Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #6 – “Daredevil vs. Bruiser”

* Part 6 of 6 of the Volume 1 collection *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 3) Issue #6 – “Daredevil vs. Bruiser”! We’re ending another top shelf Mark Waid storyline, and someone pooped on the shelf. In the previous installment, Austin remembers what he heard the Latverians said in the office: that his company was doing dealings with Hydra. His boss, Mr. Randall, fired him to protect him. However, Randall’s boss Mr. Zachary caught onto Randall’s ruse and now Austin is in danger.

Mr. Randall’s in danger too! A guy named Bruiser has been hired to bruise the shit out of him! And by that I mean someone pooped on the shelf. And by that I mean he pushed Daredevil off of a boat and sped off with the hapless Mr. Randall.

So now Daredevil is going to fight Bruiser for 21 pages and, oh no, I hope he doesn’t lose his eyesight!

The joke will never get old to me.

Daredevil (Vol. 3), Issue #6 [January, 2012]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Daredevil vs. Bruiser”

DAREDEVIL VS. BRUISER! A FIGHT TO THE DEATH, MAYBE! WHO WILL WIN? WHO WILL GIVE A SHIT?

We last left Daredevil getting dunked into the ocean. Lucky for him, sound travels faster through water. So he uses his “sound travels faster through water” powers to listen to the sound of a 75-decibel motorboat speeding away, which is helpful. He gets out his shitty-looking grappling hook and grips onto the boat.

Bruiser doesn’t want anything to do with the wispy little Mr. Randall. “Daredevil was the hit. Separate orders on this Randall guy. They told me to bring him back alive because, and I quote… our clients are demanding satisfaction.”

That sounds sexy! If anyone can bring people the satisfaction, it’s silver fox Mr. Randall. The boat docks at some offshore base and Bruiser hefts Randall like a sack of moldy potatoes. Daredevil rises out of the water to beat up the two boat-driving guys. He’s going to knock them unconscious and teabag their mouths in succession, but we don’t get to see that in the comic book. Assume it happens off-panel.

“Did you really think you could get away, Mr. Randall?” says a voice as Randall slowly opens his weary little eyes. A bunch of bad guys wearing supervillain suits are they with Mr. Zachary, the mean boss. Bruiser is there. I see a Hydra grunt. Some guy is wearing a Devo outfit. Here are the five organizations: A.I.M., Hydra, Agence Byzantine, Black Spectre, and the Secret Empire. All doing business with Midas Financial. “They are our valued clients,” Zachary says, looking rather obese. “And they are not happy. Thanks to you, our deal is no longer confidential.”

To appease these pants-shitting boneheads, Zachary wants them all to bear witness to the tying up of three loose ends: Mr. Randall himself, Daredevil, and that blind kid with the acne pockmarks.

Well, it seems that everyone is going to die swiftly. Good thing Daredevil isn’t actually around right now to–

WELCOME TO DAREDEVIL TOWN, BITCHCAKES!

Oh, there he is.

Daredevil fights Bruiser, but he sucks at it. “You think you can beat me?” Bruiser lifts Daredevil like a sack of moldy turnips. “I WILL GUT YOU WHILE THEY WATCH!”

So Bruiser’s gonna get all up in Daredevil’s guts. While he makes a big spectacle of himself screaming about sponsors and punching walls for no reason, Mr. Zachary slips out of the room.

Daredevil spends a lot of inner monologue time talking about why Bruiser is big and fat and good at trying to bruise people. Then he whacks him in the face with a stick. Bruiser bleeds, but laughs about it. This puny human thinks he can hurt the big bad Bruiser?! Ha ha ha ha! The only thing that can hurt Bruiser is this giant pile of sexual harassment allegation lawsuits!

Mr. Zachary has snuck off to a lab where he instructs the hazmat suit-wearing scientists to “disable all security around the Omegadrive” and get the fuck out of there. The five representatives of these scary terrorist organizations are about to terrorize everyone!

Hydra wants to just put a bullet into Daredevil’s penis and get it over with, but Agence Byzantine is like “SACRE BLEU, BE PATIENT, MAIS OUI?” Meanwhile, Bruiser is sitting on Daredevil’s crotch and farting.

Ok, boys. Play nice. Don’t make me spray you with the hose.

Any other human being would’ve been dead in about 15 seconds, but not Daredevil! It takes about 17 seconds, and that’s just enough time for him t–

Daredevil uses his special radar to pinpoint Bruiser’s weak spot (genitals) and hits him again with a stick. It was actually his arm, though. He hurt him in the arm and won the fight.

Zachary orders the scientists to seal the Fightin’ Room, but it’s not soon enough. Daredevil grabs Randall and Austin and all three tumble out of the room before the door slams shut. SKANGG! SZAAAKK! FCHOOM FCHOOM! That’ll buy them a few hundred nanoseconds while they get away from the five bad guys and the one big fat bad guy! Move move move move move!

Moving through the halls, they find Zachary about to whip some sort of flat, round weapon at them. Daredevil knocks it out of his hand, but… but… but… BUTTT…

“The Omegadrive,” Randall says forlornly as Daredevil picks it up and, ahem, “stares” at it. “Billions of gigs of confidential operations information supplied by each of the five cartels.” It was meant to be a safe one-stop shop for everyone’s sensitive document security needs. And it was perfect. Totally indestructible, impenetrable, and with extra disk storage to hold some of the more distasteful pornography. Looking at you, Hydra.

It’s a Fantastic Four badge. “…made from Reed Richards’ legendary unstable molecules.” Yeah, so legendarily unstable that they’re re-stable again, I guess. Science.

Zachary laughs manaically! All five terrorists want it, and it will go to the winner who kills Daredevil and Co. Ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA!

*shoot* *guns*

Mr. Zachary is dead now. Terrorists cannot be negotiated with, dingus.

Daredevil has a foolproof plan! He does a fanciful flip in the air and lands in the center of the five terrorists. “Surrounded on all sides. They’re playing right into my hands.” Mark Waid thinks he’s so dang smart writing smart characters who keep outsmarting the dumb characters. He must write these comic books wearing sunglasses whiIe his wife lies in their bed, unfulfilled.

“My friends and I are walking out of here. And I’ll tell you why.” It’s because they’ll all kill each other getting that Fantastic Four shirt button, and the one who actually does survive has to go back to their boss and explain why he just started a five-way gang war.

Cool? So let them through.

And they don’t. “We can’t let you leave here alive,” says one of them, gun pointed one inch from Daredevil’s temple. Daredevil, ever the lawyer, has a great defense. Your Honor, let the record show that everyone can blame everything on him now. Cool? So let them through.

And they do.

…they have to count this high first! Zing!

So Daredevil helps the young man and the old man leave. Austin tells Daredevil that he should be a lawyer. Daredevil tells Austin to cork it.

Mr. Randall can continue fleeing the country. That’s a good plan. Fuck him. “I would have you arrested and jailed for your part in an international terrorist conspiracy if I thought you’d live to see trial once your bosses learn you screwed it up. I’ll have to settle for knowing you’ll be running scared for the rest of your life. That’s justice served.”

Lawyered! Now, this Austin kid’s going to get a talking to from Uncle Daredevil. Give Randall a kiss goodbye. You won’t be seeing him ever again, even though it doesn’t matter too much since he is neither a friend nor a relative!

Daredevil and Austin walk away. The latter asks the former what he’s going to do when some of these terrorists start coming after him. And the only thing Daredevil has to say about that right now is basically “I dunno.”

But he’s got the upper hand! Reed Richards’ stupid plutonium “4” badge. “Yeah, they’ll stop at nothing to take it away from me. But until they do…” he smirks, “… that makes me the most dangerous man alive.”