Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #6 (Legacy Issue #386) – “The Devil’s Divested”! And happy fucking Thanksgiving to, like, America. A country I’m in right now! I’m probably eating turkey at this very moment. Like, a lot of turkey. Anyway, things are starting to get good with this Daredevil schlock, so strap in! In the previous installment, Daredevil enlists Dr. Strange’s help in determining if the antichrist is real or not, and discovers that the cross he’s been carrying has been laced with a hallucinogenic that activates whenever anyone implies that the baby is NOT the antichrist! So there’s that. There was also the matter of Bullseye completely destroying a church and killing some nuns and taking a baby. There’s that too. Plus, Bullseye kills Karen Page! So there’s that as well. And now the aftermath.

Oh wait, first I’d like to remind everyone of a tidbit I found interesting from the previous issue that I don’t want to forget mentioning again: a newspaper showed a photo of Macabes with a headline that said “One time ‘Creature Feature King’ John Curtain found murdered in Hollywood home”. So keep that one in your back pocket as well.

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #6 (Legacy Issue #386) [April, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Devil’s Divested”

“Six nuns and five indigents were found dead in a Clinton Mission Shelter in what has been described as the worst hate-crime in the nation’s history.” Ha! Nowadays, this nation tops that on a weekly basis. Also, interestingly enough, this issue came out in April, 1999, the same month as the Columbine High School massacre, which has now quite literally set the groundwork for every other mass shooting in America since. But I digress…

The newspaper singles out Karen Page as a casualty, and points out the perplexing nature of her presence at the church in the first place. The story also draws a connection to the massacre at the maternity word from the beginning of Issue #1 that I completely forgot about until just now!

Murdock is in a bad place right now! I wonder why? Anyway, he’s sitting hunched on the floor holding his wounded arm amidst the debris of used cigarettes, wound dressings, blood, Karen’s belongings, and the newspaper. He puts a gun to his head and we jump to a flashback.

Karen is scolding Murdock for wanting to put on his tights and play superhero. “BUT THE KINGPIN, BLUHBLUHBLUH” he argues. After a back-and-forth about why the cops should handle it, that the Kingpin owns the cops, and that the Kingpin doesn’t own ALL the cops, Karen gives up and tells him that she can’t make him stay home even though it’s his birthday and even though one should call in sick once in a while and even though there’s sexy times in store for him yada yada blah. He listens to her.

Now she’s gone! Who’s he going to listen to now? His dick? Alas! His dick is sad too! And he takes his anger out on the poor lamp, and the poor statue, and the poor window, and the poor potted plant, among other fragile objects in the room. He’s just punching and kicking and throwing and screaming! Sounds sexy on paper, but I assure you it’s not. The man is grieving, have you no heart? For shame!

Uh oh, more flashback memories already. He ran out of things to break, though. After some possibly heated sexy-time fuck time, Karen asks him when he’s going to give up the superhero schtick. “When we have a baby” he decides. He’s always thought this, which reassures Karen. But then she tells him not to quit even then. The world needs people like him, and she feels safer in the world knowing people like him are out there.

She tells him to never stop, no matter what. No matter what.

No matter what.

No matter what!

No matter what?

No. Matter. What.

So current-day Murdock lets this sink in, and he puts down the gun. For now.

Macabes is on the other side of town preparing for Daredevil’s eventual arrival.

Meanwhile, at a bar called Ennis’ Tavern, a table of drunks are swappin’ stories. One claims to have killed Daredevil, and starts making shit up like that one kid in high school whose uncle worked for Nintendo. Pokemon Turquoise my left foot, Danny! The drunkard says he tied Daredevil to his giant dinosaur and starts tearing into him with a knife. Just eviscerating and gutting him like a dang fish! “This is for all my peeps you ever put away!” I tells ya!

The rest of his table spots Daredevil and clears out immediately. This drunk guy, Turk, doesn’t realize what’s happening until Daredevil grabs the sumbitch. Up on the roof of the high-rise, Daredevil dangles Turk over the edge and asks for some answers on Bullseye’s whereabouts. “I DON’ KNOW NOTHIN’ ‘BOUT NO BULLSEYE!” screams Turk, oddly fearing for his life. But, we all know how this story goes, ladies and gentleman! Daredevil’s going to loosen his grip and then it’s AAAHHHH OK I’LL TALK I’LL TALK!! They always talk. This guy talks too! He does claim that Bullseye left town. When asked who hired Bullseye, Turk panickedly tells Daredevil that some old rich guy did. An old rich guy who wants Daredevil’s brand new baby! He then directs him to the old rich guy’s building “where all the heavy-hitters are meeting tonight”. Everyone except poor ol’ Turk, that is. Turk wasn’t allowed to heavy-hit tonight. Satisfied, Daredevil leaves him dangling on a storm drain and bolts off to Macabes’ place.

OK, so it’s Christmas time. Did I know that already? There’s a big tree in the lobby of the building. Wasn’t Karen Page sitting outside in an autumn-painted park landscape one issue ago? What the hell, man. Daredevil is standing outside, and Macabes is waiting for him in his fancy CSI multi-screen command center and he looks like the general from Beetle Bailey! I just realized this! Macabes directs his men to their stations, and he tells the guy at the front desk to “shoot to wound only”.

Daredevil, with his super powerful dogboy hearing, picked up every word and is ready. He shoots his Daredevil Stick through the window, beans him right in the forehead knocking the gun out of Front Desk Guy’s hand, and the stick bounces back into Daredevil’s hand with a “FAP”. FAP FAP FAP FAP. Just like that. Daredevil strolls into the building.

A swarm of nunchuck-wielding red ninjas starts attacking! Ha ha ha! What! “You’ll have to do better than this, Macabes” says Daredevil only 17 seconds after taking out his opponents. He strolls deeper into the building. Macabes instructs his lap dog, Mr. Gabriel, to prepare himself. Macabes presses a button on his console that says “WHITE NOISE”. It starts playing Yoko Ono! Just kidding, it starts playing white noise. Gotcha!

Daredevil tries to climb the elevator shaft with a wounded arm. It doesn’t really work very well. The white noise renders him disabled, so I’m sure he’s having an all-around groovy time right now. Macabes speaks out loud: “You would take on the powers of Hell to rescue a whelp you’re not even sure is still alive? There are easier ways to atone for one’s transgressions, you know.” He presses a button on his console that says “HELL”. It starts playing Yoko Ono!

Anyway, somehow, the elevator takes him down fifty floors below ground level where Hell is located, apparently, directly below Macabes’ building. He hears the constant howls of the damned, and eventually hears Karen Page.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME! YOU SENT ME HERE! HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME IN THIS PLACE?! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!” Karen screeches from the depths of the fiery inferno, clawing at Daredevil with her cool-ass eight Hell-hands. She’s become a Hell Octopus! A Hell Octopus with a snake tongue! “Wait a second…” Daredevil pauses, figuring out that he can hear the thing’s heartbeat. At that moment, an elevator door opens and that one guy pulls him up out of the Hellish vortex. He showed up a few issues ago, let me check my notes…

…Sparky! I mean, Baal. Remember Baal? The big demon guy wearing the black sweater and the grey Levi’s with a black belt? He claims that he’s Daredevil’s guardian angel, and Daredevil is like “whuh”. Now Daredevil and Baal are teaming up to stop the evil Macabes! Cue the ‘70s action music.

Baal confirms that the baby is still alive, but Macabes can’t kill it until midnight “when a demon’s powers are at their apex”. So just midnight in Eastern Standard Time, then? Because midnights happen constantly all over the world. Once the baby is dead, an apocalypse will commence, and that’s not fun for anyone! I think I read about this mythology in Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, but I stayed for the funny jokes. That reminds me, I should read some Neil Gaiman comics some day.

Daredevil isn’t really listening to Baal talk; he’s too preoccupied by the piece of fabric he tore off of the Karen Page vision in the Hell Elevator. The Hellevator! He recognizes the scent of the fabric, but before he can pinpoint it he starts picking up a high-frequency transmission. As a squadron of these Robocop-looking motherfuckers start attacking, Daredevil is realizing that it’s all starting to come together. All the pieces are falling into place. And I’m glad it is for him, because I don’t know what the FUCK is going on! I hope Foggy is ok somewhere!

While Baal fights, Daredevil just kind of stares…uh…blindly. “I pray I’m wrong” he says as he keeps ruminating, but, in my experience, people in stories who pray they’re wrong are usually right. Once they finish taking out the Robocops, Daredevil suddenly knocks Baal on his ass as well. And I feel bad for the guy.

“I find the nerve cluster in the solar plexus of this ‘guardian angel’ and squeeze.” thinks Daredevil. Holy shit dude, calm down! That sounds gross, don’t do that! He squeezes within an inch of Baal’s life and he’s out cold. He remembers his first encounter with Baal in the sensory deprivation room with the angelic shrieking. He was also still hallucinating at the time. He feels like a fool for not noticing it before, but he lets himself off the hook for being, you know, hopped up on goofballs! He tears into him and discovers nothing more than an elaborate robotic costume worn by none other than DRUMROLL PLEASE brbdbrbdbrbdbrbdbbrbrbbdbr bdbdbdbdbd brbbdbrbdbrbr BRBDBRBDBRBBDBDBRB bdbdbdbdb brbdbdbrbdbdbrdb brbdbrbd brrbrbdbbrbbdbrrbbd brbBRBDBRBRBDBRrbrbrbdbrbrdbbdbrbrr BRBDBBRDBRB RBBBD BRBDBBRBR BRBRBRBRBRBDDBRBRB brbdbrbBRRBDbrbdbrbdBRDBR brbdbrdb MR. GABRIEL! “You better pray, whoever you are, you better pray that baby’s still alive.” he threatens with the most inhuman grimace I’ve seen so far in this comic book full of inhuman grimaces.

Daredevil races up a stairwell following the excited, labored breathing of someone who thinks he’s winning. He makes his way near Macabes’ command center, but he still can’t find him. Macabes launches into his Big Bad monologue, which is helping Daredevil find him more easily. He pinpoints the source and launches his Daredevil Stick into a window. The window looks like it faces the outdoors, but guess what! Command center! Command center right behind the fake building window!

“Show yourself.” Daredevil commands his foe. And a swirl of pink fog starts stirring up in the room.

“First rule of showbiz, my sightless friend…regardless of the size of your audience…always make an entrance boy…Always make an entrance!”

And it’s revealed to be…some guy in green clothes, yellow gloves, purple cape, face covered by a purple scarf, and some sort of white dome head!

Wow! What a reveal!

I have no fucking idea.

Final Thoughts

All right, so the mystery of Dead Macabes is revealed. Some trickster type entity that I’ll learn about in Issue #7 stole a dead man’s face. So there’s that, good for him.

This villain is obviously still playing with Murdock’s head, what with the Hellevator and, like, the demon costume guy.

I still don’t know what his game is. Is this baby a real antichrist? The good guys are always losing the antichrist! Put a bell on it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone :turkey