Warning! SPOILERS for Daredevil #17 below.
There’s no such thing as a complete win when it comes to Daredevil’s life. Over the course of Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Fornes’ Daredevil run, Matt Murdock has accidentally murdered a criminal, become the target of a manhunt, advised his own client to out his secret identity, and slept with a married woman with ties to the mob. His latest and most dangerous moment of recklessness is an actual benefit to his city, and he’s happy with himself for the first time in a while… but as the consequences of his choices ripple out in Daredevil #17, it’s clear that Daredevil is far from finished getting people killed. This time, the casualty is a classic Marvel villain: the gangster Hammerhead.
In the previous issue of Daredevil, Matt’s rehabilitation under ex-girlfriend and current mentor Elektra led to the pair stealing billions from the Stromwyn siblings, a pair of ludicrously wealthy entrepreneurs engaged in all the evil behavior you’d expect from a pair of ludicrously wealthy entrepreneurs. This served as revenge for their efforts to stoke a gang war in Hell’s Kitchen by ordering the police to stay out of the area, as well as a moment of Robin Hood generosity for the horned hero. Daredevil distributed this money to average people and small businesses all over his neighborhood, resulting in what #17 terms the “Kitchen Windfall”.
One of those benefactors, as it turns out, is the bookstore owned by the Libris family, a minor crime syndicate caught up in the larger gang war boiling up in New York City. Since the Kingpin was elected mayor, he’s gone legitimate (for what counts as “legitimate” by Wilson Fisk’s standards) and the role of the Kingpin of Crime has become open. Longtime rival crime boss The Owl has declared himself the successor, and with the police ignoring the Kitchen, the Libris’s are trapped in a pressure cooker. The family’s matriarch, Izzy Libris, declared a tenuous alliance with Hammerhead, a brutish enforcer with enough manpower to style himself the king of Hell’s Kitchen. But Hammerhead’s interests aren’t in preserving the local culture. He’s a predator who beats down hapless store clerks for a little extra cash. Their truce was bound to snap the moment something changed.
Thanks to Daredevil, something did. We see Izzy approach Hammerhead and his henchmen as he tortures a low-level drug dealer for a cut of the man’s take. He snickers at her when she lets him know that their working relationship is over, but the situation stops being funny when Libris tells Hammerhead he’s being taken out. Thanks to the Kitchen Windfall, Izzy was able to make offers to buy off every single one of Hammerhead’s men, who were perfectly happy to double-cross their current leader for a pay raise. When Hammerhead is left defenseless, the metal plate in his head ends up offering little protection against a bullet.
Readers might find this moment a relief. Hammerhead was unambiguously the greater of two evils, and the Libris’s are a sympathetic group as crime families go. But things get much worse from here. The Owl catches wind of Izzy’s coup and knows she has no intention of bowing to him. He makes a statement by kidnapping her family. Matt tries to confront the Stromwyns about their plans, only to discover that they’re untouchable and his neighborhood is barely a concern to them. But the Windfall is just enough of a problem for the Stromwyns to give the word for a hitman to deal with Daredevil. That hitman’s name: Bullseye. Daredevil’s gift just keeps on giving.
Marvel Comics’ Daredevil #17 is on sale now at your local comics shop.
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