Daredevil! #4 – PizzaRat dot Net

This cover image is of a white rectangle with a silhouette cutout of Hellverine in it, revealing Stick (“played” here by an action figure of Donnie Yen from John Wick 4) and Daredevil, posing dramatically in front of the nighttime lights of New York City. The text, “A toy comic by Phil Wrede,” is visible along the lefthand side of the image. This is the fourth issue of my Daredevil toy comic series.

Daredevil, Stick, and Hellverine all strike fighting stances on a rooftop as lightning flashes in the distance.

As all the combatants feel each other out, Daredevil flashes back in his memory to the day of his graduation from law school, when he hid out by himself at Fogwell’s Gym, the place where his father, Battlin’ Jack Murdock, trained as a boxer.

In the past, Matt Murdock sits on a bench as light from outside the empty gym cuts in through the small slits in the blinds. In the present, Stick and Hellverine step closer to each other.

They close on each other, just about to strike, while in the past, Daredevil remembers meeting Stick on the day of his graduation. He steps into the empty gym, his face not shown on this page (although it’s clearly Stick).

Stick swings his sword at Hellverine several times, and never hits him. In the past, Daredevil remembers learning Stick’s name.

Through the portal cast in his hidden underground catacombs, Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime (“played” here by an action figure of Vincent D’Onofrio from the MCU) watches the battle unfold, and he is still displeased with how it is being waged.

The Kingpin calls the Hand ninjas he deployed through the city in the previous issue; they affirm that they are in position to join the battle against Daredevil. In the past, Daredevil remembers Stick explaining to him that he could teach him how to fight.

Hand ninjas close on the battling trio from all angles, while Hellverine explains to Stick and Daredevil how best to savor vengeance.

As Daredevil rushes Hellverine in the past, he recalls Stick telling him that he needed to rid himself of his father’s bad fighting habits to become the kind of fighter Stick thinks he can be. Further back in time, he remembers seeing his father taking a beating in the ring, his fighting skills unable to protect him.

Daredevil takes dramatic swings at Hellverine as the Hand ninjas and Stick look on. Daredevil remembers Stick’s principal lesson to him: to focus.

A bright flash of lightning illuminates the Hand ninjas in silhouette against the night sky. As the fight continues, Daredevil hears Stick’s voice in his head, encouraging him not to fight with his heart, like his father did.

Hand ninjas converge on Stick, and he blocks their strikes with his sword, while Hellverine and Daredevil continue to test one another’s skills.

Back in the catacombs, Kingpin seems encouraged by how the fight is going now. Stick continues to fight the Hand ninjas; Daredevil manages to trap one of Hellverine’s arms in the flexible rope of his combat baton.

With a great swing, Stick slashes two of the Hand ninjas exactly in half.

Kingpin wants to unleash more fighters against Daredevil, and he thinks he can use the Book of Vision to summon them. The Hood, his right-hand man, is less certain.

As yet more Hand ninjas climb up the side of the building to ambush Daredevil and Stick, Hellverine breaks through Daredevil’s guard, and cuts into the left side of his body, just above his hip.

Daredevil takes a great leap into the air, away from Hellverine, and lands at the very edge of the rooftop. Now that he’s close to the building’s side, he can more easily detect the climbing ninjas.

Kingpin cracks open the Book of Vision and begins to cast a spell on the corpse of his assistant, who was killed by The Hood in the first issue of this series.

Daredevil tries to put Stick’s lessons into play; through his POV, we “see” Stick and Hellverine through his radar sense.

The skin on the face of the Kingpin’s dead assistant falls away, exposing his bare skull. The newly-arrived Hand ninjas formally stand behind Hellverine; the odds are even less in Daredevil and Stick’s favor than they were before.

The body of the Kingpin’s deceased assistant has been completely replaced by a ninja’s form, his exposed skull present under the red ninja robes. As the new demonic creature stands, Kingpin describes it as, “Mephisto’s fist, incarnate.” Daredevil and Stick engage their enemies again as this issue comes to a close.

The credits for the comic strip, citing the Unsplash users whose photographs were the background art, the use of fonts by Blambot, the ownership of Marvel by Disney, the creation of Marvel characters by actual human beings, the use of stock visual effects by Action VFX, and that the figure photography/script/background graphic design/lettering were by me, Phil Wrede.

The Kingpin’s unexpected journey into becoming some kind of necromancer continues at breakneck speed this month! That definitely wasn’t part of the plan when I started working on this comic, but the further into it I get, the more the Kingpin’s control issues assert themselves in my characterization of him. Wilson Fisk subscribes to the philosophy, “If you want something done right, do it yourself,” and if that means he has to learn to cast spells that raise and transform the dead, that’s what he’ll do!

It’s probably obvious from how much I integrated them, but I really enjoyed the flashback panels in this issue. Donnie Yen looks even more dapper than usual in black & white. I don’t know if I’ll ever achieve Frank Miller-esque levels of overwrought narration, but I’m going to keep trying to!

I feel like I’m stalling the story/action out on the top of this skyscraper, so look for some more changes of scenery in the next issue (which might be a little while in arriving – I’ve had a few new ideas I wanted to explore in the months upcoming)!

I hope you enjoyed reading this month’s issue of Daredevil! If it’s your first time visiting Pizzarat.net, or you’d like a refresher on the story so far, you can read the other three issues through the links below:

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