DEVIL'S REIGN #1

 

    For years now, Daredevil has been consistently Marvel's best book. The reason is fairly obvious: Marvel puts great writers on Daredevil and leaves them on the title for years. The modern Daredevil renaissance started when Bendis did a run that got everyone talking. Brubaker took over and, for my money, wrote one of the best runs of any mainstream superhero comic in the new century. Andy Diggle did Shadowland, which most people hated, but I enjoyed his run. Mark Waid did a colorful run. Charles Soule did a good run. And now we've got Chip Zdarsky, who put Matt Murdock in jail for murder, made Wilson Fisk the mayor of NYC, and made Elektra the new Daredevil. I don't necessarily think of Daredevil being a better, more interesting character than other Marvel heroes like the Hulk or Spider-Man or anyone, but perhaps his world is just a great place for writers to play in. Whatever the magic is, it's been the best Marvel book for over a decade now. Every writer makes it unique and adds some interesting choices. And now we've got the first big Daredevil mega event since Shadowland. Devil's Reign starts out with the same plot as Marvel's infamous Civil War event book. Wilson Fisk as mayor has added a new NYC law banning superheroes. This is because he's mad at Daredevil because Fisk forgot Daredevil's secret identity. The reason he forgot it is because The Purple Man, Jessica Jones' old nemesis, had kids that had a cult that made the world forget Daredevil's secret identity. Uh...okay. I'll admit that the first half of Devil's Reign #1 isn't that great. By the end, though, it had me hooked. Fisk starts stabbing The Purple Man at the end, getting purple blood splashed all over his face. Will this somehow give Fisk the powers of persuasion that The Purple Man has? Who knows? Also, Fisk is now running for President of the U.S. And since this is a Marvel event and not just a Daredevil story, we get a bunch of other heroes in this like The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and Tony Stark, who's going to run for mayor of NYC against Fisk. So there's definitely a lot going on in this issue, which is #1 of #6. And since this is Marvel, get ready for the onslaught of tie-in books that nobody is going to read. Spider-Woman and Moon Knight are the only regular titles getting thrown into this storyline, but there are also a bunch of brand new mini-series coming out. There's Daredevil: Woman Without Fear, Luke Cage: City of Fire, Devil's Reign: Superior Four, and Devil's Reign: X-Men. There are actually a bunch of others, I'm just too lazy to list them all. For this main book. Chip Zdarsky is writing it and so far Marco Checchetto is drawing it. Checchetto's art is not the greatest, but it's decent. The story is pretty crazy, actually, which makes this a fun, wild read. I'm looking forward to #2. I can't even remember the last time I thought that about a Marvel event. ***