Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #2 (Legacy Issue #382) – “The Unexamined Life”! In the previous installment, we meet Matthew Murdock aka the Blind Lawyer aka Mr. Confused Jesus Freak aka The Man Without Fear (But Secretly Fears Everything) aka The Devil Whom Dares. A 16-year-old with a baby is on the run from some guys in a car that were hired to find her for some reason? Daredevil gets involved, which makes some unknown guy that I don’t know yet upset, and this unknown guy needs to rethink his strategy for, uh, chasing down teenage mothers? Eventually, this girl shows up at Murdock’s office, claims she conceived this baby immaculately, unloads him into Murdock’s arms because angels told her to, and then leaves. That part is funny!

There’s a lot of God stuff going on too, and Murdock tries to be a good Christian but there’s no one on Earth who is a good Christian so he should cut himself some slack. He’s also unsuccessfully trying to get over a breakup that happened six months ago, but he’s not good at that.

I think that’s it. Kevin Smith used to be fat but he’s not anymore, but now he looks like a marionette or something.

---

Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #2 (Legacy Issue #382) [December, 1998]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Unexamined Life”

Matt Murdock used to date Natasha Romanov, and seasoned Marvel fans may know her as Black Widow or Scarlett Johanson, mother of COSMO. She’s there with Murdock as he’s feeding a baby. As you recall in the last issue, Murdock almost gave her a call but then was interrupted. She asks him why he did this–now, I don’t remember Black Widow’s super power but it’s possibly hearing phone calls before they’re actually made? He gives her the rundown, catching up Black Widow AND the audience in one convenient motion! She places a foot on the couch he’s sitting at with the baby, giving both Murdock and Kevin Smith a boner.

Natasha taunts him by insisting he’s lying and that it’s his kid. Murdock ignores this and then explains that the teenager knew he was Daredevil, which makes him uneasy. Natasha lets him know that Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, knew this as well, and insinuates that maybe he’s involved. Murdock is skeptical that Fisk is involved anyway. The only thing I know about Wilson Fisk is that he’s big and fat! I hope this helps, you guys.

Murdock is like “I actually called you for something else”. And Natasha is like “Why, because you were boning your girlfriend and now you’re not boning your girlfriend and it makes you wish you were boning a girlfriend?”. And Murdock is like “Huuuuurrrrrr”. And Natasha is like “How dare you sir I am above this and you are the worst and ok we can bone”. And Murdock is like “Yeah right sister, not what I meant, here look after this baby while I go back to my office because you’re a woman and it comes naturally lol Kevin Smith wrote what I said”.

And he fucks off into the night!

Ha! I keep forgetting this is 1998 and that I guess people couldn’t do their aggressive Internet research at home with their shitty computers? Murdock is in his office using his office computer while being blind as shit, which probably doesn’t work as well as one would hope. Murdock’s secretary buzzes him to let him know that his 11:30pm appointment with Nicholas Macabes is ready, which confuses Murdock because it’s fucking 11:30pm. The secretary is also confused. I’m pretty confused too that his secretary is even working right now.

A rather pleasant-looking, possibly British, older gentleman with a suit and cane enters the office. He lights a pipe and sits down. “I believe you have in your care, a child” Macabes says.

Once Murdock asks him if he’s from social services, and Macabes cryptically responds in the affirmative with “it’s society I serve”, Macabes launches into a giant, wordy monologue you’d expect from, like, one of the Clerks movies, and it doesn’t offer any insight anyway. Like one of the Clerks movies! Long story short, the old man brings up the apocalypse, and Jesus Cunting Christ I already dealt with enough apocalypse shit in Action Comics!

Murdock asks what this apocalypse stuff has to do with him. Macabes tells him that the baby is the key. Murdock is getting annoyed. Macabes says a lot more words to show Kevin Smith’s reading audience that he knows how to crack open a thesaurus, and then tells Murdock that he’s the perfect person to raise such an antichrist, having “devil” in his superhero name and all! This pisses the blind guy off pretty badly. First Gwyneth, and now this blowjob? How does everyone know his secret identity??

Old Man Macabes tells Murdock that he’s a pawn; he’s been singled out as an accomplice in some super secret organization’s super secret apocalypse plans, and Macabes’ own super secret organization is trying to stop the bad super secret organization. The baby is bad news, man. Bad news indeed. If the kid grows up, that’s more bad news. So Murdock needs to do something about it! Snuff out that flame! Murder a baby! Murdock is shocked that this seems to be what Macabes is implying, but Macabes essentially tells him “Don’t worry! We’ll kill the baby for you!”

Murdock is all mad again, furrowing his brow angrily and hootin’ and hollerin’.”What is this organization you keep talking about?!” he spits and blusters. “One whose sole purpose is to see that the human race endures. Sheol.” Macabes calmly answers. *does a quick Google* Sheol is basically Hades, which is basically Hell right? Cool! Macabes warns Murdock that the longer he keeps the baby, the worse things will get for him. “You have 48 hours” he also says, undercutting everything serious about this in my opinion. He leaves Murdock in a complete state of overwhelmed confusion and departs.

Good ol’ Foggy steps in to add some much needed “comic” relief. Ahahahaha! Village People! Foggy, you so-and-so, you. Murdock is completely preoccupied, he doesn’t even laugh at this joke! Ahaha! Village People! I’m not even sure which Village Person he’s referring to exactly, must be the leather cop? It’s a stretch!

Murdock starts wandering the dark city streets. By now he’s convinced that Wilson Fisk the Fat Kingpin is involved somehow. As he hems and haws about this possibility, a thug with a knife steps out of the shadows and puts Murdock in a headlock. Murdock Headlock! Of course, being the superhero Daredevil and all, this doesn’t work out very well for the thug. He gets kicked in the shin and Murdock keeps on moving, but the thug throws out some rude comments about Murdock’s mother, so he breaks his teeth and shit. Once he realizes he’s overreacting and drawing the concerned attention of lookie-loos, he finally moves on.

He spends a boring page attempting to understand the thought process behind Gwyneth’s baby-unloading situation, talking about slipping into routines and some other who-cares armchair psychology. Meanwhile, we see Gwyneth finally getting caught and whisked away by the organization that was chasing her down in Issue #1. Well, that closes that chapter!

Oh wait, there’s still more. Murdock is Daredevil now, perched atop a tall building in the moonlight having a nice heart-to-heart with God, saying things just short of “fuck you”. Black Widow pops in with the baby, admitting that spending the day with the little poop factory was insightful as far as dredging up unknown maternal instincts were concerned. “For the first time in my life I hear my biological clock ticking”, she says, which sounds to me like a thinly-veiled attempt to get in Daredevil’s pants again! He ain’t having it.

Daredevil pulls Godwin’s Law, because of course. “If you knew what Hitler would eventually do, would you have killed him as a child?” Black Widow says HELL NAW! Take that kid somewhere else and raise him differently! Daredevil mutters about this, since he can’t just take the antichrist somewhere else and raise him differently. Bah. Black Widow is like “….so, uh, why the fuck are you asking this question while holding a baby?” He ignores her and just tosses the kid off the building, lmao. Black Widow moves fast, leaps off the building to catch the baby, and grapples back to the edge of the building. She seethes as Daredevil pulls them both back up. She knocks him down and insists on an explanation. He tells her it’s the antichrist. She laughs in his face.

Why is Murdock listening to some old man anyway about this? Just because he knew he was Daredevil? Black Widow challenges him about this, and Daredevil keeps grimacing and wincing like he swallowed a cactus. After getting nowhere, really, she gives up and takes the baby with her. “Go home, you’re acting like an asshole, you can’t save people by throwing babies off of buildings” she says, but I’m paraphrasing. She’s being too nice, honestly. Fuck this guy!

We cut to Lydia McKenzie’s residence. You remember her, right? Barely? She’s the woman Foggy brought into Murdock’s office before he got distracted by teenagers and babies. She was looking to get a divorce? Remember? Yeah, me neither! She and Foggy are walking around talking shop (you know, divorce shop), but she suddenly plants a big ol’ fat kiss on Foggy’s fat lips and pulls him into the bedroom (you know, to fuck). “Don’t worry, Counselor, I’m the soul of discretion” McKenzie says while some trench coat and hat wearing dude is around the corner noticing everything.

Murdock is back in his own humble abode, trying to make sense of all the events and feelings that have been hitting him in the last two days. Events like “I can’t believe I was given a baby!” and feelings like “I can’t believe I felt like killing a baby!”. And, as if things couldn’t get worse, a crying, mascara-smeared Karen Page shows up at his door.

She tells him she has AIDS.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t see that ending coming! Ha! What the unbridled fuck?

I know I’m spending a lot of time mocking Kevin Smith’s wordiness, but I actually enjoy the wordier comics. I’d rather have verbose recounts of semi-intelligent characters struggling with relatable internal conflicts than six pages in a row of vague impossible-to-follow Superman action scenes where he just says things like “NO!” and “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” and “I WON’T GIVE UP!” and “YOU ARE BAD AND I AM GOOD!”.

I knew going into this that all the DC characters are godlike entities of pure good and all the Marvel characters are deeply flawed human beings, but man do I like this shit way better. I really like that Daredevil almost murdered a baby! Superman would never almost murder a baby!

I like it when my superheroes are toxic assholes or complete mental cases!

Reminds me of me!