Gather 'round, DD lovers, for I have a great story to tell you about, featuring our favourite superhero, in his civilian identity of blind lawyer Matt Murdock. There's a sprinkle of Foggy Nelson goodness in it, too, and I'm sure some will appreciate that.
The above panels are from the first issue of New Avengers, by Brian Michael Bendis.
The chronological setting is right after
Avengers: Disassembled, the disastrous event that lead to the dismantling of the group of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
That's right. It is hard to believe, seeing as how nowadays we have something like five or six different flavors of Avengers (Mighty Avengers, Young, New, Secret, Dark, diet, with almonds etc.), but at that time there were no more Avengers in the Marvel Universe. The story narrates how, by fate or chance, a new team of Avengers spontaneously formed itself during a time of crisis.
At that time, Bendis was in the apex of his run in
Daredevil, with Matt having unmasked after beating the daylights out of Kingpin and with the FBI on his tail incessantly seeking proof to his activity as the red-clad vigilante.
New Avengers #1 is set just in those times. Along with his friend and partner Foggy Nelson, and with Luke Cage working as a bodyguard for them, Matt arrives by helicopter to the Raft, a maximum security installation designed to hold the most dangerous supervillains. He's welcomed by the woman who will be their guide through that dantesque hell: Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman.
Under a request by Mr Fantastic, Nelson & Murdock are there to confer with Robert Reynolds, a superhuman said to have confessed to the murder of his own wife.
After having convinced a rather scared Foggy to get out of the helicopter, and after the proper introductions are made, Jessica leads the three of them to the sub-basement.
All the while, Foggy expresses his perplexities about him being dragged there, in a claustrophobic facility crawling with dozens of murderous individuals, and in general about the opportunity of locking up all of said individuals in the same place.
Jessica Drew tries to reassure him that everything is under control (yeah, and we all know how it always goes in fiction whenever "everything is under control"). She also lets a comment slip about Matt's outing by the tabloids, to which Matt adamantly restates that he's not Daredevil. Nice to see that Bendis is consistent with what he's writing in other books (mostly because not always he does that).
So, the quartet reaches sub-basement 7, which is possibly even creepier and more claustrophobic than the rest of the place, and they are joined by two SHIELD redshirts.
The Fogster complains some more, and Jessica reassures him again, saying that there are three superheroes there with him besides the SHIELD agents stationed there, implying again that she doesn't buy that Matt is not DD. I wonder if she is doing that on purpose, to tease Matt, or if she's just desperately searching for a way to make Foggy's incessant whining stop. Then there's a blackout.
A total blackout in the maximum security prison. Crawling with supervillans. With them in the sub-basement.
As if it wasn't enough, the corridor is rocked by the shockwave of an explosion occurring elsewhere.
Faced with such a critical situation, Matt keeps his cool and orders Foggy to stay behind Luke's unbreakable hide, while he goes to check Reynolds' cell. Reynolds, he recalls having being told by Reed Richards, is one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and he's supposed to be a good guy. Matt asks him to help them get out of there. Unfortunately for them, Reynolds appears to be distraught and apathetic to the point that he doesn't listen to him, or even care about whatever is happening outside of his cell...
The tension keeps rising, and the dialogues become more concitated. The most panicked of all is of course fun-loving "Foggy" Nelson, who goes all "I told you so" on the others, especially on Matt, whom he irrationally blames of having forced him to come to that place.
- Please, get me out of here before something... ...insane...And there he is behind him. The K2 of insanity. The in-continuity answer to a careless fanboysh question like "lol ppl what if teh Venom symbiote bonded with a dude wh's already a bloodthirsty psycho?!?".
Cletus Kasady. The nightmare known as Carnage.
He pops out behind poor Foggy as the others watch (or sense, in Matt's case) in horror. Matt thinks fast and shoves Foggy out of the way right before Carnage unleashes in a sudden madness of tentacles, fangs, spikes, superstrength, spider-sense immunity and freaky-colored speech baloons. Bendis also provides a handy B&W freeze frame for a quick reference on who he is and what he does (a useful device for such a setting, I must say. It certainly beats having the characters on scene introducing the newcomers with improbable lines, as happens often).
Matt pushes Foggy inside the relative safety of Reynolds' cell. Foggy can only watch in anguish while his partner closes the door, warns him not to open it for any reason, and gets hit by one of Carnage's flailing appendages.
The three plain-clothed heroes are barely managing to contain Carnage, as an inhumanly muscular figure emerges from behind Matt.
Tall, bare-chested, its facial traits stretched in a grotesque grin. And he knows Matt Murdock, apparently.
Matt welcomes the newcomer with a well placed rising double kick, to which the monster retaliates with a hammering of a punch to his face. Attentive readers may already have recognized the guy as Mister Hyde, a semi-regular foe to Daredevil.
Matt takes him on on his own, leaving Cage and Jessica to deal with Carnage. In the meantime, in the darkness of the cell, we have Foggy's defining moment for this issue:
Hearing the sounds of the battle coming from the corridor, Foggy begs Robert Reynolds to get out of his alienation and help his friends to face those impossible odds. Can the words of a simple man like him reach his mind and convince him to return being the hero they said he was? Who knows? Matt Murdock surely doesn't know, and he has more pressing troubles to deal with, namely avoiding the one punch Mr Hyde needs to turn him into paste.
- You put me here, Murdock!!- Actually, Zabo, you put you here... ...but I see that you might not be in the mindset to see it that way!Classy.
The dialogue between the two here is consistent with how Bendis has already depicted Hyde in Daredevil in an issue set before this one. In that circumstance, too, Mr Hyde was irrationally blaming Murdock for having constantly beaten him in the past and sent to prison, like if it was Matt who told him to inject himself with some hormonal filth to become an oversized freak and go play the superbaddie.
Those unfamiliar with Daredevil might also wonder how can Matt have Mr Hyde - a guy who has traded punches with guns like Thor and Hulk - in his rogue gallery, considering that he doesn't have superstrength and all. Well...
...he usually does fine by going the classical way: kicking him in the head as hard as he can.
The artist, David Finch, does a good work with representing the agitation of the scene. His style of portraying characters "good looking" also fits in nicely. For example, as you can see above, Spider-Woman is drawn to look like one of those impossibly attractive multiracial fashion models (you know, half Vietnamese, half Swedish, half Czech etc.).
Anyway, the sound effect was actually them getting reinforcements: Foggy's words have managed to touch Robert Reynolds, who emerges from the cell as The Sentry, grabs Carnage, flies him to space and rips him in half. It's the only deus-ex-machina they get, however, because he doesn't re-enter until the end of all that mess.
No longer occupied with the symbiote, Luke Cage easily takes Mr Hyde out.
But the group still has to find a way out of there. And a quick one also, because the place is filling with... is that water? Foggy wonders if they're sinking...
I love how, despite these dire situations coming one after the other, far from being panicked or even frightened Luke Cage goes simply "Aw, crap..." and Matt just looks irritated. Anyway, our heroes manage to swim out of there before Hydro-Man can drown them, with Foggy grabbed and flown to safety by Spider-Woman (that lucky son of a...).
The heroes emerge on the main deck, where hell has broken loose and Spider-man and Captain America are already fending off against a multitude of inmates (most of them superpowered). They join the dances. While fighting, Matt notices how Spidey has lost his mask, and promptly points out how that's a "bad career move". Bonus points to Bendis for the "dry humor + DD continuity reference" combo.
So, the five of them fight against the horde of psycho supervillains (is that the Mandrill in the left foreground?), and we have our Matt Murdock displaying the best of his agility and physical prowess, as he somersaults over the heads of the multitude, kicking bad guy after bad guy.
Of the group of superheroes there, he's theoretically the weakest. He cannot fly or shoot electricity like Spider-Woman. He doesn't have unbreakable skin like Luke Cage. He doesn't have Peter Parker's spider-powers. He's the only one, besides Cap, who doesn't have superhuman strength. And unlike Cap, he's bare-handed, without his usual billy-clubs.
He has powers of his own, certainly. But you'd think that in such a pandemonium, they're probably an hindrance more than anything else. Bendis could have Matt being disabled by an overloading of his supersenses, or even toss up some caption or some dialogue reminding us about this factor. He doesn't. Readers are left to imagine for themselves just how tough a time Matt is having, unarmed and underpowered, in all that mess. All of this, and yet there he is. Giving it all. Fighting with no less tenacity than his other companions. An amazing display of heroism.
In short, Matt Murdock, outside his own book, comes out as pretty hardcore.
The good guys, later joined by Iron-Man, manage to defeat the rampaging inmates and contain the breakout. Afterwards, inspired by what has transpired, Cap will offer all of the heroes who have been brought together in this incident to join a new group of Avengers. He will also invite Daredevil (who will coolly reject the invitation), but that is another story.
- Yeah. I mean, already half a month has passed without new posts. Well, 'xcept for that dumb debate on Brubaker thing...
- Hell if I know. Heard he was taking a test or something. Look, so far he's been posting.. how many on average? Four a month? Five? 
- But now it's already December 20th! Also, last month there hasn't been any Centrif-
- Don't sweat it. More posts will come soon.
- Pleasure to hear your voice, F.
- You put me here, Murdock!!
Uh, so this priest walks into his apartment...
Not content to just sit on one of the empty benches, he goes to hide inside the confessional. In particular, he goes to occupy the priest's compartment.
I must confess that, being a non native English speaker, I was puzzled when I read "condo" at first. What could a "million dollar condo" be? A uber-elastic, hyper-durable, state-of-the-art contraceptive? No, turns out it's just a short for condominium. You learn something new every day.
