Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #7 (Legacy Issue #387) – “The Devil’s Demon”! In the previous installment, Murdock is grieving over the loss of Karen Page, but continues his commitment to Daredevilling after an old memory resurfaces of her telling him never to stop, not even if they have a baby together.

After some sleuthing, Daredevil makes his way to Old Man Macabes’ building, which is armed to the teeth with guard ninjas and spooky special effects. Thwarting all of it, including his fake guardian angel Baals-to-the-Wall, he finds himself at Macabes’ command center! Macabes is revealed to be some villain in a costume! Surprise! I’ll find out his name in this issue. Maybe. But he’s a trickster! I don’t know what to believe anymore!

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #7 (Legacy Issue #387) [May, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Devil’s Demon”

“This is the denouement, dear listener”, our mysterious (to me, perhaps) villain begins, letting us all know that the climax to the story has already happened, there’s going to be no more action, and the rest of this storyline is going to a nice cool down. Or is it? I don’t think so! Some shit’s still going to go down, but since another 20,000 comics have been made since 1999 featuring Daredevil…I’m thinking he’s going to be all right in the end here.

Daredevil says “FUCK NO MORE ACTION, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS JABRONI TALK!” and he slugs the villain right in the dome. Literally. He just has a big white dome head. Daredevil’s punch makes a POOMP sound! He hits him again with a DOOP! He’s on his hands and knees now, reminding Daredevil about the baby. “Oh, yeah, shit,” Daredevil thinks. Daredevil demands the baby’s whereabouts, but, of course, the villain ain’t talkin’. Not yet.

After the villain (I’m just gonna call him Fake Macabes until I know his real name) knocks Daredevil to the floor and gets up, he lets him know that the baby is safe and secure in a soundproof chamber somewhere in the building, contained in such a way to make it impossible for Daredevil to detect with his super-hearing. Maybe if the baby poops he’ll detect THAT with super-sniffing? Let’s hope so! Let’s hope the baby poops!

Fake Macabes drones on. Apparently, the baby is contained in a vacuum, which means there’s no oxygen in the chamber. So, uh, the baby is going to be dead soon anyway. “Waste any more of my time, and you sign the infant’s death warrant.” says Fake Macabes coldly. Daredevil backs down, unlike Tom Petty, who tends to stand his ground and not back down. But he’s dead now, so why are we talking about Tom Petty? Stop talking about Tom Petty.

Fake Macabes tells our impish little Daredevil that the baby will live if he keeps his goddamn cool from here on out. Daredevil frowns. He frowns a lot. Faux Macabes opens a chamber door and asks his companion to accompany him to tie up some loose plot threads. I like the cut of this guy’s jib! Very nice jib cut with this one.

Daredevil is seething about his lack of control in this situation. He can’t sense the baby whatsoever, and concedes to the reality that he has to go along with whatever False Macabes wants to do until he can regain control. Grumbling and mumbling, he tags along.

Fake Macabes assumes that Daredevil doesn’t know who he is, which at least lets ME off the hook here as well. Whew! Phony Macabes starts going on a tangent about filmmakers and asks the deviled one if he’s heard of Quentin Beck. The frowny, sulky silence means no. Then Mock Macabes starts verbally sucking Quentin Beck off, lauding his prowess on “creating incredible and intimidating three-dimensional illusions” while talking shit about the terrible special effects of Jaws, Star Wars, and Terminator from their, uh, respective filmmakers. So, I see Kevin Smith is shoehorning in his film work knowledge here, good for him. Not at all subtle.

Imposter Macabes is talking about Quentin Beck so much, in fact, that I’m guessing that this fucker is none other than Beck himself. He should’ve just named him Kevin Smith! Ok, ok, I already poked fun at the lack of subtlety. Quentin Beck might not even be Smith’s invention, I’ll let it go.

Ok, he admits it. He’s Quentin Beck. That too bad, I had about 100 more synonyms for “fake” I could use. So Beck discusses his personal backstory: his own innovative techniques were the prototypes for Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, and others, in their own special effects techniques for their multi-million-dollar blockbusters. And no one has ever thought to credit Quentin Beck with any of it, ever.

I’m starting to wonder what any of this has to do with an antichrist and the apocalypse…

So it’s revealed that Beck has no interest in using special effects in movies. He practices his craft in the real world. Beck insists that his motives are positive and altruistic, intended to show the world his version of beauty, but time and time again he gets attacked and defeated by that pesky, runty little superhero Spider-Man! And not only that, but somehow he keeps getting lumped in with the Sinister Six by accident! What a way to live! That’s not fair!

So yeah, nevermind, I probably should know who this is! Sorry.

BUT, digressions, digressions! This isn’t about Spider-Man, oho, not at all. “I’m sure you’re far more interested in why I became your bad egg.” he tells Daredevil, who is probably actually legitimately interested, finally, yes. “It all starts with a visit to the Ravencroft Physician…” ohhh maaaaan, BOOOOOOORRRING!! Boring! NO! That’s not at ALL part of it and you know it, you windbag from Heck!

OK, it all starts with a visit to the Ravencroft Physician. Quentin Beck is possibly sick with cancer. The prognosis looks no bueno. Quentin Beck is like Walter White, and all those chemicals he’s been around for years, experimenting with synthetics, have taken its toll on his body. Inoperable brain tumor, inoperable lung cancer! With a year to live, the hospital declared him sane, no longer a menace to society, and discharged Beck. Back at home, Beck destroys his years of work. Masks, costumes, props. AHA! MYSTERIO! He’s Mysterio!

*the collective “duh” uttered by the rest of the world is deafening*

During his grieving, he decides he’s not going to let some stupid fucking cancer end his life! He’s going to fight Spider-Man to the death! SOMEONE’S death, at least. But, as it turns out, according to the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man’s bad now? It’s not clear, perhaps something is going on in the Spider-Man books at this point and time? No matter, Beck is downtrodden about this news. Why bother fighting a guy who’s also bad? Fuck that shit!

Beck was ready to give up, but then he remembered another superhero he could try to fight instead.

Beck liked that Daredevil wasn’t really known much outside of Hell’s Kitchen, let alone Manhattan, let alone New York City! Kinda like a second-rate superhero. Just like Mysterio was a second-rate villain! Perfect!

And then it turns out that Murdock was right about Wilson Fisk the Fatty Fat Kingpin all this time. He WAS involved! Mysterio was able to meet up with this bald, fat piece of shit and strike a deal. Mysterio gets all the info that Fisk knows about Daredevil, and Fisk gets a cool $1,000,000 which is probably just a drop in his fat bucket (but I guess he had “lost his empire” recently).. “He’ll beat you within an inch of your bubble-headed life.” Fisk tells him matter-of-factly. And once Mysterio tells him that he doesn’t want to actually fight him, he wants to drive him insane, Fisk was intrigued. And he agreed. And he told him everything he knew. EVERYTHING. A full page spread of loved ones, friends, weaknesses, strengths, all sorts of images of possible callbacks to previous Daredevil stories, his creepy sexual fetishes, etc. etc. etc.

So Quentin Beck starts studying his bible! Plans on using religion against Daredevil, the scampy old altar-boy! He used teenage Gwyneth as a pawn, kidnapped her, drugged her, artificially inseminated her, had her believe it was immaculate conception. And then he had her parents killed before they could, like, take her and her new baby to a hospital for tests.

Then there was Lydia McKenzie, the divorcée. Why, she was merely some junkie that Beck hired to fool Foggy Nelson! And then he drugged Foggy in such a way that he perceived her as some sort of demon before she jumped out the window! Not sure how his face got scratched up though, that wasn’t explained. What the fuck, Smith?

Oh yeah, and he stole horror movie guy Jonathan Curtain’s identity. We knew that already.

He dressed up as a fake doctor and tricked Karen Page into thinking she had AIDS. She was too dumb to even go to a real doctor about it and get any actual tests done. I guess her history of sucking and fucking made contracting the disease plausible enough!

And the massacre at the childrens’ ward at most of the hospitals around town? Not him. HMMM!…maybe Bullseye was just HAVING A LITTLE FUN??

Mysterio approaches Mr. Gabriel, who was just abandoned on the floor for a bit after Daredevil thwarted his Baaler efforts! After asking how he’s feeling, and the answer is, obviously, not the greatest, Mysterio assures him that help is on the way.

Then Mysterio picks up a fucking gun and blasts him in the face!

Daredevil finally speaks up. “While you’ve been rambling about how clever you are, I’ve been listening for the hum.” Mysterio is confused, then Daredevil pinpoints the location of the hum and launches his Devil Stick at Mysterio’s wrist. “The hum of the battery that powers your suit’s circuitry.” The stick breaks Mysterio’s wrist contraption, then Daredevil kicks the ever-loving fuck out Mysterio’s fishbowl head, cracking it to smithereens. SMITHEREENS I tells ya!

And, yeah, Quentin Beck is just some cancer-ridden feeb with an oxygen mask. “Tell me where the baby is now…or so help me God, I’ll kill you!” Daredevil spits as he hoists this sad sack in the air by the front of his…uh, purple scarf thing. And this is exactly what Beck wants: to be put out of his misery by Daredevil after he spent so much time destroying everything that Daredevil cared about.

Daredevil thinks about it, then drops him on the floor. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.” he sneers, and once more demands the baby. He calls Beck a fraud, which hits a nerve with him. He practically starts crying! “A-BLOO-BLOO-BLOO BUT I DROVE YOU CRAAAAZZZYY!!”.

And then Daredevil calls his methods cliché, which is the possibly the word that would fuck Beck up the most. It’s a word that I’m sure Kevin Smith has heard plenty of times himself! Ha!

Daredevil keeps hitting with a few choice words to really break Cancer Guy’s spirit, and it works. It’s so simple, too, it’s a total Kevin Smith mad-on-an-internet-forum wish fulfillment scenario. DECIMATING YOUR OPPONENT VERBALLY. What a bunch of fuck! Crying in his gloves, Beck hits a button on his wrist and opens the chamber containing the alleged antichrist child. The baby is perfectly fine, and as Daredevil extracts her from the weird glass incubation chamber thing, Beck aims a gun in Daredevil’s direction while sporting a crazed, manic smile.

And I guess he turns the gun on himself, possibly out of complete utter shame. KABLAM! Neither Daredevil, nor the baby, flinch. Daredevil walks away, leaving Beck’s corpse to rot.

Final Thoughts

This comic book about sorcery and blind-guy-ultra-heightened-senses is not realistic! Wah! I want my money back!

Nah, just kidding, it’s still ok. This was a really, really, REALLY long-winded issue, though. Probably doesn’t justify the nine trillion words I just wrote about it! See you next time for the conclusion of the Guardian Devil storyline, as well as the conclusion of Kevin Smith’s run on Daredevil Vol. 2.