Episode 91 - Murdock and Marvel: 2017

It was a big year for comics in theaters, but local comic shops did not do nearly as well, with sales diving substantially from 2016.

The Year in Comics

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil

Appearances: Daredevil v5 #13-28, Power Man and Iron Fist #10, Avengers #3.1, Kingpin #2-3, Elektra #3, Doctor Strange #21-24, FCBD All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #1, Defenders #1 and 6, X-Men: Gold #6, Thanos #10, Iron Fist #73

Writer: Charles Soule (#13-28)

Pencils: Ron Garney (#13-14, #17-18, #20, #26-28), Goran Sudzuka (#15-16, #21-22), Marc Laming (#19), Alec Morgan (#23-25)

Inks: Ron Garney (#13-14, #17-18, #20, #26-28), Goran Sudzuka (#15-16, #21-22), Marc Laming (#19), Alec Morgan (#23-25)

As we teased in 2016, the year starts with the Dark Art storyline that actually begins in October of 2016 and features the debut of serial killer/artist Muse. Daredevil’s protégé Blindspot is invited to a warehouse where a giant blood mural has been painted. He phones Daredevil and the pair investigate while the owner of the warehouse starts charging admission so people can see the twisted art.
When the mural gets desecrated by an address, the pair find another equally horrifying art exhibit made with inhumans. Daredevil has a brief interaction with Muse on the building’s rooftop before Muse escapes. While Daredevil tries to get help from Medusa and the inhumans, Blindspot goes after Muse and finds his hideout and several hostages he plans to use in his next art piece. Blindspot frees the hostages and acts as a decoy to Muse so they can escape. Blindspot though is captured by Muse and before Daredevil can save him, Muse gouges his eyes out.
Ultimately Daredevil defeats Muse and gets Blindspot to a hospital, but the damage is done. Matt Murdock is left feeling very guilty he let his student be hurt.
This leads to a short 2 book story arch called the Seventh Day where Matt enters a church for the first time in a while and speaks with Father Jordan. The story is light on action but makes up for it with real character development will be our Spotlight story of the week.
Next, Matt Murdock returns to Father Jordan and the confessional booth and finally answers the question we’ve had all series – “How was Matt able to make everyone forget he is Daredevil?” as he recounts his final days in San Francsico in a story called Purple.
Not surprising it has to do with Killgrave and his purple children. Killgrave used a guard in prison to escape and upon escaping sought his children to elevate his power beyond it’s already dangerous level. Two of the children show up a Mat Murdock’s house just ahead of a hoard of crazed people sent by Killgrave to capture them. Matt locks them and Kirsten in a panic room and then incapacitates the mob.
Daredevil goes after Killgrave and upon finding him, the rest of the kidnapped children and his power-boosting machine, Daredevil can’t keep from falling under the purple man’s influence. Killgrave toys with him asking asks Daredevil what exactly the worst possible thing he could do is. Daredevil suggests the Purple Man to have everybody, heroes, villains and civilians, wreak havoc upon the streets. When asked what he would do in this scenario, Daredevil simply says "nothing".
This outrages Killgrave which is apparently enough for Daredevil to break free of control and takedown Killgrave. As a thank you for saving them, the Purple kids decide to help Daredevil by using the device and making everyone in the world forget that Matt Murdock and Daredevil are one in the same. Daredevil returns home where Kirsten doesn’t realize Daredevil and Matt are the same so he leaves and decided to use this free start to go back to New York and start over.
This leads us into the next story – Supreme. In it we see Matt Murdock and Daredevil team up take the fight against criminals to the courtroom. Daredevil, with the help of Luke Cage and Echo – stop the Munition Militia from blowing up city hall but are only manage to capture Simon “Slug” Slugansky in the process. It’s then ADA Murdock puts his idea into motion – have Daredevil testify against Slugansky in court – without revealing his secret identity.
The defense team tries to discredit the red suit wearing Daredevil saying “anyone can wear a suit”. Daredevil proves he is the real deal when the Milita charge into the courtroom attempting to free they cohort. When the dust settles, Daredevil is able to give testimony and the District Attorney’s office wins the now high-profile case.
Seeing how the decision could affect his business interests, Kingpin launches a two-part attack on Matt Murdock to see the case go away is it gets appealed to higher and higher courts. He hires a former lead attorney for Tony Stark called just “Legal” to represent Slugansky in court and hires Tombstone to take out Murdock when not in court.
Legal is able to get the verdict overturned in the New York Supreme Court – which angers D.A. Hochberg (Matt’s boss) saying he needs to stop using New York resources. That causes Matt to reach out to Foggy for help – which is interrupted by a Tombstone attack. Matt uses his Daredevil skills to beat him and escape with Foggy and Foggy agrees to help. Fast forward 2 weeks and the case is being heard by the Supreme Court.
To Foggy’s surprise, Matt confesses that he lost the previous appeals case on purpose. He says he needed it to come before the Supremes in order for the ruling to have true power. And while waiting to for the case to be called, Matt gets confirmation Kingpin was the one who hired Legal. While arguing before the Justices, Murdock imagines his exchange with them as a physical battle, and feels like he’s getting beat up badly. In his rebuttal to Legal’s opening statement he stresses the voluntary good that all citizens are obliged to do.
Ten days later, the court rules in Matt’s favor, potentially changing the entire landscape of law enforcement. Matt calls Foggy and tries to explain why he needs to fight criminals both in the courtroom and in the streets at once. He reverts to his classic red costume. Meanwhile, In NYC, and enraged Kingpin punches out a window, and tells Wesley to turn to Plan C.
The year ends with a 3-book story called “Land of the Blind”. Matt learns Samuel Chung (aka Blindspot) is in China, so he travels there looking for him. Shortly after arriving, he’s captured by Blindspot and put in a hole for what seems like several months. We learn he has gotten his eyesight back thanks to a deal his mother made with the Beast and the Hand. Sam wants to trade Daredevil’s life for the life of his mother – which he does. Though he has a change of heart during their escape and the pair return and help Daredevil escape. Upon returning to NYC, Daredevil learns Wilson Fisk has been elected Mayor of New York.

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil v5 Issues 15 and 16 from March 2017 “The Seventh Day”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It was a big year for women in comics.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

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THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm. You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/.

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts.

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data.

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/