Broken Frontier

I’m going to miss Brian Michael Bendis.

“Ultimate Spider-Man” brought me back to comic books. After ten years away, I briefly got interested when the “Titans” were revamped, but after Devon Grayson left the title, I stopped reading comic books entirely. Then I saw an “Ultimate Marvel” magazine in the grocery store and bought it out of curiosity. Two issues of “Ultimate Spider-Man” were reprinted inside, and after reading them, I became a full-fledged comic book fan again.

I also loved “Alias”, the series that introduced Jessica Jones to the Marvel universe. A damaged ex-superhero trying to make it as a detective, Jessica’s fierce strength and intelligence helped her survive situations that would have destroyed lesser beings. When Bendis first proposed the “Alias” series, he wanted the original Spider-Woman as the lead. Fortunately that didn’t work out – Marvel had other plans for the character – so Bendis ended up creating one of the most complex and fascinating characters in the history of comic books.

But I think “Daredevil” has been his crowning achievement.

From the beginning, his work on the series has been extraordinary. Brian Michael Bendis focused on the man instead of the hero, exploring the many degrees of guilt, anger and sorrow that motivated a blind man to fight against the darkness long past the point when any rational person would walk away. Since Bendis took over the title, Matt Murdock was outed as Daredevil, defeated both Bullseye and Kingpin decisively and declared himself the ruler of Hell’s Kitchen. Through it all, Bendis created a psychological masterpiece that – more than any other series – has delved into what it means to be a hero and what it means to be human.

“Timmy was born into this world just like the rest of us… and, like many of us, he has spent every single conscious moment of it trying, as best he can, to tune it all out. Because just like the rest of us, no one asked Timmy who he would like for parents. No one asked Timmy what kind of environment he would like to live in. Certainly, no one told Timmy that sometimes life just isn’t fair. That sometimes people can be mean for no good reason. That people who say they love you can treat you badly. But most importantly, no one bothered to tell Timmy that these things are not his fault.”

Bendis wrote those words in his first collected Daredevil story, “Wake Up”. Timmy was the abused son of a barely-competent criminal named Leap Frog. Ben Urich, a reporter for the “Daily Bugle”, became obsessed with what made Timmy catatonic and eventually learned what really happened the night a superhero fell and a child did the unthinkable. The words are painful and real even removed from the story though, and they don’t just describe Timmy, they describe Matt Murdock.

If we identify with Spider-Man because he’s the nerd that can never seem to catch a break, we root for Daredevil because he’s the man who refuses to give up, no matter how bad it gets. Unlike Spider-man, he doesn’t keep waging war against the bad guys because of a sense of responsibility. He does it because it’s the only thing he can do. If he stops, if the good guys are ever defeated, then all of his sacrifices and losses will ultimately be meaningless, and he can’t allow that. He rages on because he knows there’s never been a moment when he could’ve saved himself – life doesn’t work that way sometimes – but if he can save others, it’s almost as good. And almost is sometimes better than nothing.

“Decalogue” centers around a support group for people who have been affected by recent events – specifically the fact that a man dressed like the devil has taken control of Hell’s Kitchen. A certain suspension of belief might be required for casual readers, since the stories these people tell intertwine and are part of a bigger story, but I didn’t have any trouble accepting the premise at face value. If anything, I thought it was a brilliant concept and an extremely effective way to show how Daredevil changes the lives of the people around him just by existing.

The first person to speak at length is a drug-addicted prostitute who happened to be at the bar the night Daredevil defeated Kingpin and declared himself the ruler of Hell’s Kitchen. “Even hosed out of my mind and half asleep on the bar with some scumbag’s hand up my shirt, I still remember every word he said,” she tells the rest of the group. A few days after that fateful night, she was watching her boyfriend and his brother planning to kill Daredevil with the help of a hired thug when something snapped inside her.

“They were going to kill him for trying to help us,” she told the group. Even though she was in a drug-induced haze, she made a stand. She had spent her entire life apologizing for her own existence, but the idea that a man would be punished for giving people like her hope was more than she could accept.

Daredevil’s heroism motivates her to fight back, but her story also serves as an excellent example of why so many of Marvel’s superheroes are inspirational. Spider-Man could walk away in a heartbeat and never look back, but he doesn’t. He truly believes that because he was given great powers, he must use them responsibly. It’s a cliché now, yet it’s still a very powerful one. The X-Men have always used their abilities to save the very ones who hate them, hoping against all available evidence that eventually people would recognize the humanity beneath the mutations. And Daredevil? He’s had a hard life, but he presses on anyway, protecting his friends and neighbors even though there’s nothing to gain from it.

Although she ended up being rescued by Daredevil, the prostitute was as much a hero as anyone. Because of his example, she was able to stand up against a group of angry men with guns, even though she didn’t stand a chance in hell of winning. Heroes aren’t always the biggest or the strongest or the fastest – most of the time they’re not even close. Instead, heroes are the ones who are willing to risk their lives to do what’s right, even when they could easily stay silent.

That’s what defines many of Marvel’s greatest superheroes. They do what’s right even though it’s never easy or rewarding or even logical. They do what’s right because otherwise the darkness wins.

Archie’s story is next. The son of a man who once blew up Matt Murdock’s house for the Kingpin, Archie visits his father in jail and ends up agreeing to kill Foggy Nelson for his old man. But he’s not sure if he can go through with it. “Every punch—I took it,” he tells his wife. “Stabbed me with a fork when I was 12. I just took it. But now that I’m someone’s dad…. How do you do that? How could you hit a little boy?”

“He’s a bad man, and you’re not,” she replies. “Even after all the crap he did to you… you’re still not. Sweetie, you can’t have his love. I know you want it, but you can’t have it. It doesn’t exist.” It’s an echo of the first story Bendis wrote, a portrait of abuse as casual devastation, and just like Timmy, Archie must choose whether to break free from the pain of his past or let it destroy him. His life hasn’t been easy, but like Daredevil, he can decide whether to prevent evil from continuing or allow it to flourish.

It’s the same choice all of us have. We can let the darkness destroy us or we can find our strength in resistance. We can give up, or we can be heroes.

It’s amazing how carefully Brian Michael Bendis writes, never allowing the aching rawness of his characters’ stories to devolve into melodrama, yet also refusing to sugarcoat the intensity. When one of the women screams out, “I had blood and glass and a bruise on me the size of a fist,” her pain and anger is so powerful it’s hard not to cry. And when a mother reveals the true reason she’s at the meeting – “I thought I might have to kill Daredevil for what he had done to my daughter. For what he did that night that would make a normal little girl cut out her own eyes and slit her wrists. And leave this as her note.” – it’s obvious that Bendis isn’t pulling any punches.

“Decalogue” isn’t an easy book to read. It’s got bad guys and fight scenes and other comic book conventions, but it also has a level of ferocious honesty that is discomforting at times. This isn’t a story that you read and then forget; it stays with you for a while. These are people that are real, people that you know, people that shop at the same grocery store as you and stand behind you while you’re waiting in line at the post office. On the surface, “Decalogue” asks what motivates Daredevil, but in truth, it also asks what motivates any of us. Why do we keep struggling when sometimes life is hard and ugly and even pointless?

Near the end, Matt Murdock says, “I would never in a million years have wished any of this on any of you. I just want you to know that. I’m trying so hard to keep these kinds of things away from you…and they just keep coming in every direction.”

It’s the definition of the man. He has spent his life trying to protect people from being hurt. It’s the definition of tragedy. He knows that no matter what he does, evil will always find a way. In a very real sense, he’s lost the battle before he’s even begun to fight. But it’s also the definition of a hero, because knowing all of this, he fights anyway.

As do we all. It would be easy to give up, to walk away, to admit that we’ll never change the world. But we go on anyway, because it’s what we do best. Oftentimes, the rewards are enough to make the bad times worth it, but even when that’s not true, we go on anyway. Because – like Daredevil – we know things might not end well, but as long as we hope, as long as we keep fighting, there’s always that chance.

Somehow we instinctively understand that – when we refuse to let the darkness win – we’ve already changed the world in the most powerful way imaginable.

There’s only one more book to be published before Brian Michael Bendis completes his run on “Daredevil”. That makes me sad. Bendis stopped writing “Alias” way too quickly, and the follow-up series (“Pulse”) was a pale substitute, an unnecessary epilogue that made fans miss the original series even more. Now he’s giving up “Daredevil” too. Obviously I’m grateful that he’s still writing “Ultimate Spider-Man”, which is as good as (or better than) it’s ever been. But I’m going to miss his Daredevil stories as much or more then I’ve missed his “Alias” series.

Maybe one day he’ll write another book that plays to his greatest strengths – his incredible dialogue, his vivid characterizations, his unique compassion and understanding of life. I truly hope so. But until then, I’ll go back and read my “Alias” and “Daredevil” trade paperbacks yet again and relive the genius of his work. And I’ll be thankful that even though I’ll miss him, his greatest stories will live on forever.

Thank you, Mr. Bendis, for an extraordinary book in an extraordinary series. If I hadn’t picked up that “Ultimate Marvel” magazine, there’s a good chance I would never have known just how amazing and transcendent comic books could be, and I would have been much poorer as a result. You have touched me and countless others with your words, and for that I’m grateful.

You will be missed.

Pick of the Week:

When Judd Winick began writing the Marvel series “Exiles”, I only knew two things about him. He was the cartoonist from MTV’s “Real World”, and he could write one hell of a comic book. The story of six displaced mutants from various dimensions brought together to restore rips in the fabric of reality, “Exiles” was my favorite series for a while. Winick wrote exciting plots that redefined the Marvel universe, but he also made his characters so complex and likeable that I truly cared what happened to them.

Eventually Winick signed an exclusive contract with DC, and the “Exiles” series never recovered from his loss. (Personally, I don’t think any of his work for DC has come close to his Marvel work, but I still buy “Outsiders” and hope.) Even so, the first four trade paperback collections of his “Exiles” are still available, and they’re highly enjoyable. So if you’re an X-Men fan, I’d highly recommend them.