Spider-Man/Daredevil #1

Background

Daredevil and Spider-Man. Friends. Colleagues. The Man Without Fear. The Friendly Neighbourhood Wall-Crawler. The low-profile guardian of Hell's Kitchen. The most famous New York super-hero. So different, yet so alike. Their paths have crossed numerous times. This is one of those times. Well, enough babble. You want to know about the story, right?

Story 'Neighbors'

The story begins at the Bugle, where Ben Urich regrets that Spidey makes the big headlines at the Globe, and Daredevil is thrown to page 7. He gets a call on a scoop and leaves.

Sunset. At Camiso's Corner, a complete dump, we hear on the TV that a 6-year-old girl is missing, kidnapped from her backyard in Queens, with a ransom note left in her place. Outside, Matt Murdock is dining across the street. He heard the news.

Early night, Queens. Daredevil checks out the girl's room. He gets nothing, and leaves.

Downtown. Spidey swings by. I realise a disturbing event: he has ears. Vatche Mavlian draws Spidey with ears. And he looks GREAT! Fair enough, it takes some time to get used to it, but it's so much better. Well, Spidey talks to himself a bit, and keeps swinging. Funny lines. Not "laughing out loud" funny, but "big grin" funny. I won't spoil them for you.

Always silent, Daredevil keeps searching. He gets nothing, but he's relentless.

At another dump, Ben Urich is following his lead. The bartender directs him to a table at the back. He buys the guy at the table a drink. We jump to Spidey, we get more funny lines, and a cry for help.

Urich asks the guy if he knows anything about the kidnapped child. The guy pulls a gun on him. Daredevil takes it from his hand, and tells everybody to leave. They do the "good cop-bad cop" number, and the guy spills his beans. Ben offers to cover the story, to let people know the good Matt does. Matt leaves. Page 7 once again.

Spidey's attending to the plea for help: he rescues a cat stranded on a pole. Very funny scene (ok, I laughed with this one). The kids who own the cat tell him about some strange guys and the shouting they heard earlier. Their mom didn't believe them, but Spidey does.

Daredevil's moving above the rooftops. He can finally feel her. She's moving. She's scared. He breaks through the window... to find three guys completely webbed. She wasn't scared. She was thrilled. Outside, Spidey swings with the girl, who's advertising for a known internet portal and webmail server (screaming "YAHOOO!"). Daredevil and Spidey greet and part ways. Daredevil calls the police, telling them that Spidey saved the girl. Then he threatens the kidnappers and leaves.

Morning. Peter sleeps with a huge grin on his face. Matt sleeps too. Ben is buying the Globe. "Spider-Man rescues kidnapped child!" Ben smiles.

General Comments

Honestly, I was expecting a super-villain and a team-up between the title characters to take care of him/her. When I started reading it, I felt a bit disappointed. But I felt this urge to re-read it. I did. And I completely loved it. It's all about the in-betweens. What they do when they aren't fighting Vulture, Green Goblin, Bullseye or the Owl. What we usually see as a page or two in any other comic, here was the main thing. What we usually skip (the search for clues) here was also the main thing. And it was superb. And Spidey and Daredevil met for a couple of seconds only. And I'm also a big fan of Ben Urich, so his part was icing on the cake.

Overall Rating

Kudos to Brett Mathews for an excellent script, and to Vatche Mavlian for some great art. All in all, this was one of the funniest stories in memory, and one of the best stories I've ever read. Spidey's lines were dead on, the kitty scene still has me laughing, and although in my first read I'd give it a 3, and on my second read I'd give it a 4.5, when I was reading it the third time for the review, I read it twice in a row. And I'm gonna read it again now. I can't honestly recall the last time I felt this way about a comic. Full marks. 5 webs.

And Spidey has ears!!!