to pursue the relationship. (Though I will give kudos to Marvel having some morals.) To be fair, Steve Gerber did improve things a tad by givin g

---Political pandering: Stan Lee probably holds similar political beliefs to Conway and other authors but his method of dealing with politics was different. He showed empathy with youth but also challenged them in ways to following since as simple human principles like not judging by appearance and even offered them Iron Man, a weapons manufacturer as hero. Conway on the other hand totally panders to politics. The gender stuff is the biggest thing with one person referring to Black Widow as the Gloria Steinhem of the superhero set. At the same time, in a thought bubble, Daredevil though he could have had kids with Karen Page, but no more than one or two as not to offend our ecological friends? Um, really? The problem with pandering is that much of it is done to people who don't exist as a group anymore, meaning it ages the book badly.

---Purple prose: Conway over-narrated a lot of the early stories, though he did seem to get it mostly under control after San Francisco.

---Lackluster Issue 100. You expect issue 100 to be big, to have some monumental memorable double length story. Instead Daredevil #100 had the Man Without Fear being interviewed by rolling stones, having flashbacks, and starting a new story arch. To be fair, the comic was transitioning to Steve Gerber, but it was lousy time on the part of Marvel.

Overall, it was a decent but not spectacular read from an author who really was hit or miss. The art plus a few positive elements make it a worthy read.





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