I don't know that people have been clamoring to learn the origin of Daredevil's arch-nemesis, but since he's pretty much a blank slate, Marvel could have done pretty much anything with him. Too bad they went with the stereotypical Unfortunate Childhood Origin. What rescues the book is the intensity and edge that the writer and artist bring to the G-men who serve as the catalyst for this story. Way embraces plot cliches, yes, but he does the cloak-and-dagger stuff incredibly well, even if the reader can see exactly where he's headed.
U.S. intelligence operatives -- special agents Scott Hoskins and Marcus Baldry -- visit a secret government installation where a handful of the most dangerous men on the planet is being held. Baldry's there for a specific reason: to get one of the prisoners -- a certain marksman and assassin extraordinaire -- to talk about the location of nuclear weapons he stole. Hoskins is clearly attending for far more personal reasons. Speaking of getting personal, when confronted, Bullseye opts to talk about something other than fissionable material. He thinks back upon his unhappy childhood, and a brother he left behind.
Dillon's art is easily the greatest strength of the book, and I imagine you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn't agree with that assessment. Dillon's art elevates this story beyond its cliched plot points. He brings a dynamic quality to the characters that sticks with the reader. The intensity of Hoskins and Bullseye is clear, but I like the quiet confidence and detached clarity he instills in Baldry even more. The colors add texture to Dillon's already convincing depiction of a reality that couldn't be real.
Where the story goes awry is in the way it telegraphs exactly where it's going by embracing tired conventions of the genre. Way spends so much time explaining to the reader that there's no way te title character can escape his cell that the reader knows he will. There's no suspense as a result. Furthermore, it seems clear to me that Bullseye's pained recollections of childhood are a fabrication. Way tells us that the villain is a master manipulator, so the reader is left puzzled as to why the agents don't question what they're being told. Of course, I'd be delighted to discover that my assumptions are wrong, that Way is using cliches to trick the reader into thinking s/he has everything all figured out.
Where Way wins me over is in his edgy presentation of the characters. I love that it's the thin and seemingly feeble Baldry who's the take-charge guy, that the square-jawed, Captain America-type is just along for the ride. The exaggeration of the security routines the two men must go through serves both as a satirical look at the stereotypical, secret-government-base concept and a means to emphasize te overwhelming level of the title charactrer's skills and the danger he poses.
