Friday, January 4, 2008

To The Devil His Due


Ed Brubaker has written fantastic comics last year. He had written the death of Captain America. He had won two Eisner awards for his work. He is able to juggle work between Criminal, Uncanny X-Men, Captain America and Daredevil. All of them are solid hits.

Wow, I just can't believe of his work. He once said, that he has notebook for each of the title he is working in and without a notebook, he can't write the story of either one of the titles. And his latest TPB to hit the streets is The Extremists and of course the 2nd year of the Brubaker-Lark Daredevil series.

Brubaker's Year 2 of Daredevil is called Hell To Pay - typically dealing with the consequences that Matt Murdock must accept and risk, at the end of The Devil Inside Out. Hell to Pay is divided into two volumes, of course the first half being titled To The Devil His Due, in other words, the something Matt owes. The thematic progression is likely of once the deal he had to take from Vanessa Fisk before her death, he has to do something as repayment to the deal.

The first part, #94 is basically a reiteration of the year one, from the perspective of Milla. This was a measure in case of readers who missed out year one. It's nothing quite much interesting apart from John Romita's cover art there. The story kicked off in an slow opera pace, as to re-introduce the characters. And there is a debate of whether Gladiator is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, or he is behaving like Sharon Carter (being under influence by a mysterious person. In her case, it's Doc Faustus).

They said he did it but Rebecca Blake (the attorney on the wheelchair) said no. But it was evident on that Gladiator did things himself and one point, he snapped and goes haywire, killing people and whatsover. By the time we reached #97, the heat was there already up and it's like the getting the ball rolling into act II of a three-act play.

Now that Kingpin is out of the way, there is a power vacuum in Hell's Kitchen and there are groups fighting out to fill in the power. And here, we are introduced to the potential player of the fight game by the name of Mr. Fear - the person responsible for Gladiator snapping out. Suddenly, even our main characters got snapped and threatened to go wild like Milla trying to kill someone in the subway station.

The second half of year 2, Without Fear is currently in the running and it's due to be concluded by next month. This means, the paperback is likely to be out somewhere in May or June, take your pick. But arguably, this is how pulp noir is showing up nicely in DD. The first Terminator movie is also a classic example of three-act structure storyline. First act deals with setting up characters with complete lives as quick as possible. Then answer all the questions and clarify the characterization in the second act, then finally go overdrive in third act.

By the time I finished it, it's like cliffhanger, waiting for people to speculate what's to happen.

3 comments:

  1. Thomas Jane walked into the Comic Con and announced, "I'm going to kick Ed Brubaker's ass". Many people overheard that declaration and soon word got to Bru that his behind is in danger of being kicked by Tom Jane. Ed spent the entire Con evading Tom Jane. :)

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  2. I suppose that Thomas Jane has something better that he believes that will make Brubaker's comics to shame. But then, Ed's comics are quite good. He's an Eisner-winning writer, which gives a good credential to him.

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  3. Haha! Actually Tom Jane was just trying to be funny! There was so much talk during the convention about Brubaker killing Cap and all so Tom Jane just wanted to everyone to know that he's going to kick Bru's ass!!! :)

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