Warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for the graphic novel, which is a collection of several issues of Daredevil from the year nineteen eighty six. You need spoilers for Daredevil Born Again. Hello, my Nammy, Jason comes on and I'm Rosey Night and welcome back to Text Revision, the podcast where we dive deep with your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. Wi our podcasts, we're we're bringing you three huge episodes a week.
In today's episode, it's finally time.
Me and Jason are going to get to nut out. In our very first book club episode. You guys have been sending us questions, We're going to answer them. And today we're talking about dared Devil Born Again by Frank Miller of the mass a Calli Boom.
Hey. Let's do a quick summary of this this incredible story arc. Setting the stage, Matt the law Firm, it's in trouble. They're shutting down, They're they're packing up the place because Matt and Foggy are very bad at running a business. Apparently so the the law firm is not doing well. And also Foggy has been hanging out with Matt's x Glory and you know, Matt is a very hard guy to get to know and Foggy is a very easy guy to get to know, and there's some
feelings developing there. So that's kind of like where we start when this story begins. And the story begins with Karen Page, who is down on our luck and probably the weakest part of this story, then I think we both found to be I'll just pause for a second the recap to just say I was delighted to find on the reread. One of many rereads, but certainly this time the most recent reread. It's been a little while since I had read it. This story remains really good.
It's great, it holds up, it's really good.
I totally agree with you, and I think one of the most interesting things about this is when I first started my career in this industry, I would write extensively about misogyny and comic.
Books, and this is a book.
I think the biggest failing here is that Karen doesn't really get like much interior life outside of right things going very badly for her, which is kind of what we see, and the story opens with her doing something kind of unforgivable, and there is not a lot of great work on Karen's character, but generally because many books from this era in the in the late eighties war extremely misogynistic, generally, this really holds up as actually like a pretty fantastic story, and as some of our readers
pointed out, there are interesting women within this story that don't fall into the Karen Page trope. So also, David Masacelli's art is like so unbelievable in this book that I think it just kept me engrossed on every single page.
So Karen Page has been going through it. She is addicted to heroin, she has been engaging in sex work, which you don't want to do. And now finally, at her most desperate moment, she sells the thing that she has that she thinks is the world will find the most valuable, and that is the secret identity of Daredevil. Matt Murroch, the you know, hard scrabble street fighting lawyer
is by night the crime fighter Daredevil. This information quickly moves up the criminal chain to the kingpin, who is like on a yacht somewhere with all those contenants fantastic looking incredible shorts, shorts, shorts, Wilson fisk and shorts and sandals love and.
He yeah, I have to say, we're going to talk about our favorite panels. But I was going through when I was reading this on Hoofla and screen grabbing and that first shot of Wilson Fisk and it's pink and it is just it's so fantastic, and yeah, I mean, what a book. I gotta say as well, Christy Shield on colors here just unbelievable colorists like and it's so similar to what's fantastic about Year one in the discord.
I've been telling everyone, if you love this art, go and look at Year one because it's those saturated pinks, those wild giant speech that the wild giant sound effects like the huge blams and fill the panel. This is such a dynamic and engaging book, and it starts out as soon as.
We see Kingpin.
You think, oh, this is going to be something a little bit different. This is going to be something that people are going to remember. And obviously it has become that book. But tell us about Kingpin's plan because it's great.
So we already mentioned that, you know, Nelson Murdoch is they're packing up like they're basically out of business. But the Kingpin decides We're going to strangle Matt slowly with bureaucracy, with all the corrupt ways that I can reach out and strangle Matt. I'm going to do it. He freezes. He has Matt's bank accounts frozen. He has his law license revoked, basically alleging causing a witness to allege or a witness, a twenty year police veteran with a spotless reputation,
alleges that Matt bribed a witness. He's got his friends now, and all of a sudden, like even Foggy is like doubting him. And then while Matt is trying to unravel all of this and trying to figure out like what there must be some kind of mistake and how can this be? He returns home and just as he's coming back home, his brownstone is blown up. And while this is there's this incredible panel again we'll talk about our
favorite panels. But like he's kneeling in the rubble, and he finds his Daredevil costumes, like basically the only thing that really survived the destruction, and he says Kingpin, like I never would have connected this to you. Nothing in anything that's going on, said organized crime. But you shouldn't have signed it. And now Matt is on a full downward violent spiral to like get back at the Kingpin. So step two in Wilson Fisk's plan is happening. Uh,
just as he envisioned. Matt is steadily spiraling towards the bottom, and the Kingpin is deciding to just like put his meaty foot on the Matt's neck and continue to push him down. He Matt is seeing the Kingpin behind every interaction, behind everyone who he sees on the n sees but senses on the street, and he's falling very very quickly into a level of really terrifying paranoia and almost like almost drug induced like violent outbursts even though he and drug guy, Yeah, he's just he's.
Losing grip on reality for sure.
And every step of the way as Matt, you know, like is like lashing out at criminals on the subway to the point like being much more violent than he ever has been, as he is going to various criminal layers and beating the shit out of people and screaming, where's the Kingpin? The Kingpin is getting all of these reports, getting all the video feeds, and he is watching it and is absolutely absolutely loving it. Finally men, he finally Matt is he is so weakened by everything that's happened,
and his grip on reality is like almost gone. And he tries to like break up a robbery. Two like street criminals who Matt would have no problem taking out previously get the better of him and they stab him and he's just bleeding out. He's going to die in the gutter, but Sister Maggie, of a local nun, finds him,
patches him up, takes him in. We learn that Sister Maggie in a shocking reveal that's basically just like a throwaway, that Sister Maggie is his actual old They just kind of drop that and throw it away.
This is your mom she in case the Catholicism and Christianity, your mom is a nun. Also interesting to bring up here, as we're going to talk about this more throughout the episode, but we met sister Maggie in season three of Dead Levil, so this has already been deeply taken from Ben Urick, another major player in this story. He was obviously a huge part of Dead Devil season one. We spoke, we talked, we're going to talk about.
In our rekit.
He's fantastic, but his fate in season one means that we're probably not going to see him again here. So there's some very interesting conversation to be had about how much Born Again has actually already been adapted in the first three Netflix Dead Level series.
But now the Kingpin with Matt Murdoch basically potentially dead and whereabouts kind of unknown, although the Kingpin is keeping track of now the Kingpin pushes it to he decides, you know what, I'm going to now completely ruin Matt's Daredevil persona by finding like basically a psychotic like serial killer,
having him released from a mental institution. Forcing Melvin aka Gladiator, the former street level jewel thief and villain who went straight with the help of Matt Murdoch and Foggy Nelson, force Melvin, who is a costume maker for heroes on the side, force him to make a exact replica of Daredevil's costume. They're going to give it to this crazed serial killer and just like set him loose and like
have him now ruined Daredevil's reputation by committing murders. Matt, now healthy, goes, he fights this guy and he beats the Daredevil knockoff, and now the Kingpin, who's pushed it too far with this Daredevil knockoff, pushes it even further by having a general that he has in his pocket released to him. The latest and most troubling and most fascistic example of America's continued attempts to create other super
soldiers like Steve Rogers. Nuke Nuke is an ultra right wing super soldier addicted to pills who has been working to destabilize various countries in Latin America. He is pulled out of Nicaragua and unleashed on Hell's kitchen with the hopes Kingpin hopes that he'll you know, kill Matt Murdock and everybody that Matt Murrack clubs because he's had enough. Well, this is really the thing that causes the entire scheme to unravel. Daredevil, with the help of some Avengers, beats Nuke.
Captain America is drawn into this in what is one of the best cameos I think of a like major character in another story in certainly Marvel History, Like, you get so much of what makes Captain America like actually a great character in this. Yeah, he is so disappointed in his country in the continued obsession with super soldiers, with what they've done to this young man who has become nuke, and he helps Matt bring the whole thing down.
In the end, Matt beats the Kingpin in his office in a tremendous fight, and he and Karen literally walk off into the sunset together, and Frank Miller then exits the exits the title with that final panel and does a thing that you never see in ongoing titles, which is create a hard stopping point of the story way that really causes troubles, Like if you're going to read this in the context of the of the Daredevil ongoing run when you get to the next issue, which I
think Mark Runwald is the yest writer, because again Frank Miller was just like now I'm out. Fine. It's really jarring.
As a kid when you get to the end of one of those arcs and their art changers and the writer changes, and suddenly you're like, wait a minute, like what happened? How how did this come to me? But of course then you know, I'm a huge proponent of the the JR jr. And an Inacenti stuff, so we get all these different great dead level talking points. But yeah, I mean, and what a story to read this back. Also again Nuke, a character we saw in season one
and two of Dad Devil. They've actually taken so much of this book for the Defender's kind of Netflix universe, which I found really interesting on reading it back, because it is issues to do so to basically, you know, two thirty one essentially you could get too thirty two, two thirty three. It's it's barely you know, twenty issues, and it is so influential.
Jason, what was your biggest takeaway re reading it for the book club?
How good it is? Like it has its reputation for a reason. You know, I was, I was. I was kind of feeling a little bit of trepidation going back and wondering, God, like, is it as good as I remember? And it is as good. It's as good as I remember. Why this was such a crucial graphic novel for me and my like love affair with comics because it really is literary in a way that many comics of that era were not. Like the descriptions, the way the way the writing worked with the panels, the layouts of the
panel That's the other thing. If you're gonna read this on digital, I know, you know some people's eyesight, mine included, is not great. And sometimes you want to zoom in and do the guided view where you blow up the panel right and then you just swipe through. Don't do that because or if you do do that, allow yourself to look at the layout first. Because Masie Kelly's layouts, his layouts are amazing storytelling device.
So Rosen's lettering is so incredible.
There's this great moment when Matt is left on the ground and he is being rescued, and it's like you see Matt half down the side, and then there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven panels where it's just huge text in bright pink Son, can you hear me? Son?
The doctors they say you'll be fine, Son, You're a hero boy.
Really, it looks unlike anything else, while still feeling very akin to that kind of mid to late eighties style because.
Of Miller being Miller and mas Kelly being mass Kelly. Yeah.
I also, something I really loved that I had never kind of revisited in the same way is that every I didn't realize how much intentional repetition there was like every issue opens with Matt laying down and he kind of he starts off relaxing in his bed, and he ends up, you know, curled up in the fetal position in an alleyway, and it's kind of this transition just shown through one thing, how comfortable he was in his beautiful New York apartment, in his nice probably like you know,
two hundred count Egyptian sheets or whatever, and then just by Wilson Fisk's sheer malevolence and scheming, he ends up you know, homeless on the street. And I think there's so much interesting visual narrative storytelling in this book that just really stands the test of time and also feels mad simply influential on the people who are making comics.
Now, Oh yeah, this is clearly a remains a touchstone. Pieces I want to talk about, like when another thing that I really loved is just the again the Captain America stuff, when he comes in, like there's this moment where he's like he throughout his very brief appearance in this story, it's like an issue basically little less than an issue. When he's working with Matt, Miller is able to like put in so much pathos where you realize that Captain America is like, he's like they people don't
believe in this shit anymore. They think it's dumb, like that what am I doing? I'm doing this and nobody believes in what I'm doing anymore. Look at like what's happened. Look at this guy Nuke, look at what the country's become. Look at the General's fucking lying to me, lying to my face about like what they're doing. Nobody believes in what I'm doing anymore? What is this all for? And
I found that like so affecting. I was like, Wow, It's like it's just like really amazing how good this story is and how many things are in here that feel like if I was writing a story today, I might use this device, I might use this plot point. I'm like, I would like I would hope to make a scene that is in this style that is as good as the scene when Wilson Fisk is like seducing Nuke into working for him, Like he has his office
tricked out with all the American paraphernalia. Yeah, and he's like, you know they don't our boys have been downtroden. Nobody respects our soldiers anymore they don't respect the flag anymore, but I know you do. And the way he seduces him, like Jesus Christ, this feels like twenty twenty five, like it's it's just incredible. What were your thoughts, what were your takeaways upon rereading this?
Yeah, I agree with all of that.
I think the nuke stuff feels just horribly relevant right now, even though this is a book that is literally decades old, Like the book is older than me, and the nuke.
Stuff feels so relevant.
Something I thought was deeply cool that we often don't get in comics. I loved how much they showed the Kingpin growing his strength and.
Kind of like working a king out.
And I just thought that was really interesting because often with a character like you know, the Blob or the Kingpin, they're just like, this is a fat character, and maybe he's strong, or maybe he's just really fat. I kind of loved the way that they showed Kingpin's prowess and they showed his strength, and they showed him beating the
share out of people. Also, on a hilarious note, I don't think there's ever been a comic that used the sound effect FAP more than this comic that's a different meaning.
Now.
It's so funny because they Yeah.
The notable one to me is is Matt's nightstick hitting like Kingpin's belly.
Yeah, yeah, I love that one.
Also, I thought, I love the kind of use of silence in this comic and how often Frank Miller for being such a kind of scene as such, like an autor style creator in this book. As a writer, he understands the power of days of David Masikelly's art. There's lots of silent panels. There's lots of massive splash pages
that begin and end the issues, which I love. I do think, you know, I I would love to have seen a world where, you know, when we're talking about something like The Dark Knight Returns, another one of Frank Miller's very famous books that came out within like a year of this, which is completely ridiculous, but you know, he was with Lim Valle at the time, who was a colorist, and you got this really cool representation of Carrie Kelly as you know, a female Robin and I
do I just I know Christy Scherr was working on those colors, and I just I don't I wish there had been someone who had been like, hey, let's give Karen like.
A little bit more to chew on, like this idea of her.
As just like a drug addict, and also the kind of weird moralistic idea of like people who have addictions can't be trusted and there is like levels to that, but it's very black and white. But I will say rereading this as someone who is looking at it with a more critical eye, with a more thematic eye, I did find it very interesting how much kind of Catholic and Christian kind of story thematics there are here, with like resurrections and downfalls and the importance of the church.
When Matt gets found by system Maggie, he's.
Kind of laying in that reclining Jesus position that we know so well when he awakes in the hospital. So I think in that way, having this kind of more black and white sense of what morality is makes sense. And also, you know who else is going through it in this book, Matt Murdoch, Like that man is going through it just as equally as bad as Karen, and I kind of love as someone who loves a tragic romance.
I do love the way that that allows him and her to kind of still connect throughout this book no matter what. They kind of have that tragic romance, which I am a fan of that trope.
I found myself really drawn in a way that I don't remember remember being in the past. To the Ben Urick scenes. I think this is the best Yuruk there's been. Urick is still like an active character, of course, and
then in Marvel Comics most recently. I think he's probably most recently notable for being part of Orcus's scheme against the x Men and the krakoa era that said, like Uric his bravery in the face of constant threats against his life and his family's life by the Kingpin to pursue the Kingpins story and doggedly reveal that Matt Murdoch was framed by the Kingpin, despite the fact that like Kingpin calls him at work, or the assassin the Kingpin hires calls him at work and makes him listen to
the murder of a witness, like attacks him in his home. Like There's so many things that happen to Ben and he follows through, and it's very difficult for him to follow through.
I think that part of it was very powerful in twenty twenty five. It's so powerless.
It's really powerful stuff.
Yeah, I thought it was amazing. Okay, So one of our first questions from Discord, which I think is a great question, it's basically like, first if you asked, what is the legacy of Born Again outside of the shows, like, did the run out of any influences on comic books both inside and outside of Dad.
Everl Well, I think we first have to zoom out. It was hugely influential, but I think beyond that, this is thes came out in eighty six and eighty six I think is what a yeah, baby, you're talking about one of the best years in comics ever, and Daredevil
Born Again is part of that. There's also the X Men, like the X Men were franchised off into X Factor like New Mutants and X Men like it became they became a crossover sensation where Marvel kind of like was like, Okay, we realized that X Men is like our biggest franchise. Let's really blow it out. You had Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.
Crazy that you had those two seminal books. This is the dark and Gritty era.
The latter being also Frank Miller, so like that you're really seeing like the literalization, like the adultification, if you will, of comics, particularly with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns.
Their late seventies. Throughout the eighties there were these great books.
Denny Cohen's The Question was one of the early ones that really turned things kind of to this dark noir, huge space. But eighty six eighty seven is seen as a massive sea change for comics. You get Watchmen, which goes on to become, you know, the biggest selling and
most continuously selling comic of all time. Due to the nature of the contract, which meant that if the book goes out of print for more than a year, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and John Stewart would get the rights back, so that book has never been out of print. Dark Knight Returns obviously seen as one of the seminal Batman stories of all time, with unbelievable work with Frank Miller,
Lim Valley on those wild colors, class Jansen inking. It's like it's a team that you could probably lightning in a bottle. But interestingly, another book, Dark Knight Returns unbelievably influential, not.
Only on comics, but also on movies, TV film.
Every single person who adapts a Batman story, whether it's Tim Burton, Zack Snyder, or inevitably James Gunn Matt Reeves, they always mention the Dark Knight Returns. Christopher Nolan mentions
the Dark Knight Returns. So this era was so influential, and I would say in general it becomes a very influential book on comics because many of the people who are working in comics now are people who grew up reading those books, and Born Again is regularly offered up as one of those if you've never read a comic, read this. And I do think actually, and this was another first of her kind of note that they mentioned
in the discord. They said, as a naive comics reader, I was surprised that Dead Devil's powers and origin I sort of re explained in every issue and how the
comics in general handle onboarding new readers right. And I actually think, out of all those books Watchmen, the Dark Knight Returns, this book, I actually think that Born Again is probably the most accessible jumping on point, because when you tell somebody who's never read a comic to read Watchmen, you are offering it to them as a literary book because it was in Times one hundred best Novels of
all Time. But to understand Watchmen, and to truly love Watchmen, you probably need an understanding of comics, superheroes, the nature of.
PSS understand and superheroes society.
Exactly what you've got to know that like the Minutemen and the Watchmen are commentaries on these other things, and if you even want to get deeper, their reimaginings of Charlton characters. So they're actually a very contextually heavy book. But born Again, as first for pointed out, this is very old school, like you are constantly being reminded, Hey, this is what happened, this is Matt Murdoch, this is what he does, this is how he got his pals.
I mean, the end of the book in what I'm interested to think about, whether it was an editorial edict or Frank Miller just being kind to the next person. The end of the book essentially ends with a status quo where it's Matt and Karen and he's like, Hey, I'm dead, evil, I live in Hell's kitchen. I try and keep it clean. That's all you need to know, and it's like boom, okay, So then the next person can hypothetically just kind of jump on. What do you
think of it as a jumping on point? Like would you give this to someone who's never read a comic before?
Yeah? I would, And I think I think you make a you make a very salient point, which is particularly comics of this era. This was an era in which unless you had a pull list at a comic book shop, you were getting them on the news stand. Yeah, on this, Yeah, on the spinner stands at the burber shop, Like you would just buy it because you know, kids would just
buy it because they love the cover. They wouldn't know what the story was, and you had and in that came the responsibility of the creative team to explain where we are, who these characters are, what the setup is every single time. Like it's kind of it's crazy to read back those old X Men things where it's like, oh, yeah, Logan is like my healing factor kicks in, you know, like he's got to telling every single time, like what's going on?
And when they didn't do that, you would have notes being like edits note like go check out you know issues.
Yeah.
Seventy seven of Uncanny or whatever, like they would kind of direct read us because there was so many books coming out, and that was actually something I did love about the experience of reading this book alongside or the listeners. A lot of people were kind of like whoa, Like, I'm just starting this issue and I'm jumping in and I don't really understand any of the context or the back issue of what's been happening in the previous stuff.
I don't really understand how some of this correlates when you're just reading the issues, and that is such a big experience of being a comic book reader. I always talk about another book that came out in this eighty six eighty seven Corridor, The Killing Joke Brian bolland Alan Moore, obviously deeply famous, deeply gritty, deeply bad treatment of women.
But that book, it's like it that is a fantastic book because it is so singular and essentially like an Elseworld style title, right, But when you compare that to something like a death in the family, which is such a big deal Jason Todd die, it's huge, She's killed.
Blah blah blah.
The next issue the Joke is like, hey, guys, I'm taking over the UN and he's dressed in like a funny costume and he's just like trying to take over the UN. And it's that difference between a book that is contained and a book that really was part of
that massive, ongoing comic book continuity. And it was really fun to get to see our Discord listeners and a Discord people and our members and our community of Extra Vision really come together on this kind of like WHOA, how crazy is it to just read an iconic storyline but that came in the middle of a bunch of
random issues because that's how comics are. So I kind of love that this gives you a taste of that experience without feeling too overwhelmed, Like most of our Discord listeners really came away from this book like us just kind of in love with what it did well. And also, I'm gonna this is a fun question from Animal Mother, which was Miller is often challenged by his One day
mentioned the depiction of women, which is very true. As Animal Mother points out, they generally fit into the molds of kind of victim or prostitute.
We see that in Sin City.
We also see that he loves like a badass chick who is broken but as animal mother Dark.
Knight, Dark Knight Night, weirdly being the only being, the only story of this of this time in which he breaks that mold.
It gives you, so then he returns back to it in the Secret returns to it. But Sister Maggie is a welcome deviation from the norm. Her presence in this book is brief but significant, and it opened a door to a more complex exploration of faith, Catholic guilt and responsibility. After Born Again, where does the story take her in her relationship to Matt Well.
Jason, As you mentioned, she's his mom.
Crazy, she's his mom, I mean, they basically crazy, Mic, they will give you this massive reveal that here's where Matt's mom is. She apparently, you know, clearly her and Matt's dad, their relationship was not long lived or filled with love, and clearly she's very religious on her own and because of the things she was going through, clearly
abandoned the family. And it's amazing to one realize that she's been close by this whole time, perhaps keeping an eye on him, clearly keeping an eye on him in some way. Yeah, but also this it's kind of a one and done, like you dropped this massive reveal on you and that's it.
It's really fun.
I kind of love I love.
It because she and the funny thing is she is still in the comics, but not really as his mother, you know, not at all. There is a very interesting and strange story where Matt is looking after a baby that he suspects is the Antichrist because of comics. He almost threw the baby off the roof of the church because he was sure of it. And then it turns
out that he meets back up with Sister Maggie. They they stay in contact and often when something terrible happens, she will be there and kind of as animal mother. Noticed is this representation of a more complex look at religion through the eyes of a nun. She really goes through it though like her fellow nuns get killed at some point by like bullseye terrible hate to see it. And also she kind of stays involved with Matt and kind of trying to be his almost like a counselor.
And then she's there for him when he loses Karen. And it's it's really interesting, but I would love to see where it goes. We do get some different versions of her in the comics. In What If, there's an issue where she kind of protects Karen Page and tries to after her. We also see her attend Jack Murdock's funeral in one Most interestingly, in Spider Gwen Law, Maggie actually doesn't abandon Jack or Matt and he's raised together.
But though she becomes paralegal, she actually ends up getting comatose from the same drug of chemicals that blinds Matt.
So not going great for her. But I'm very interested to see if we could.
See sister Maggie return in the New Dead Evil series, because she really is a huge part of his law. But it's kind of funny that in the comics it's like she's his mom, but they don't suddenly like create a familial relationship.
It's so true some other questions that were really good. Miles Tag in the Discord says, I was not expecting the Karen story to be so dark. It's true. I think about reading this as a kid, and I just like was like, Okay, I imagine it must have been pretty controversial at the time. I'm seeing Cap and Tonia's instruments of the US Military Industrial complex like nakedly. Part
of it was wild, but as always Cap comes around. Yeah, I think let's talk about the Cap elements because I think that, first of all, the appearance of the Avengers in this story is so cool because you get them through Daredevil's the perspective of Daredevil's senses, and you realize like how fucking powerful they are. It's like, that's not a man, that's a god. Like he's commanding lighting. I can feel it. When Tony arrives in his in the
fucking scarlet Centurion eighties armor. He uh, you know. Matt is like I can feel the circuitry like hum around him, and it's you feel their power. But also, like Miles is right, like throughout all of this story, Cap is like, what the fuck have I gotten myself into? It?
Always like what I'm doing?
Matt says like or someone says, I forget, like oh, your bosses, and he's like, I don't work for them, Like that's not what this is. Like It's like, oh, yeah, prove it, like you know, and Cap does his own investigation, which he you get a little bit of a download of the Super Soldier history of the program. You realize it's ongoing, Cap realizing it's it's still ongoing, and that this guy Nuke, which you know talk about the complexity
of Nuke. Nuke really is like the kind of like the sub villain of this series, like a major antagonist. But even though he's not depicted with anything like any kind of you know, positive qualities, you don't feel in any kind of way that he's like this human being. He's so far gone and using drugs to like enhance his violence. It's you see his humanity through Captain America, Yeah, which is an incredible storytelling device. It's like Cap is the only one who's like, I understand what this guy
has been through exactly. He's a victim of all of this, and he's the only one who is like willing to help him and to offer him up as evidence of the government's wrongdoing. It's an incredible turn and yeah, big reason why I think Cap is like again, I think it's an incredible cameo by Captain American.
I think as well, it's a really really smart choice on the part of Miller, which you know, hearing me celebrate Frank Miller is really going to be shocking to many of you.
He has many he's good.
He's good, he's you know, he's terror he's always saying fucked up shit, and like I often know, critiquing, but I will say, you know, one of the storylines which I know we have talked about and I think was so influential on this story is the Steve Engelhart Captain America storyline from seventy four where Capp basically decides to
quit being Captain America. And it's to reflect that disillusionment with the government people felt and with the fact that the military industrial system is killing people around the world. And there's that very famous panel where Captain America is like Captain America must die, that kind of splash page.
But I was thinking of that so much.
Here because Cap understands his place in the culture of the world, and he understands the danger that America can put people into, and he understands that even while he wants to be a symbol of hope, that is not always the case. And I think the nuke stuff is really interesting because at this point he is a super soldier kind of run off from that, but in the Grant Morrison stuff later on, it would be revealed that he's kind of part of a weapon plus program similar
to Wolverine. And I think there's so much interesting, dark, dark truth about the way that experimentation has pushed forward science and pushed forward military techniques, and how so much of that in the nature of Captain America he has created through Nazi technology, Nazi experiments, that is how they get to the super Soldier serum, And that is so real about many of the hugest scientific, you know, discoveries
in American history came from Nazi science. And I think that just makes this story feel so real and so resonant, and that feels like a cameo that had so much thought put into it that Yeah, if you read a comic book, if you've never read a comic book before, you know who Captain America is, so it hits. But if you do know Captain America, you're like, yes, that is exactly what my guy would say, Like that is who That's exactly.
He is, you know, And I think that that is really really cool.
Yeah. I also was very interested in the kind of conversations that were going on in the in the discord about like the covers for these issues and kind of how the art is represented, so like Eric Blakeney actually sent this email in which really spoke to that, which was how important is the cover artwork for comics? I noticed in the discord that a few of the members have different variations of the comic, and many of them
have various covers. Is this a licensing issue where at a point in time they have to change the cover or they can change it. How important is it for an author artist to expose the art style to a potential reader or just put what they think will help itself.
So this is a huge question.
Yeah, the huge question.
Because back then I think that having art on the cover that represented the interiors of the comic was massively important. And really with a book like Born Again, the reason you're seeing so many different covers is because the book has been reprinted so many times, and they want to make people who are completionists feel like there's different reasons to.
Buy it with new back matter or new.
You know, layouts that you've never seen before, or are really nicely design new cover. Though that very famous stained glass cover really I think is the iconic one. Nowadays, I actually think that having art that is different on
the cover has become a major selling point. Most books which sell hundreds of thousands of issues, are so and they often don't really have much to do with the story or the style, Whereas something I loved about reading this book on hooflo, where they show you the covers, you really get a sense of what is going to
happen in the issue. The God and Country cover with you know, the burning American flag on Nuke's face, And for me, I felt like this that era of eighty six eighty seven, they did a great job of letting readers know exactly what they were going to get tone wise, and I think it's I I remember working in a comic shop, you know now almost ten years ago, but we would have people who bought back variant covers, especially at the time, you know, Scottie Young was so huge
with those cutesy, chibby kind of takes on these heroes, and then people would read the book and it would be a much more kind of standard superhero big two house style, and they would come back and say, hey, I wanted the book that looked like the cover, you know, And I think we've moved past that now. But it's
an interesting question. And Eric also asked like, how did me and Oliver choose what we featured on the Godzilla Rival cover, and that was definitely us going back to this old style where we wanted people to know when they looked at that cover, when they saw the little girl in the yellow kind of wet jacket, this fisherman's jacket looking out and the kind of huge impact of Godzilla.
We really wanted people to know, like, this is how the book is going to feel, because I think that for many of us, what drew us to comics in the seventies and the eighties was the fact that the covers were so cool and then when you looked inside the covers it looked like that. You know, that's what drew me to X Men. It was those badass covers, and that's what drew me to you know. When I think about the comics I loved so much, it was wanting to see art that spoke to me, and I
think the covers really put that across. And I think in the case of a book like this, the covers are actually very contextually important and they say, hey, this is what is happening here. And so I think in the older school, like Watchmen, stuff like that. You know, Watchmen had these very interesting kind of close up covers. Often it had the smiley face with the blood, but it still had that Dave Gibbons John Stewart art where you're really getting a sense of this kind of.
Hyper detailed world.
So yeah, I thought that was really cool to see people having those conversations about, like, why does this book have a different cover than mine? Honestly, because this book has been in print for like forty almost forty years, and throughout that time it's going to have gone out of print, it's gonna be back in print, and there's
gonna be different trades, different versions. But I think that We're born again, You're never going to see a cover that it's unlikely to see a cover that doesn't have Frank Miller and Christy Shiel's art because it's just so iconic.
Finally, what do you think it is that has made it so that this feels like a touchstone piece of comic book literature. It is one of those graphic novels that even if you don't like comics, if you're not a comics person, you might find this on a person's bookshelf. What do you think it is, Rosie that makes it so continually relevant?
So I think ironically, a lot of this stuff at the time was just like.
Hey, here's a dude, and he's good at doing this, and they were like, and here's the book he's written, so it must inherently be important. And that's not to say there wasn't brilliant, you know, comic book critics and people who are in these books with a critical eyeback then, But I think the reason that it's stood the test of time so much is one because it has parenally been in print as a collection, very easy to access, and two because I.
Think that Daredevil represents what people.
Often are most moved by in Marvel comics, which is a street level hero who has real problems and real issues and is not, you know, a godlike figure like Superman or Wonder Woman, and is instead a real person doing their best to try and help their community. And in this case we get to see that juxtaposed with the kind of hyper super soldier storylines. So there's a
melding there that I think is really important. And also, I think if you're somebody who loves Daredevil and you love the Catholic imagery and the complex representations of faith, and how much of Matt is driven by Catholic guilt. This is a story that really digs into that. I also think that the infamy of the infamy of this
book is a huge part of it. We often would talk about this book when I was in the comic shop and talk about carm page representation and how women at this time were not getting good representation on the page. But then that also led me to find other books like the Anni Nasenti Jrjr. Typhoid Mary stuff and kind of realized that actually those complex representations were there in
different stories told by different people. So I think that combination of infamy but also the incredible skill and artwork of David Mazakeli, that eye catching opening pages, I just think that it is a kind of perfect.
Storm of.
Scandal, talent, and also being in this essentially one to your period.
That change. It changed comics forever. This was where it began.
You know, there's New York Times articles saying bif Bang pal comics aren't for kids anymore. You know, this was a sea change that we are still grappling with as we get into a space where we're making Disney Plus shows more violent. That is still a throwback to that era. So yeah, it's what a book, What a great way to start book club.
I completely agree. I think for me, I think what makes this story and collection special is it grapples with what, to me is like the essential like superhero comic question is like why is this necessary? Why do this? Like obviously a in a story like The Boys, there's a different and perhaps more realistic answer to what a world with superpowered individuals in it would would probably look like.
But I think the thing that's so affecting even now about Daredevil Born Again is its depiction of a world that is kind of like fallen. Like the military is not trustworthy, they're out for themselves, They're looking to line their own pockets. You've got people generals, You've got generals like running secret missions like in Latin America for reasons unknown. The Kingpin is able to reach out and get any favor he needs from any political figure, any military figure,
and move a million different kinds of levers. He's able to silently and from the shadows, ruin a guy's life, but you know, put his business, you know out, have him evicted from his home, destroy his home. He's able to do all of these things and that's a person with a secret identity and powers and connections in the superhero world. And so throughout this series you're faced with heroes like Matt Murdoch, like Captain America, who are like, fuck, is it even is it worth it? Is it worth
doing this shit anymore? Like should I even be doing this? Is it necessary? What am I really doing? And then the answer is you're the only thing that's actually standing between people in a fully fallen world in which the government, the military, crime figures, all the powerful figures are just like a raid against regular people. No one is there to save them except for you. And that's the thing that that's the answer that is laid out at the end of this and I think it's still a tremendously
powerful answer. Like it's a fantasy, obviously, but it's a fantasy that we all want to participate in. That there are people out there who are willing to put their bodies and lives on the line just to protect normal people, not for any reason of you know, economic benefit, or because of and a cruel of power to them, but
because it's the right thing to do. It's a wonderful fantasy, and it's and it's displayed, so, you know, viscerally in this book, where Matt, like time and time again, is given the option to just like opt out, don't do this anymore, don't take the beatings, don't you know, don't just walk away? Yeah, like why why do this?
Also?
Yeah, but he will give you money to leave, like if you were cool with it. Yeah, like you could do some scammy stuff, you know. Okay, finally, uh, what's your favorite panel? M Why?
Oh god, there's so many and it's really hard because again I think massa Chili is he did this, He did Born and he did Batman Your One, also with Frank Miller, which to me feels kind of like a sibling step sibling to this story. And then he really left. He went to academia to teach art and stuff and worked in the like the corporate world, And I think this is it's just magnificent in many ways. I would say for me, I could choose a million different things.
But the shot of Matt, so he's been stabbed, but he's like kind of just running on fumes and obsession, staggering around the city. He finds himself at a boxing gym, Fogwells Boxing Gym, and he's standing in front of the the heavy bag, and oh, I love that.
I love that page.
The writing on the glass of the window of the place is reflected on the floor and on his back as he's standing in front of this heavy bag, and the shot is like kind of from above, and it's Matt like returning to the thing that he knows, the thing that his family knows, just fighting, you know, the thing that his dad knew. And it's just really great.
Like I think Mazic Kelly for all of the really impactful scenes of like superheroes and fights and violence, and like I think of the scene of the intro is new because he's like jumping off the helicopter, like all these amazing things. To me, what makes him be like beyond beyond a master is just like the normal the way he lays out normal scenes, mad in his kitchen making phone calls like yeah, that, the way the angles
he uses he's he's incredible. And so it's it's really really hard to pick a favorite panel, but I would pick that one Matt in the boxing gym. What's your favorite?
I love that.
I'm gonna go just because it was the first one I took a screen grab off and it was like immediately I was like, will I get a tattoo of this? So I'm gonna go with Wilson Fisk in his shorts. I think that the colors are so cool. I think that it sets him up as this almost like he feels very international in that moment, like he could be on his yaw in that Italian riviera dealing with the mob.
He seems so cool and casual.
About absolutely destroying Matt's life, which is his plan.
And it also establishes the visual language.
Of the comic, with that massive blam behind him in the panel above, and the stuff that I find most exciting, which is when they veer more into that Batman Year one color palette, those Richmond Lewis inspired.
Deep pinks and strange surreal hues, and I just I love that panel so much.
The other one, I will say, which is a bit of a cheat, but I do love every opening splash page where he's laying down and you see.
Him laying in the bed, and then you see him laying in you know.
The trash, and you see him laying on the floor, and then at the end you see the bag, the heavy bag on the floor and he's standing above it, and you know, he's kind of resurrected. I just I think that stuff is just so deeply cool. I mean, I could just keep talking about this book, like, what a great pit for the for our first book club.
I'm so stoked we did it.
Finally, let's do a little bit of fun to a Dungeons and Dragon style character alignment chart for Matt Murdoch and The Kingpin King. So, I think Matt Murdoch is unsurprisingly perhaps lawful good right there left corner. I think he's a lawyer gray, He's a good man.
He's the most good, even though for the most part, like he does have chaotic elements. I think the fact that he continues to always be a lawyer as well as a nighttime vigilante, and he's always battling inside of himself to be the best person.
I do believe he's.
Lawful good, though I do think you could lean him a little bit more into neutral simply because he does go out beating people up at night.
But I generally think you got to give him the lawful good because he's a lawyer.
King pin he might be. I mean, if you put his romantic life into it, he almost goes into chaotic.
I was gonna say that imagines of Matt Madock, where that man is very chaotic, Like he's not always.
But in this book as.
Active data, let's get in the streets, he doesn't know about Okay, okay, what about Kingpin?
I think the Kingpin is lawful evil because rules and hierarchy, the system as it exists, is really important to the Kingpin. He's not looking to like overthrow the government, the world system, take over the world. He likes the way things are going right now and the and the existing uh law and order archetypal hierarchical relationship, because like a spider in a web, he places himself perfectly in the middle of
all that. He needs all of that structure to keep running so that he can continue to be the Kingpin, Which is why I believe.
That he is what is No.
I think you're right, because as much as I would love to say, you know, he has a chao, he does. I love a chaotic character, and I do think occasionally he vis into that. But generally this man works absolutely within the laws of society as we know it to make himself rich, to enrich himself, to give himself more power, whether that's as we are going to see as the Mayor of New York, or whether that's as the very good businessman who everybody believes in, the philanthropist, the art lover.
He uses the legal.
System and the expected morals of society to hide his evil.
So I think he's a lawful evil too.
That's a very interesting combination and maybe why the two of them have kind of enchanted readers for so long.
Yeah, well, this has been a wonderful first edition of book Club. For our next book club meeting, we're going to be talking about He's short story from Ted Chang's excellent collection of short stories, his most recent excellent collection of short stories, Exhalation. It's the first story in that collection, called The Merchant and the Alchemist Gate. It's just lovely and we won't yeah clarryings now, But that's it for
this episode. Thank you for our book club listeners, thank you for everyone who took part in the book club, and we'll see you next time.
Yeah, can't wait.
And if you've got any books that you want us to cover, comics books, whatever you think could be a good book club inclusion, make sure to hit us up in our discord or email us at official xarb pod at gmail dot com.
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