Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box07): Finally, a trip off the DC track and on to the Marvel one for a spell, relief that it's a good one – not that I'm partial to DD or anything, this particular issue being part of a set I repurchased (DD Vol. 2 1-106) after my entire Bendis / Brubaker DD set, the last runs that I picked up in single issues, vanished at some point in the last ten years (though I swear I've seen them around) but anyhow the comic itself.

Another reminder of why DD is one of my holy trinity, Stan’s best (co)-creation, the truest blank slate in the Marvel Universe, in some hands a swashbuckling do-gooder, in others, like the team here, a crime book / legal drama with a blind ninja martyr in red tights trying to do the best he can and, thanks to his own not-inconsiderable issues, screwing it all up (and getting the shit kicked out of him) before turning the same somewhat around, leaving broken people (especially Milla, good god, Milla – Bendis and Brubaker were just brutal with her), physically and emotionally, in his wake – and feeling crap about it but still doing the same thing night after night after night.

VERY cool to see Mr. Fear and The Enforcers (the latter having debuted way back in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 10) as the main antagonists: nothing like a little turning of comics lore into something new and exciting and terrifying through a stark noir palette. Speaking of: can't get enough of Michael Lark's work here – much as I love the Brubaker/Phillips team, there's something about the Brubaker/Lark pairing that grabs me in ways the former doesn't (or, rather, hasn't in awhile). Maybe it's the fondness I hold for their work (along with Rucka) on GOTHAM CENTRAL (which I want to complete in single issues) that clouds my judgement here, but jesusfuck look at the panel quartet pictured above, the tiny changes from panel to panel, especially Chico's expressions – that's just perfection.

Such an excellent issue of such an excellent series which makes me want to revisit all of Bendis and Brubaker's work on the title (Bendis, especially, has never again reached the heights he reached during his time on DAREDEVIL) – but I've got a few of the issues in the shortboxes, so I'm sure they'll turn up in this space...