City of Dreams (New York, New York)
September 21st, 2009 by david brothers | Tags: ann nocenti, daredevil, JRjrI’ve yakked about Ann Nocenti’s run on Daredevil before, but honestly, it was really great and underrated comics. The message that violence is not the answer, that heroes cannot use violence as the end-all/be-all problem solving tool, all of that stuff? It’s what Daredevil could use a little more of these days, instead of increasingly tortured melodrama and depression. I like my Daredevil to be a little more like Nocenti’s and a little less like Blankets, you know?
Anyway, context: Matt Murdock has forsaken the love of his life for Mary, the good half of Typhoid Mary. At the same time, Daredevil has fallen under the spell of Typhoid Mary, who betrays him, has him beaten, and then finishes him off by dropping him off a bridge. When DD wakes up, New York City has gone to Hell, literally. It’s infested with demons, the skies have gone red, and monsters roam the streets.
Daredevil, ashamed of himself and his actions, has gone quiet. He’s moving on auto-pilot, never speaking, just brutalizing demons. It isn’t even properly protecting people. The demons provide a convenient excuse for Daredevil to work out his frustrations. Not much of a hero, is he?
Best part’s the smile at the end.
Words by Ann Nocenti, art by John Romita, Jr.
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Nocenti just did the best bit of DD #500 & JRJR is one of Marvel’s powerhouses, recently reprinting his run on Thor with Jurgens & Spider-Man with JMS.
Yet Quesada recently said they have no plans to reprint this run.
nnggggg.
This is one of my favorite comics ever. Romita Jr always had a real facility to draw fucked up shit, and Inferno was the best example of that. So great.
Great comic, hadn’t read it before (where’s my Daredevil Visionaries: Ann Nocenti TPB? How come this run hasn’t been reprinted?); Nocenti’s run had a little of everything. My favorite part of her run was Daredevil’s fight with Ultron when he beats him with a stick, it was awesome.
Anyway, which issue is this comic from?
David, with your appreciation of Nocenti, are you familiar the Longshot miniseries she did with Art Adams? I finally got the chance to read it recently, and while I don’t think it’s as intelligent as what I’ve seen of her Daredevil material, it’s still sort of interesting. Particularly when considering that such a surreal bit of social commentary (by all appearances a throwaway miniseries) turned into a relatively big part of the X-Men story later down the line.
Just curious if you’ve seen it, and if so, your thoughts?
I’ll never forget the younger me picking up a Daredevil comic and being freaked out by him wrestling a demon subway train to hell. Romita Jr’s visuals for Inferno and Mephisto were creepy to the extreme.
@seth hurley: @Radlum: I always understood, from some other parts of the internet, that Nocenti’s Daredevil was “dumbass” and “couldn’t hold a candle to Frank Miller’s run”.
Of course, since reading these articles and a few other things, I’ve been convinced of the opposite and will be hunting her stuff down, but it could be possible that it has an undeserved bad reputation for some reason?
@Lugh: Nocenti’s run followed directly after Miller and Mazzucchelli’s Born Again, which was two creators at the top, or one of the tops, of their game doing one of the best Marvel stories of all time.
Rather than continue directly on in that mode, Nocenti took a left turn and did her story, rather than theirs. Fans who expected more Miller Ninjas-n-mope were probably left pretty disappointed.
let’s not also forget that on top of the good writing and art, we have dashes of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness. Like the time DD beat Ultron to death with a stick in the Nocenti run.