COOL COMIC BOOK MOMENTS : DAREDEVIL (pt. 5)

The problem with doing Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is that there are certain moments that I think you “have” to mention, but at the same time, they’re only, like, one page deals, so I almost feel bad to take up a whole installment just for what essentially amounts to a couple of really cool lines. But you know what? Those lines are just so darn cool that I have to do it.

At the end of Daredevil #229, there is a series of vignettes where we catch up on all of our characters.

We see that Foggy Nelson and Glorianna O’Breen are, amusingly enough, actually seeming to enjoy life MORE now that Matt Murdock is out of their lives. That’s a particularly cruel bit that Miller does – a sort of reverse “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where Foggy becomes a lot happier when he is without his partner, who does seem to bring down a whole lot of crap down on Foggy (see the latest issue of Ed Brubaker’s Daredevil for an examination of this same theme).

Matt Murdock is trying to reconnect to his boyhood memories – first by trying to visit the home he grew up at and next by going to the gym that his father worked out at (his dad was a boxer, in case you didn’t know). This ends with Matt being revisited again by the mysterious nun who helped him at the beginning of this issue (in a beautiful sequence by Mazzucchelli and Miller that I just don’t have space to feature – that’s how good this storyline is – there are really great bits that just can’t make the cut).

Ben Urich is investigating Matt Murdock’s frame job with the main witness against Matt, an “honest” cop. In a striking sequence, the Kingpin sends someone to put a crimp in Urich’s investigation.

Finally, Karen Page has taken up with a crazy crook because she figures he will at least protect her from Kingpin’s goons, who are out to kill her because she is a connection to them (for selling Matt’s secret identity). She is just totally zoned out, as all she cares about now is doing whatever it takes to get to New York, where Matt will “save her.”

Okay, so Miller and Mazzucchelli give us an update on all the characters, and then, for the first time since Kingpin said to himself “There is no corpse” last issue, we see Kingpin. It’s beautifully paced by Miller – we can tell that the Kingpin has been thinking this to himself constantly since we last saw him. “There is no corpse.”

And Miller possibly tops himself with his great “There is no corpse” line from last issue with today’s “And I — I have shown him…that a man without hope is a man without fear.”

Classic.