by Mark Walsh
MAX 2000: #13 at Marvel 2000
Written by Alan Strauss
"24 Hours"
Opening:
"The door to my office swung open. It took exactly three strides to get from the hallway to my desk. I could tell by that that my guest was a woman. The sound of her shoes--three inch heels--on the carpeting gave it away.
She paused in front of me, her heartbeat slightly irregular. New. Didn't know whether I knew she was there or not, and unwilling to risk offense. So she stood and waited patiently.
I shifted in my chair, stopped staring at the ceiling, and faced her general direction. I put on a smile.
I said: 'Yes?'"
A flagrant editing error that should have been caught in the first paragraph. Grrrrr. Also, I was confused as to who was walking up to Matt's desk. "It took exactly three strides" is a personal phrasing, indicating Matt himself is approaching the desk. "They [or she] took exactly three strides" would have been better. And the second paragraph doesn't make sense to me. If I didn't know whether or not a blind person had registered me, I would -- I don't know -- cough politely or something. It seems far more offensive to just stand in front of a guy, watching him go about his business. And would Matt's personal narrative really describe himself as "starring at the ceiling"?
This is not a promising beginning.
Characters:
Primarily Daredevil, with the Punisher making an appearance as well to provide some contrast. With the conflict between law and justice that Alan's trying to set up here, Castle's the obvious and excellent choice to make a cameo. Unfortunately, while I might believe the basic principles of how these two interact, I don't believe their dialogue.
"'I think you know,' he said. 'And you're here for the same ones I bet. This filth has ties to Saracen's people. Just found it out this morning.'
I could imagine how. Castle's investigations were rarely subtle. They were also rarely wrong. He had a reach into the underworld even I could not match."
" 'Nothing,' he answered with grunt. 'Not yet. Figures to be obstinate, which we don't have time for. Meaning I needed to find a way to be more persuasive.'
" 'Yes. Clean, quiet,' he replied, rapping the side of the heavy metal walls with his fist, 'and well stocked with the right sort of implements. Seemed appropriate somehow.'"
As I hope you can tell from these examples, the problem here is not what they are saying, but how they are saying it. Everyone is omitting the same parts of grammar. Everyone's sentences are pitched remarkably alike. The essence of it, is that the tone never shifts from voice to voice, but remains our narrator's throughout. Which, when dealing with these larger-than-life personalities, simply isn't the way it should be.
Plot
The crux of the piece, the conflict between law and justice, is familiar territory for Daredevil fans. Which makes this something I call Celebration Fanfiction.
Basically, in my mind, there are two types of fanfic: Celebration and Pioneering. Pioneering Fanfiction seeks to push themes and characters beyond their traditional bounds, to introduce new situations and cast new lights on popular subjects. Celebration Fanfiction, which MAX 2000 #13 is, is the revelry of a passion. Writers genuinely enjoy their subjects, and try to make te readers enjoy it to. You write Celebration Fanfiction when, hell, you just really want to write about a character because they're smokin' cool.
The pitfalls of Pioneering is that you can miss the mark, go too far outside, and basically loose all resemblance to the thing you were trying to expand upon. The pitfalls of Celebration is the possibility of writing a dull, trite story that is painfully boring to read, because it essentially fails to grasp hold of the reader's sense of wonder.
But anyway.
Although I was a bit concerned with how Daredevil seems to infer that torture equals justice, the pace of the story was crisp, things moved along nicely, and I was genuinely interested to see how the whole mess would turn out. The resolution at the end smells like a bit of a cop-out, avoiding the real heart of the problem, but since this is an anthology and not a Daredevil ongoing, I'm more than willing to ignore that. Good to see Matt come out on top too, if only because I think Murdock is portrayed to often as a bit of a lightweight.
Prose
I liked the way things flowed for the most part. The rapid-fire, short, stunted sentences work here to give a good bit of movement to the narrative. But this might be a case of too much of a good thing. Particularly in places where there is extended exposition and internal monologue. If you're going to have sentence/paragraph structure that encourages action, you've got to provide action. It's no coincidence that the strongest part of this issue is the brawl, because that's when our attention should be getting frantically pulled, this way and that. But when you've got some down time, I seriously recommend filling out the narrative a little more, slowly down the pace by extending both paragraph and sentence length.
(I know, I know, I'm one to talk, right?)
Something Good:
I was undeniably caught up by things by the end. This issue may start off slow, but once Alan gets to Matt and Frank throwing down, you've got to like how it's headed. The real proof of this is, when we have our final scene break, and I knew that the action was done with and everything was in the hands of fate now, I leaned forward in my chair a little bit. Don't underestimate the lean. The lean is powerful.
Overall
MAX 2000 #13 at M2K is a bit of a slipshod piece of work. There are some definite gripes to be had with Alan's dialogue and voice, and the right out of the gun the issue drags itself along. But still, there's enough here as far as involving plot and a basic understanding of what makes Daredevil tick, that real fans will be satisfied.
Characters: 4.5/10 (Below Average)
Plot: 5.5/10 (Above Average)
Prose: 5/10 (Average)
Overall: 5/10 (Average)