Daredevil, v. 8: Echo: Vision Quest

Collects: Daredevil #51-5 (2003-4)

Released: March 2004 (Marvel)

Vision Quest is much like a vapid blonde: extremely beautiful but not worth spending time with. As long as you can look and not get bogged down with her words, you’re all right.

Even in an era of decompressed storytelling, it’s amazing David Mack is able to pack so little into five issues. Let’s look at what happens in each issue:

#51: Recaps Daredevil #9-15. #52: Our surrogate heroine Maya talks briefly with her old fling Daredevil, who’s found a new girlfriend, then goes to see the Kingpin. #53: Maya talks briefly with the Kingpin, then goes on a vision quest. #54: Brief fight. Maya thinks Wolverine is her spirit guide, although it’s news to Wolverine. #55: Wolverine tells Maya a short parable. Maya decides to become a storyteller.

If you were told this might read better in the trade, you’ve been deceived. It doesn’t. Every time I turned the page, I waited for the story to advance, and generally, it didn’t. This story is so padded it should be printed on goose down. I can imagine Stan Lee writing this story, but I have no idea what he’d do with the extra five pages in the first issue.

You have to cut Mack some slack for the space necessary for his art style, but this is ridiculous. On the other hand, the art is worth cutting some slack. While reading this, I feel like I’m looking at art — real art, the kind you look at in a museum, and whenever someone asks you your opinion of it, you have to make something up rather than feel shallow and say, “Pretty.”

Grade: C