I guess 3.5 stars, rounded up. Brubaker and Lark are as good as ever but I spent the entire book wanting to scream "WTF are you doing, Matt?!"



Seriously, he does so much crazy shit in this volume that I don't even know where to start.

Alright, so since Daredevil has refused to become the new leader of the Hand, the ninja clan's attention turns to a certain someone who is in exile in Spain.



But Kingpin, listening to Daredevil, has put his life of violence and crime behind him. He's fallen in love with a Spanish woman and has created a new life and a new family for himself. Sound familiar? It goes about as well as can be expected for both Kingpin and Brubaker.



This brings Kingpin back to his old enraged self and the first thing he does is return to Hell's Kitchen. Then, WTF decision #1 comes in. Kingpin hates the Hand and offers to make a deal with Daredevil. The two of them will team up to take out the Hand and then worry about the bad blood between them.

Sounds like a great idea! No? Then you're smarter than Matt Murdock.



Matt meanwhile is still refusing to let Milla's parents take custody of her despite the fact that he clearly can't handle it and has been banned from seeing her because it's affecting her recovery. He's not going to work and all of his friends are alternately pissed off at him and worried about him. Yet Matt apparently doesn't recognize how crazy he's getting because instead of listening to Foggy and Dakota, in WTF decision #2, he's getting all his advice from the ancient, alcoholic mystery ninja Master Izo. The man who has revealed absolutely nothing about himself and his past and his intentions with Matt Murdock and the Hand. Always an awesome plan.

And then we get to WTF decision #3 in which Matt decides that in order to keep Kingpin from becoming the leader of the Hand, he will do so himself. Because he's clearly in the right mental place to be taking down an evil organization from within without corrupting his soul in the process.




I wanted to reach into the pages and shake the hell out of Matt through the entire thing. Normally that would make me rate a book lower. But Brubaker somehow makes it all believable with Matt. This is the guy who can't get involved with a woman without her getting murdered and/or driven insane, which has happened at least three different times by my count. He also has absolutely zero self-control. I love the guy but sometimes he makes me long for Batman's iron will.

And despite my total annoyance with his stupid, stupid decisions, I'm still gonna be picking up the next run of Daredevil to see what kind of hell he gets himself into next.