Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 3) Issue #2 – “Red, White, Black and Blue”! In the previous installment, after a hiatus that I know nothing about, Matt Murdock has returned to the Law Offices of Nelson and Murdock so he can continue doing lawyer stuff. Problem is, everyone knows he’s Daredevil and he’s getting bugged non-stop about it and defense lawyers are using this info against him. He has a client named Jobrani and a case got all fucked up because of shitty representation! Murdock sucks.

Not much else happened except that he inexplicably smooched the bride of a mafia crime family, which was incredibly inappropriate for a litany of reasons. Also, Captain America is going to show up to talk to Murdock about something and we’re all going to moan and groan as he tries to string words together into a sentence. A skill he has not yet mastered.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #2 [October, 2011]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Red, White, Black and Blue”

Cover art suggests that Captain America is going to club Daredevil with his own nunchucks. What an asshole.

The front page of the next morning’s Daily Bugle presents Murdock’s failed trial. “The Jobrani trial was stalled today when the judge fired blind attorney Matt Murdock and suggested that Mr. Jobrani hire himself a new lawyer who isn’t suspected of being Daredevil.” Way to bury the lead on that one, J. Jonah Jameson. Stick to your day job of snooping around for Spider-Man.

Daredevil gets smacked in the face with a red, white, and blue shield with the star on it. What can of asshole uses a shield as a weapon? Doesn’t this guy know what shields are supposed to be used for? Why can’t this dipshit get anything right ever?

Daredvil whips his sticks and clobbers Cap in the head with them, which he rightfully deserves. Even a preemptive strike wouldn’t have been deserved. Even a pillow to his face while he sleeps. Even a gunshot to the nards.

They re-grab their respective weapons and convene for a howdy-do. “I recognize the heartbeat,” Daredevil thinks. “There’s not another one like it in the world. It beats like a Sousa march.” Of course it does. What a fucking nerd, this Captain America guy. I hate him so much.

Captain America informs the Daredevilled one that he is under arrest, which seems to be something only police officers can do? Not superheroes wearing tights. At this, Daredevil flies away. “Objection,” he retorts while Cap looks at him like he was just presented with a multiplication problem.

Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Daredevil takes Cap’s shield and crashes through a window with it, into what I hope is an abandoned building. “I can guess the charges. I left town for a while because there’d been a demon inside of me. Literally, a demon. And under its spell, I’d done some dark things I’d rather not openly revisit.” Ah, allow me to guess on this one: running a fetish website where perverts pay him bitcoin to hump his toilet.

Cap follows him into the building and attempts to stop him again. “I gave you time to turn in yourself. My patience is up,” he says as Daredevil does cartwheels around the room. Daredevil wonders where all this steadfastness is coming from. Cap usually just sits around the Avengers Mansion picking his nose.

Flashback to Matt Murdock watching a report on TV about Cap’s butt buddy Bucky “Butt Buddy” Barnes, charged with treason. He uses this information to schmooze. “Bucky was a pawn,” Daredevil says as Cap tries to whip his ass ruddy. “He was manipulated into committing some hideous acts. And I’m sorry I smeared your name nonetheless.”

Ah, so this is what it’s all about. Daredevil threw shade where it wasn’t his place to throw shade! “This isn’t about Bucky,” Cap glowers, tightening the cord on Daredevil’s sticks and preparing to possibly choke the life out of him. Instead, he wraps it around Daredevil’s ankle and flips him on his ass. It is so about Bucky! Nyah nyah nyah!

Daredevil tries to convince Cap that he isn’t the enemy here. Eventually, they reach an uneasy truce and hand each other back their respective weapons. “Matter’s tabled,” Cap tells him. “But not settled.” Fair enough, dummy! Daredevil will just change his uniform color to green and he’ll never find him again.

Long enough to catch you farting loudly not once, not twice, but thrice!

Later, at the Law Offices of Peanut Butter and Jelly, Foggy Nelson is turning over garbage cans looking for… it’s not clear. His keys? His virginity? Ha! Never lost that! He catches Kirstin McDuffie standing at his door. “Hey, so I finally met Daredevil,” she says as he rifles through files in a drawer. “I have something you might be interested in.”

You know that Jobrani case? It’s only been brought up a thousand times so far? Murdock accidentally made an ass of himself merely by being present? “I just… happen to have stumbled across some new information.”

Foggy takes a gander at the file she’s holding. Little lines appear above his head, indicating either surprise or that he smells terrible. “If that’s true, it puts a whole new light on the case! I’ll pass that information along to Matt A.S.A.P.!

McDuffie finds what Foggy’s looking for: his “lucky” tie. This indirectly implies that Foggy lost it while boning somebody, which is impossible because he’s never lost his virginity. We have already established this.

On Manhattan’s west side, Daredevil spies on a lawyer named Gene Loren. “I’ve never known him to turn away anyone who’d been wronged by the system. Which means he loses more battles than he wins.” Yes, the system is broken. It always has been and it always will be. This is why Captain America is an idiot about his country.

Daredevil makes his presence known, which spooks Loren and his companion. “I want to talk to you about the Jobrani matter,” Daredevil tells Loren, which confuses the shit out of him. He ain’t even know who the Jobrani jabroni even is! Well, sir, let Daredevil tell you all about it! He’s a victim of police brutality and he lost all his money on the medical bills. He’s even got the evidence to sue and win! However, Matt Murdock is Daredevil and apparently this is a huge problem?

“Why didn’t you take his case, Gene? Did somebody pressure you?” Gene Loren’s heartbeat thumps a mile a minute. Daredevil assures him that there’s nothing to worry about. All friends here! “There… there were calls. Several. Unidentified.”

He goes on to say the phone calls were unsettling. Whispers. Weird voices. Heavy breathing. Jerkoff noises. No Caller ID. Untraceable. Sexy.

So these “weird voices”… anything weird about them?

He’d buy Daredevil a much higher chair to sit in.

Loren describes the voices: “Older. Echo heavy, like a bad connection – but not electronic or filtered – unless I’m just crazy…” Hmm, THE PLOT THICKENS. Maybe. Someone out there really does not want Jobrani to win…

Daredevil flips around town and ends up at the electronics store that Jobrani and his family owns. Or owned, rather. Ahmed Jobrani lost it in the bankruptcy, but it had been family-owned for three generations. That’s a lot of time owning a electronics store. Have electronics even been around that long?! I mean, how long have we had electronics? Only as far back as 1982, right? “He swore if he’d won, he’d buy back the entire building.” Daredevil sneaks in and has a look-see. As much of a look-see as a blind man can both look and see. Which is not at all, as it turns out.

He can make out the faintest of noises. Metal on metal. Maybe a hum. Maybe a buzz. A low din. Maybe a ruffle. Perhaps a titter. A squeak. A moo.

Daredevil slowly steps down the basement where he discovers these holographic android entities shuffling around. But solid. They’re not images! Daredevil shoves one to prove it. Yep, solid. *shoves again*

The room full of these Daredevil-looking androids start going “KZZKKT” “KZZKKT” “KZZKKT”.

“What are you?” Daredevil asks out loud.

“Are you? Are you? Are you? Are you?” the androids repeat in unison. Daredevil decides to retreat; these guys are screwing with his remaining four senses! Especially taste. He’s got spearmint gum in his mouth and tastes like a turd. He accidentally smacks an android with a stick and it shrieks like a motherfucker. Then they all shriek. Then, one by one, their heads start exploding. Daredevil cowers in the corner like a little wuss.

Gotta get out of here before I do a Scanners all over the place!

Daredevil blacks out and wakes up to a bunch of androids getting back to their business: the business of building something. Whatever it may be. “I can’t move my arms or legs,” Daredevil notices. “Why can’t I move?”

“What are they doing to me?”

It is revealed that Daredevil is completely suspended within and hooked up to a metal contraption. It doesn’t look very cozy.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know man, this really ran off the rails at the end there. It’s almost like my comic book with blind superheroes is outlandish and improbable!

What a sticky situation for Matthew Mulaney Murdock. I hope he gets out of this one by the skin of his eyeballs.