Daredevil #111

Overall- Ahhh. I love reading a really good comic book. And this was a really good comic book. This comic dealt with two main issues, the first being Lady Bullseye. I've already gone on a rant on this blog somewhere about how much I hate the way Marvel has been taking male characters and transforming them into females. I don't understand it. Mr. Sinister was one of the X-Men's greatest villains. He had his motivations, and a very unique look. Now, he's Ms. Sinister... Even worse is Loki. Loki is one of Marvel's more iconic villains. In my eyes, he's easily one of the top 5 bad guys in all of Marvel. Now, all of a sudden he's a woman. WTF? It serves no purpose in any storyline I can think of... I don't understand why the writers go the sex change route as opposed to creating a NEW villain. If you want Thor to have a female arch-enemy then CREATE a new one. It can't be that hard!

Anyway, there is a point to this somewhere... Oh yeah, Lady Bullseye. THIS is the way to take a pre-existing character and "change" their sex. Right off the bat, we know that Lady Bullseye isn't Bullseye. They are two completely different people. THANK YOU Ed Brubaker! He wanted a new female adversary for Daredevil and he CREATED one, with ties to one of Daredevil's worst enemies. That is exactly how it should be done.

Now, before I get off track again, onto the story. Lady Bullseye has been tasked with eliminating Iron Fist and Black Tarantula for the Hand. You can see right away that Lady Bullseye doesn't employ the same methods as her male namesake. She studies her prey, watching what they do and where they go, unlike Bullseye's more flashy approach to assassinations. Upon watching Iron Fist she spots Matt Murdoch and realizes that Matt could pose the same problems to her that he always posed for Bullseye. To take Matt out of the picture she attacks three street thugs, killing 2 of them, but leaving the third one alive, to tell the police that it was Daredevil who committed the murders. Lady Bullseye figures that Matt will be too busy trying to clear his name to stop her. Nice cunning move.

The other main storyline in this comic has me a little more conflicted. Since she was shot in the prior story arc, Dakota North has been healing up, with Matt constantly at her side. As Matt helped Dakota rehabilitate, they wound up growing very close and ended up in bed together. No problem you say? Not so fast I say! Even though Matt's wife Milla is in a mental institution thanks to Mr. Fear, they are still legally married... After doing the deed, Matt realizes just what he has done and now has to decide what to do concerning Dakota and his marriage.

As far as comics go this one was excellent. If I was just looking at the Lady Bullseye stuff, I would probably say this comic was nearly perfect. In just a few pages, Ed Brubaker created a compelling new character in Lady Bullseye, who you can almost feel sympathetc for, even though she is the villain here. However, this comic didn't only deal with the Lady Bullseye stuff, it also dealt with Matt and Dakota's budding relationship. I can't even describe how disappointed I was with Matt sleeping with Dakota... To me it was WAY too soon for Matt to be cheating on poor Milla. Milla's only been out of the picture for a few issues, so it's not like Matt's been without a woman for years. I thought Matt cheating was a little too out of character and really kind of hurt the rest of an otherwise perfect comic book. For a score I think I will go with an 8 1/2 out of 10. I would strongly recommend anybody to read this comic, just for the Lady Bullseye parts.