Collected Collections Reviews

Four trade paperbacks in the past week or so, all of which are now back at the library (or at least they will be by the time this gets around to being posted)...

Let's begin with Daredevil: The Murdock Papers, an outstanding end to Brian Michael Bendis's and Alex Maleev's work (about fifty issues worth of it) on this excellent series. It's a run that's has returned Daredvil to being one of the best ongoing comics being produced by either DC or Marvel.

I've raved before in this blog about the spectacular work that Bendis and Maleev has done in this run, and I'm certainly sad to see the boys go, but at least they left us with a classic conclusion to the storyline in which they revealed Matt Murdock's identity to the public, married Murdock off, and dealt with so many of the ongoing problems that had begun to plague this series as various creators had Murdock revealing his identity, falling in love, and getting whomped by the Kingpin seemingly every few issues or so.

This final story arc - "The Murdock Papers" - sees the jailed Kingpin attempting to broker a deal with the FBI in which he will turn over all of his supposedly considerable evidence revealing Daredevil as Murdock in exchange for the FBI returning his seized assets to him and then setting him free overseas. The main plot sees Elektra, Black Widow, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and other friends of Murdock helping him in deciding whether to go after the papers himself or to simply cut and run, even giving us a shocking - and unannounced - dream sequence in which he makes a surprising choice with awful consequences.

To reveal more of the story - or its shocking ending - would be a crime as every reader of Daredevil deserves to enjoy it for him- or herself. If you're not one of the initiated, take some time and head back to at least Parts of a Hole in the line of trades before diving right in here.

This comic's review on Silver Bullet Comics might be one of my favorites of all time. It even quotes Abraham Lincoln with "[f]or those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like." I liked JSA: Black Vengeance and haven't been reading JSA regularly, but I am - I think - familiar enough with the characters' backgrounds that I could read these two stories (not really connected at all which makes for an odd jump in the middle of the book) and get most of what was happening. If you don't know something about the characters beforehand, don't go for it.

The first story shows the current JSA team dropping back in time to the 50's where they have to prevent a bad guy from changing the past so that the heros of today never came into being. The current JSA saves the past JSA. It keeps a wonderful tradition alive of the old JSA teaming up with a current team (this time the JSA, other times the JLA, even Infinity Inc.) to save the world. It holds true to the spirit of the JSA which is that there truly is a familial feel to this book. Lots of members of the new JSA are children of or sidekicks of the older JSA members, and they all have close ties to the older members. It's an excellent idea and one that has been true throughout the history of the characters, through Infinity Inc. as well. That line of consistency and connection has kept the characters grounded through a number of series.

The second story is a tie-in from Infinite Crisis and needs way more understanding of the backstory even than does the first. Infinite Crisis continues to look like a bigger and bigger cross over event that is going to be amazingly tough for me to follow just through trade paperbacks. In this one, the Spectre - currently without a host and being lead by Eclipso posessing Jean Loring - comes to Kandaq (not Iraq, note the different beginning to the name) to punish Black Adam (family of Shazam and the whole Marvel family) for something. It's kind of hard to tell because a lot has come before this story (which involves the death of a semi-major JSA character).

My advice is to not start with this one. Go back and read some of the earlier JSA trades first. The feeling of connection to their history is both boon and bust. The art's good. The dialogue works, but it references older things. It's definitely not a self-contained storyline.