No sooner had that crossed my mind then I got to the short story about Foggy hanging out with kids in the cancer ward as they wait for Iron Man to show up for a visit while they draw up a comic about the Marvel heroes beating a cancer monster. This seemed like a factor that might undercut trying to establish the gritty drama of Foggy enduring chemotherapy. You’d think he could have figured out the cure for cancer on a slow afternoon. Strange is both the Sorcerer Supreme and a brilliant neurosurgeon. If Daredevil knows geniuses like Hank Pym who help him out, why wouldn’t he bring Foggy to Avengers Mansion for treatment rather than a hospital? In fact, in a world with people like Reed Richards, Hank McCoy and Tony Stark running around, how does cancer even still exist? Hell, Dr. I had a moment where I questioned that a bit because it seemed to bring up a problem inherent to comic books. This is set off nicely by the personal stuff of Foggy’s life threatening cancer. The bad guy who rises out of that feels like a true threat threat capable of not only killing Daredevil, but of also driving him into a near panic at the threat looming over him. It was an especially nice touch to have someone doing brutal experiments on people to try and recreate the accident that blinded Matt and gave him his power. It seems like Mark Waid had sneakily been laying the groundwork for the revenge plot for a while now, and he did a solid job of making the whole elaborate scheme believable.

Put the two of them together and you get something pretty great. If it had been just about Foggy getting cancer and how Matt tries to be there for his best friend, it could have been damn good. If this collection had been just about the revelation of a plot by a hidden enemy to destroy Daredevil, it could have good.

Daredevil, Volume 5 by Mark Waid