With the war against the Hand over for now New York City is back under control of Wilson Fisk, who took his Mayoral office back from Matt Murdock. Along with taking his spot as Mayor of New York City Wilson Fisk also got rid of Matt as part of the DA’s office. Without his position within the system Daredevil will now have to go about taking down Fisk a much different way. Though given how Fisk has run the city so far that will not be easy. Now let’s find out what happens next with Daredevil #606.
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Phil Noto
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: At Quest Bank, Hammerhead and his gang blow up the vault. As soon as they do Daredevil shows up. While fighting through Hammerhead’s gang Daredevil notices they are using nail guns rather than normal guns.
Sometime earlier Daredevil meets up with Frank McGee (an Inhuman known as Nur and former NYPD cop) because he wants Frank’s help in taking down Mayor Wilson Fisk. After talking about how his attempt to arrest Fisk for the bodies he buried under a Fisk Corporation’s building Frank says he will help Daredevil. Before leaving Frank mentions needing a team to take down Fisk so he volunteers to assemble one for them.
Back in the present Daredevil calls Hammerhead out on how sloppy of a bank robbery he has done. Hammerhead reveals that he created a big scene on purpose to draw a crowd.
Using his senses Daredevil realizes that Hammerhead’s gang are holding several people in the crowd that just gathered. Hammerhead then announces to the crowd that is recording what is going on with their phones that the world will see him take out Daredevil.
Sometime earlier Daredevil meets Frank at an abandoned New York Public Library building. There Frank introduces Daredevil to the two men he has recruited to help take down Fisk.
The first one is Cypher, who previously helped Daredevil with looking for Wolverine (Hunt For Wolverine: Weapon Lost). The other guy is called the Reader, who is blind, has a dog partner and has the power to turn what he reads into reality.
While getting to know his new teammates Daredevil gets an alert from the police radio in his cowl.
Back in the present Daredevil tries to figure out how to save the people Hammerhead is holding hostage. Daredevil notices that one of the guys held hostage is about to try something. The guy being held hostage suddenly elbows his captor in the gut. Daredevil uses this opening to knock Hammerhead and the other gang members out with his escrima sticks, saving all the hostages in the process.
With the rest of the crowd still recording the scene Daredevil talks about how heroes will always protect them. He goes on to say that everyone is also responsible for looking out for each other as they can be heroes too.
Two days later, while swinging through the city Daredevil thinks about how he can’t just operate as Matt Murdock given how everyone knows him as the ex-Mayor of NYC. He decides to use an old friend to help him out.
At the Bar With No Name Mike Murdock is drinking and hits on a woman at the bar. Mike introducing himself as Matt Murdock’s twin brother. The woman’s husband, Freddy Killkillan, stops Mike from flirting with his wife.
When asked what he is doing there Mike says he is just trying to drink at a place that isn’t talking about his twin brother. He then starts flirting with Killkillan’s wife again much to Killkillan’s anger.
Still swinging through the city Daredevil comes across a large fight happening in the streets. Daredevil finds Killkillan beat up on the ground and asks what happened. Killkillan says he got into a fight with a guy in the bar and it escalated to what is happening now.
Daredevil tells everyone that is fighting he is going to text Hulk to show up. Everyone stops fighting and run away.
Daredevil then heads inside and finds Mike inside drinking alone. Mike introduces himself to Daredevil. End of issue.
The Good: Even after successfully taking down the Hand and forcing Mayor Wilson Fisk to stop his crusade against superheroes Daredevil is not looking to take a vacation. With work still left to be done Charles Soule makes sure to keep Daredevil focused on the bigger problem with Wilson Fisk still wielding the power in New York City. This focus made Daredevil #606 a strong set-up issue for what we should all expect in the near future for this series.
Even with how Daredevil #606 acted as a set-up for what Soule has planned next this issue is not slow. Everything in this issue has a sense of moving forward with Soule having a clear idea of where he wants Daredevil to be now that the Hand have been dealt with. The pacing of Daredevil #606 is helped by how we got character development in both the flashback and present day scenes.
The present day scenes involving Hammerhead’s latest plot in particular aided in the pacing never feeling slow. Even with Hammerhead ending up to be more of a villain of the week type bad guy for Daredevil #606 his plot actually had depth. Instead of just simply having Hammerhead look like a loser Soule was actually able to show how strategic the crime boss as he use the public’s desire to record everything to gain his reputation back.
Hammerhead’s plot was made even better by how it completely caught Daredevil by surprise. This is something that was clearly new to Daredevil as he normally expects his villains to just want to destroy him and get rich. It shows the long-term planning Soule has for Daredevil as this is direct follow up of the humiliation Hammerhead had after Wilson Fisk had him and the other crime bosses arrested.
Going with this angle also gave Daredevil a different type of test as we had to see him think on the fly. It is the complete opposite of his war with Wilson Fisk, the Hand and Muse where he had some time to think. Now being put in a position where he needed to quickly assess the situation allowed us to see how he used his senses to quickly figure out how to save the day. By noticing one of the hostages was going to do something we got to see see his precision with how he took out Hammerhead and his gang with one throw of his escrima sticks.
Daredevil’s speech to the crowd recording this event was made stronger by how he used recent events to back of his dialogue. It spoke to how Marvel is trying to revive the credibility of their heroes rather than just having them fight each other. Even though Daredevil is normally a dark and grim superhero he knew this was the right time to inspire others to stand-up against bad guys.
That sense of hope added further depth to what Daredevil is looking to accomplish with the new team he is trying to assemble. Bringing in relatively new characters like Nur and Cypher help give them time in the spotlight to get over naturally with fans. Nur in particular stood out as he was portrayed as being on a similar level as Daredevil. Daredevil never speaking down to him showed that Nur’s time in the NYPD is something that must be respected. His past with Wilson Fisk also gives Nur an interesting sub-plot to develop into a greater character as the story progresses.
Reader was also another interesting addition to be on Daredevil’s team. Given that we don’t see Daredevil or Matt interact with other people that are blind Soule built an instant bond between the two. It was an effective way to quickly build the friendship between the two. And with Reader’s powers it’ll be fun to see how Soule uses that to show us what the character can do.
With so much attention given to how Daredevil was setting up to take down Wilson Fisk it was good to see Matt Murdock not forgotten in all of this. Matt realizing he can’t just go about acting as himself anymore given his previous position in Wilson Fisk’s cabinet was smart. Bringing in Mike Murdock to act as his possible ears on the ground gives Soule the potential to see different types of interactions with villains. The only question is how Matt will be able to keep Mike Murdock active while Daredevil and his own personal life also needs to be maintained.
Phil Noto did a good job fitting into the street-level world that Daredevil operates. While his style is not for everyone Noto made Daredevil’s action look fluid. As with his previous work I expect Noto’s artwork to get better as he gets more comfortable with the story Soule is writing.
The Bad: The only minor problem with Daredevil #606 is that there were times were Noto’s artwork looked like he was drawing statues. The lack of motion in some of the flashback scenes were more noticeable when reading this issue multiple times.
Overall: Daredevil #606 was another excellent chapter in Charles Soule’s ongoing narrative in this series. Soule’s understanding of where he wants to take Daredevil and how he will challenge Matt Murdock continues to prove to be the strength of his writing. That clear direction help make Daredevil #606 feel more than just a set-up issue as there were multiple sub-plots going on at the same time.
