Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #5 (Legacy Issue #385) – “Devil’s Despair”! In the previous installment, Daredevil goes nuts for a few minutes and jumps off a roof with a baby. Then he comes to his senses and swing-lands at a church where he hangs out with a nun who is his biological mother, I guess. There’s a lot of faith-questioning. His nun mother slaps him. Karen Page shows up wanting to give the baby to Macabes, but now Murdock’s thinking clearly about the whole baby situation and doesn’t trust Macabes one fucking bit! Then he kind of calls her a junkie slut and she runs out of the church.

And Murdock is right not to trust Macabes, because he’s the big shadowy Boss Man that’s been chasing this baby down for four issues now. He hires Bullseye to help him acquire the baby.

And that’s about it! You’re caught up!

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #5 (Legacy Issue #385) [March, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“Devil’s Despair”

MONOLOGUE TIME! When Murdock was a child, his father attempted to keep the little bastard in line by scaring him with an urban legend about an old man in a village who practiced black magic. As Murdock got older he became more and more skeptical, eventually deciding that the mystic was a figment of his dad’s imagination.

He now realizes his dad was telling the truth, because Murdock is dealing with one of these types of mystics in person right now! And it’s quite unsettling to him. The seer is shrouded in some lavish robe, hovering cross-legged about seven feet in the air, and he’s got a big beam of orange light emanating from the middle of his forehead. Yawn! I see that shit in the city everyday!

The seer is examining a cross that Daredevil received from somebody, I don’t even remember at this point. The seer claims that “THE EYE OF AGAMOTTO WOULD HAVE REVEALED ANY SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS THIS TRINKET MIGHT’VE BEEN EXPOSED TO” and insists that there’s nothing to sense about the object. He does, however, tell Daredevil that the cross is laced with some sort of strong hallucinogenic drug. It only didn’t affect the seer because he was able to “cast a small spell that purged it out of his system and into an alternate dimension within his cell structure”, which sounds like a lot of showboating to me! Obviously, the point is that Daredevil has been drugged, which explains some of his odd behavior.

In the end, the seer cannot determine definitively if the baby is or isn’t the antichrist. “My mystic abilities as of late have been rather — undependable” he tells Daredevil, unhelpfully. This fuels Daredevil’s already overactive paranoia: “He’s in on it.” After the seer suggests bringing the child in for further analysis, Daredevil freaks out and decides that the seer is putting spells on him to cloud his thinking. Just before he whacks the seer’s melon with his Daredevil Whackin’ Stick, the seer performs a spell to remove the drug from Daredevil’s body. It appears that this is a super special kind of drug that only activates if someone suggests that the baby is innocent! How devilishly clever! I suppose! Man I wish I could remember where this stupid drug cross came from. Oh well!

The first thing Daredevil wants to do is find Black Widow and apologize to her for his drug-fueled psychoses, but he needs to track down who might be responsible for this hallucinogen. He asks the seer what it will take to find out, like, on Earth, instead of the astral plane. The seer tells him that there is a way, but it will require a strong constitution and obeying a lot of guidelines. Daredevil agrees. The seer makes preparations to invoke a demon (that sounds like more astral plane shenanigans to me!), and tells Daredevil to meet him back here again in a day.

Elsewhere, Karen Page is having quite a glazed-over, catatonic rest at a park bench, soaking in the autumn vibes. She’s doing a lot of thinking. A homeless man lying down on the bench next to her is using a newspaper as a blanket; the headline reads “FRIEND OF ACCUSED QUITS! Star legal gun Matt Murdock quits firm after partner’s arrest on murder charge”. Karen is thinking about who she has been to her friends and family over the course of her life in another patented wordy Kevin Smith monologue. Among other things, besides a junkie and a porn star and a slut, she’s been a straight-A student, a cheerleader, a law office secretary, and a radio DJ. Too many things! Let’s back it off to just radio DJ and junkie. That sounds more manageable to me.

She’s going over all the betrayal that she finds herself guilty of with respect to Matt “Rupert” Murdock. And she’s sad! Maybe she’s going to kill herself!

Her monologue sure goes on for a long-ass time. Basically, she recognizes that Murdock is flailing and needs her strength, but first she needs to find that strength within herself to help! Because, you know, that’s all a woman is to a man, right? Bleh. With a newfound pep in her step, she runs out of the park in pursuit of Murdock. We catch one more glimpse of the newspaper, showing a spread with a photo of a man who looks like Macabes with the subheadline “One time ‘Creature Feature King’ John Curtain found murdered in Hollywood home”. Curious.

Aha, in the next scene I find out that the mystic who Daredevil visited is none other than Dr. Stephen Strange! This is me learning, at this very moment, that Dr. Strange is a sorcerer/mystic. I just assumed, him being played by Benedict Cummerbund, that he was like a Sherlock Holmes-type detective! I mean, I didn’t REALLY assume that, but I always thought it was funny anyway. I’m going to keep thinking that! Anywho, Strange and Daredevil are conjuring up a demon! Daredevil is not to speak to the demon, we don’t want any mystical beings from the depths of hell to be accidentally set free within the earthly plane of reality, now do we? Mmm-hmm. Don’t look at the demon either, that might provoke it as well. These demons certainly are obnoxious, aren’t they? Can you feed them peanuts? Will that anger them too?

The demon summoned is Mephisto, who Daredevil apparently had a run-in with in the past. Strange binds Mephisto in a force-field that prevents him from seeing them, but after Strange speaks to him he recognizes his voice instantly. “Strange. I recognize your braying.” Mephisto says, rather lazily I might add.

He asks Strange why the fuck he’s putting down the blinds on him this time. “Within the binding circle, you may ask of me no questions and provide only answers, Beast.” Strange responds performatively. Mephisto catches on and casually comments that this is all a show for a guest in the room, so he plays along. I like that there’s semi-genial camaraderie here! Very amusing.

“What is it that disturbs you, Stephen?” Mephisto asks rather politely. Strange tells him that there may be an antichrist on the loose! Can he confirm, please? Mephisto then says a lot of words about the bible, I dunno, I barely read it! But, he bluntly states that the bible implies the antichrist will be an entity more powerful than a sniveling, snot-nosed, poopy-pantsed infant.

Strange asks another question, but Mephisto is starting to get rather impatient, and hints that he knows that Daredevil is there. Once this is noticed, Strange attempts to close the connection while Mephisto mocks Daredevil not only for his “devilling around”, but also for his lack of knowledge on who is truly fucking with him. Mephisto’s only further hint is, essentially, “this person is probably letting his mother down”. And then he disappears with a comic book “POP” as the portal closes.

Daredevil heads back to the church, which has been completely ravaged. Many people lie dead in the pews. Sister Maggie, Daredevil’s mother, seems to be barely hanging on herself. A voice starts taunting Daredevil, but with the echoey acoustics of the church he cannot pinpoint the source. Finally, the assailant leaps into view. “You know what every good catcher needs? A PITCHER?!” OK, uh, well, that really undermined everything, Bullseye, you idiot. Yes, it’s Bullseye. And he starts whipping some throwing stars at our “fearless” “hero”. So our “brave” “champion” throws some of his Daredevil Sticks right back at him. One of the sound effects is “FAP”, which is funny.

Bullseye claims that he’s tired of the feud between the two of them. “You’re the only guy who’s ever come close to getting on my nerves.” Bullseyes says as he takes out his Bullseye Gun and shoots a Bullseye Bullet right through Daredevil’s shoulder. “Now we’re even.”

They fight a bit. Bullseye tells him to just give him the baby and he’ll walk away. “I ain’t getting paid to kill you…” he continues, “…but I’m gonna do you for free. Just for laughs.”

As they continue to fight and talk, it’s revealed that Karen Page is in the church, alive and hiding under a pew. Sister Maggie and Karen whisper to each other about the baby. She apparently gets up and strolls right out of there unnoticed, because within the next few panels she comes out through a doorway carrying the baby in her arms. “Let him go and I’ll give you the baby.” she tells Bullseye, boldly. Daredevil tries to object, but Bullseye smacks him in his already busted-up face with his own Daredevil Stick and tells him to shut the fuck up. Bullseye agrees to leave Daredevil and take the child.

Bullseye gets about four steps out the room before he discovers that Karen gave him one of the church cherub doll things. He bonks her on the head with it and demands the real deal.

The real deal, as it were, starts crying in Sister Maggie’s arms, betraying its location like the dumb baby that it is! Bullseye grabs the baby from her, and is about to whack her with the stick when Karen pops up with Bullseye’s gun. “Put…the baby…down!” she yells. But then Bullseye taunts her, saying that he’s not dumb enough to discard a loaded weapon. There was only one bullet in the thing.

As he leaves with the baby, Bullseye whips Daredevil’s stick back through the air, impaling Karen right through the chest and knocking her into Daredevil.

Final Thoughts

*cue happy West Wing credits music* TOOT TOOT! SUSPENSE! Daredevil’s world is getting all sorts of fucked every which way, ain’t it! Man oh man, the poor little devil.

OK, let’s take stock: Bullseye took the baby, which may or may not really be the antichrist. But, Macabes wants this child one way or another anyway. We don’t have to worry about HIV+ Karen anymore, but Murdock himself might have contracted the virus so we’ll have to see what becomes of that.

That’s about the size of it. Plenty of story left, my friends.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #4 (Legacy Issue #384) – “The Devil’s Distaff”! In the previous installment, Old Man Macabes pays AIDSy Karen Page a visit to tell her, just like he told Murdock, that the antichrist baby is ruining her life and she should work on killing it sometime soon. Right now! Do it!

A really big thing happened with respect to the law firm, too. Foggy’s affair with Lydia McKenzie turned south when she, out of nowhere, turned into some green monster, slashed his face up, leaped through a window, turned back into Lydia McKenzie, and fell to her death! So now Foggy’s been charged with murder, and Rosalind Sharpe, Foggy’s own mother, the first name on the Sharpe, Nelson and Murdock law firm, wants to cut ties with her own son in order to save the firm’s name. Murdock is not happy with this and intends to clear Foggy’s name.

BUT, he can’t, because he was captured as Daredevil by some demon-y thugs and then the issue ended with Daredevil stumbling onto the rainy street into the path of the oncomic truck!

Needless to say, there’s a lot of drama going on right now.

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Daredevil (Vol. 2), Issue #4 (Legacy Issue #384) [February, 1999]
Written by: Kevin Smith
“The Devil’s Distaff”

Good thing we don’t address the drama right away, though! The issue begins with some fond reminiscing from some unknown fourth-wall-breaking entity about Murdock waking up in the hospital after losing his dang eyeballs. The super radioactive eyeball-melting substance gave him other heightened sense, which we already fucking KNO-O-O-O-OWWW, goddamnit. One of those powers is to be able to distinguish between heartbeats, and there are two heartbeats in particular that Daredevil has been preoccupied with: one is good, one is not so good. For him, at least. I don’t care either way.

We cut to a rainy high rise rooftop! It appears that Daredevil not only avoided a truck off-screen, but he’s getting chided about it by Black Widow! “Lucky for you I was swinging by at the time” she says, embodying some lazy-ass writing. He’s not listening, though, which seems to be the running theme with Murdock so far anyway. After he tells her that he was being held in a white room by the devil, I’m left wondering why Black Widow even wants to hang around this attempted-baby-murdering AIDS-girlfriend-having devil-seeing devilish Daredevil of a man in the first place. He seems like a lot of emotional maintenance. Who does he think he is? ME??

Oh wait, yeah, I get it now, she loves him. Blech. He’s concerned about Wilson Fisk, the big fat fatty fat Kingpin, who had already destroyed his life once. Black Widow is concerned that Daredevil is concerned, but then Daredevil bitterly reminds her that the biggest enemy to him right now is the baby she’s got strapped to her back. She bitterly reminds HIM that focusing all his anger at a baby is misguided. He sort of agrees to himself and trails off into his own thoughts again. “Matthew? Are you listening to me?” she asks, but clearly he isn’t! We just went over this!

Daredevil’s bitter now that “all the Murdock men hang their hearts on the wrong women, often with poor results”, so now it’s cool to see some toxic masculinity in our titular character I suppose. Sounds like there’s some sort of hostile brutishness taking over his mind. Black Widow keeps insisting on taking him home since he isn’t well. Daredevil agrees through a menacing grimace. A grimacing menace??

“No — no, I’m not. Haven’t been…not for a few days, now.” Daredevil’s paranoia is starting to override good judgment, he’s even starting to think Black Widow might be against him too. After all, she’s been carting around that cocksuckin’ baby for two days with no obvious bad luck coming her way. In fact, she seems to care more about the baby’s well-being than Matthew “Daredevil” “Nice Guy” Murdock!…

He starts questioning her like the Commie Russian ex-spy that she is! OF COURSE she’s out to get him, too! “What price did they offer for your soul?” he asks her. By now she’s got the creepin’ heebie-jeebies, which is much worse than the regular jeebies! I’m sure Black Widow would love to deal with some familiar regular jeebies right now, but this shit is wack. Daredevil backs her against the corner of the rooftop.

“You’ve already done it, Woman! I’m here to undo it!” he snarls, gripping her by the throat and pushing her body over the edge of the building. I look back on my life and it’s littered with the lies women have told me. Lies that have blackened my soul. He’s thinking this as Black Widow attempts to fight back, but he renders her unconscious in an unclear manner. Maybe he squeezed her neck until she passed out? I dunno! Either way, she’s incapacitated and he takes the baby and jumps off the building with it, falling back-first toward the ground.

Daredevil comes to his senses, so to speak, en route to the ground below. He grapples onto a stone cross that tops a church roof, swings to adjust his landing angle, and braces for impact.

THEY BOTH DIED!

Nope, they’re fine. Daredevil is injured, but the antichrist hell baby is completely ok. He bangs on the door of the church and some old hag nun comes to the door. For the first time in 48 hours he doesn’t feel lost. Yeah, how’s this for lost: *tender jerkoff motion*

BEFORE WE RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BROADCAST, WOULD THE OWNER OF A 1970 FORD MAVERICK PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT DESK? YOU LEFT A BABY IN THE CAR SEAT. IT’S THE ANTICHRIST. LOL.

Sorry, I just had my own psychotic episode. We jump ahead two days. The unknown Boss Man that we’ve already seen try to abduct teenagers is very angry that this blind man and this baby keeps eluding him and his team of henchmen! If I didn’t know any better, and I don’t, this nogoodnik just really wants Daredevil to be sad and crying, not necessarily dead, and it will make him feel like a big man again! That’s nice. “The endgame is approaching, Mr. Gabriel. Summon the assassin.” OH NO! Assassins assassinate people! I was wrong!

Murdock wakes up in some shitty bed in some shitty room. The old hag nun tells him he’s been sleeping for two days straight in her personal old hag nun room. She even washed his stinky Daredevil uniform! It turns out that this old hag nun is Murdocks real life old hag mother, whom he hasn’t seen in 30 years. lol, “seen”, ok.

There’s a lot of vague catching up between the two of them. “You’re a lot like your father” she says, like she would fucking know anything about him after 30 years? Murdock says something barely rude about God and she tut-tuts at him like some sort of nun. “Such anger from someone who has been given so much!” she says, not reading the room very well at all. He gets mad at this and strains his sinewy neck out, ranting about how blind he is and, oh yeah, he can’t fucking see, lady!

“Darkness, mother! That’s what I’ve been given — a life of darkness! Seeing darkness, fighting darkness, feeling darkness! You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t find the same faith in the so-called Almighty that you’ve found! But then, I guess it’s easy for you to jump to His defense! After all, He let you off the hook pretty easily, didn’t He!”

Hoo boy. She didn’t like that at all.

He cries and apologizes.

As old hag Mother Nun makes tea, Murdock lies there with wonky-eyed contentment at talking to some lady he hasn’t known for three decades like she should even matter to him anymore. He really wants to ask about his life, but he mostly just talks about the events of the last few days. She keeps telling him to look to God for guidance, since that’s exactly what a nun is supposed to tell people, and he keeps insisting that he’s not sure God’s even real anymore. She asks him, with all he’s been through, how could he possibly question His existence? He asks how she could possibly not, what with helping the very people that the Kingpin has profited off of for years, for example. “It’s a fairy tale, isn’t it? A joke devised a long time ago to keep the downtrodden from revolting — to keep them compliant!”

Homeboy’s gonna get slapped again if he doesn’t watch it!

She doesn’t even get mad at any of this, though. She just smiles as a response, and then starts to tell Murdock a story. HEEEEEERE WE GO, YEEEESH. I’m getting a snack.

Oh dags, she’s still talking? It’s a story about a Knight and a Monk, and-GRRRROOOOAAAN. Another snack.

OK, she’s still talking. The story goes like this: Knight and Monk are walking together. Knight goes “Your life sucks ass and you still believe in God? My life is great, I’m fuckin’ broads and snortin’ coke and shootin’ cops and peein’ the the mall fountain! I don’t believe in God! Isn’t that funny?”. Monk goes “…”. Knight goes “…and, like, I’m wondering, so I think once we’re dead, then that’s it! Dead! In the ground! Nothing! What if you die and learn the same thing after wasting all this time believing? What if you learn there was no God at all?” Monk goes “Yeah, I’ll be sad and shit. But, my good sir, I posit the following consideration to you, and you will not deny the veritable checkmate that will fall in front of your eyes like Tetris pieces shaped like chess pieces fitting snugly into little checkmate rows and columns: What if you die and you find out there IS a God?! WOOP WOOP!”

And then Knight dropped his chalk and the whole room stood up and gave the Monk a standing ovation! Murdock got fucking schooled, son! What a loser! It’s Kirk Cameron and the banana all over again! The Atheist’s Nightmare!

With that, the nun announces that a woman had showed up to the church to see him. “She seems very distressed” the nun tells him, if by “very distressed” she means “chock full of AIDS”. Are AIDS jokes woke in 2021? Probably not! Sorry.

It’s Karen Page, and she wants to know where the baby is. She doesn’t want the little hellspawn being raised in a cold, drafty nunnery! Murdock didn’t want to impose, but Karen insists that “a sweet little baby’d take my mind off my…problems.” Well hot diggity dog! Sounds great! Murdock’s just gonna get his coat and- WAIT A FUCKING SECOND, THERE, HONEY! He never told her about the dang baby! Karen says he did, but Murdock says “NO WAY JOSE, I WOULD REMEMBER, I’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS BABY TO, LIKE, 17 PEOPLE SO FAR AND I REMEMBER EVERY CONVERSATION I’VE HAD IN THE LAST WEEK EVEN THOUGH I’VE BEEN COMPLETELY OUT OF MY MIND, SO THERE!”, and then Karen has no choice but to concede!

She tells him about Old Man Macabes, about the curse, about all the bad luck that has befallen everyone. “But all we have to do is give him the baby, Matt! If we give him the baby, all the evil goes away!” Murdock says, in big red block letters, “NO!!”. You’re being played like a fiddle, Karen! Like a big, blonde fiddle! Like a big, blonde, HIV+ fiddle! And then he really lets her have it:

“You have AIDS because you were a junkie, Karen! A junkie who was with God only knows who and how many people! Your CARELESSNESS destroyed your life, Karen — not some demon-child! And that carelessness may have destroyed MY life too, for all we know! So you want to blame someone?! Then blame YOURSELF!”

Karen takes this in stride. She looks legitimately ashamed and then runs out the church doors. Murdock stays at the edge of the pew, hands in his face, swearing vengeance on either Macabes or whomever sent him.

We end in the office of the mysterious shrouded Boss Man, who is talking to an unknown associate. Boss Man lays out his terms: baby gets brought to him alive, everyone else can die except Daredevil for some reason! He needs to stay alive! The baby and Daredevil: alive. Everyone else: can die. He will pay $5,000,000. The Boss Man leans forward out of the shadow…it’s MACABES!. And who’s he talking to?…

JASON MEWES! LOL!

No, it’s some costumed guy I’m supposed to know. Pfft, the reveal is lost on me. Hang on, I have to look it up…

Bullseye. It’s Bullseye.

(?)

Bullseye is a villain.

Final Thoughts

Macabes really wants that baby, huh? Cool.

I legitimately wonder what’s going on with our favorite runaway teenager Gwyneth. And I don’t care about Foggy one bit, I hope he rots behind bars!

Halfway through and it’s still pretty good! Chalk this one up to a win. Way to go, Smithy, old boy. Way to go.