Daredevil #110

Overall- Well, the whole story comes out here. First, to clean up the events from the last issue, Matt escapes the ambush at Slaughter's place, and discovers it was dirty feds protecting Slaughter. Dakota was shot through the back but was resuscitated, and brought to the hospital.

When Matt finds out Dakota was shot, he returns to the scene of her shooting, and manages to pinpoint the location of the sniper. Upon arriving in the sniper's nest, Matt picks up the scent of the shooter, and finds it similar to the feds who attacked him at Slaughter's place. As luck would have it, Matt tracks the sniper back to a van parked outside Matt's law office, where the dirty feds were keeping an eye on Matt's dealings. Matt waits until the sniper exits the van and attacks him, knocking out the sniper's partner, before forcing the sniper to explain just what the hell is going on here.

We find out from the sniper that Slaughter's turf is the docks, and the government looks away from his dirty business, as long as Slaughter makes sure the docks are free from any terrorists. Everything was fine, until Slaughter discovered one of his dock workers was stealing from him. Slaughter told one of his goons to kill the thieving worker, but the goon wound up killing the guy's kids as well. Instead of exposing Slaughter's dirty dealings at the docks, the feds decided to cover for Slaughter and convinced Big Ben, a known criminal, to take the fall, implying that if he didn't play along it would be his son who payed for it. Ben, admits guilt, and his son is taken care of monetarily, while Slaughter continues to keep any foreign troubles away from the docks. I guess that was about as win/win as the feds could make out of that mess.

Now that Matt had the truth, he once again visits Big Ben in prison, but this time brings Ben's son along. Matt tells Big Ben to tell his son exactly what he confessed to doing. Ben can't bring himself to lie to his son about murdering children, and tells Matt he'll tell the courts the truth as long as nothing happens to his son.

The issue closes with Dakota's C.I.A. agent father telling Slaughter that the feds were taking the real murderer into custody and releasing Big Ben. Slaughter protests, stating that the goon who killed the kids is his right hand man, and losing him would do damage to his operation at the docks. Dakota's father tells Slaughter there is no argument, and that the only reason Slaughter himself isn't in prison is because the feds still need him looking out for any foreign trouble at the docks. Ultimately, Slaughter reluctantly agrees to give up his right hand man.

After Slaughter leaves, Dakota's father tells Matt that the feds will quickly get Big Ben out of prison and will be giving him reparation for his years of imprisonment as long as Big Ben keeps the whole situation quiet. The issue closes with Matt visiting the still recovering Dakota at the hospital, where he thanks her for making him remember who he is and what he believes in.

You know, initially my first thought after reading this comic was that the way the story wound up was just TOO unbelievable. Then, as I began to write the review for the story I began to appreciate the story and realized that maybe it wasn't as far fetched as I had originally thought.

The government relying on Slaughter to "police" the docks actually does make some sense. Slaughter has been running the docks for years, and would easily be able to spot something that didn't belong. Having a "former" mobster like Slaughter patrol the docks with his men would free up the government to use their resources elsewhere. Slaughter might have been a scummy mobster, but allowing terrorists at his docks would be bad not only for the U.S. but for his business operations as well.

There were a few things that bothered me though... I get that the feds involved in the cover up were dirty, but wouldn't it have been easier to just kill the mob goon responsible for killing the kids as opposed to going through the whole ordeal with Big Ben? Slaughter was the one who sent the order to kill the dock worker who was stealing from him, but he never told his goon to decapitate 3 children! Shouldn't Slaughter have punished this goon as opposed to allowing him to continue to work within his organization?

The thing that bothered me the most was how easily Matt got the confession about everything from the sniper who shot Dakota. This sniper, who had to be a pretty hardened guy, spills the beans because Daredevil bends his hand backwards?!?!?! Come on now! Shouldn't this guy have been able to tolerate torture a lot worse then THAT? I mean really, DD twists his arm a little and the guy is giving out government secrets like there's no tomorrow! Anyway, for a score I'll give this issue an 8 out of 10. I liked the story, but there were just too many plot holes to bump the score up any higher.