Daredevil #18

This weekend was a bit of a treat for me (well, actually, two treats as I got to go to a Lego convention. Totally awesome!!!) as, for the first time in quite a while, I got to go into my local comic book shop and pick up my books myself. It wasn't many books, only three (as well as two back issues), but it was just nice to have new reading material.

The final issue of Waid and Samnee's
awesome run. Photo taken from Comixology

And so, on Monday night, I got started on my new goods by reading through Daredevil #18, the final issue of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's run, as well as the final new Marvel issue I will be picking up for the foreseeable future (back issues don't count in my opinion).

This issue, saw the current storyline come to an end with Daredevil coming face to face with the Kingpin to play one final gamble to save his friends and tie up all his loose ends (including his autobiography.

Now, I've admitted a couple of times in the past that this volume of DD wasn't my favourite (as it seemed to lose something from Waid and Samnee's previous volume). However, this finale was absolutely fantastic from start to finish. It really felt like Waid was finishing the story on his own terms rather than setting up for the next creative teams start and that really helped it as the story progressed at the right pace.

Meanwhile, I realised in this issue that Samnee draws a fricking incredible Kingpin, who looks as the Kingpin should with a little Vincent D'Onofrio in his face. It was also nice that Samnee's 'DD vision' showed up, albeit intermittently, in the issue as that has always been a major draw to the book for me from month to month.

What was best about this issue though is that not only did Kristen MacDuffie survive (I really expected her to die here) but Matt maintained (mostly) the more optimistic personality right up to the last page. That was a good call because this run worked best with the lighter tone.

So, a good way (for me) to see this book off. While I was a little tempted to see what Charles Soule did with the character (his She-Hulk run is one of the back issues I picked up), seeing him in a black suit put me off and, in truth I'd rather finish with a good memory of the character.

Of course, with Waid and Samnee now moving to Black Widow, Marvel might still be able to sell me at least one of their books.