Warning: SPOILERS for Daredevil #19
It’s a firefight in Hell’s Kitchen, as gang-war erupts in the streets and crooked supervillains storm the city with orders to burn it to the ground, in the new Daredevil “Inferno” story arc from Marvel Comics. With the police unresponsive to crimes in progress, lawlessness leads to outright atrocities as civilians are caught in the crossfire between the Owl’s brutal cartel, and the Libris’ crime family. When civil authorities fail to protect the public, the neighborhood rises up to quell the flames consuming Hell’s Kitchen in Daredevil #19.
Writer Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil has so far developed into an uncompromising crime drama, with a corrupt police force complicit in nurturing an ungovernable state of vice and villainy, rival gangs engaging in fierce turf-wars, and altogether indifferent to the dire consequences for the citizens of Daredevil’s home of Hell’s Kitchen. With police under orders to not engage criminal activities — or even the most minor of offenses, opportunistic gangs have taken their war to the streets, as an arson squad of supervillains arrives to create an inferno in Hell’s Kitchen.
This lawless state is the desire of The Stromwyns, a family of ultra-rich and influential patrons of the governor. It’s the Stromwyns who have pressured the governor to cordon off Hell’s Kitchen, and eliminate any police presence within the precinct. Matt Murdock’s alter ego, the the devil of Hell’s Kitchen, is clearly outgunned, outmaneuvered, and overwhelmed in the latest issue of Daredevil. As gunfire rakes neighborhood homes, boutiques, and bodegas, and incendiary bombs send flames and smoke billowing across the New York skyline, the magnitude of the chaos threatens to tear the city apart.
Caught between the crimelords of the Libris’ family and the maniacal Owl’s murderous cadre, Hell’s Kitchen seems lost when the sadistic supervillain Bullseye, Bullet the enforcer, the Rhino, and the mercenary Crossbones surface with orders to burn Hell’s Kitchen to ash. With the rule of law in flames, the neighborhood takes up arms against the criminals, brandishing improvised weapons in defiance of the villains… with some citizen-vigilantes donning the mask of Daredevil, hero of Hell’s Kitchen.
The violence hits a fever-pitch when Bullseye guns down a shopkeeper, as the hero shields a young woman and her child from the assassin, and another would-be-vigilante – draped in a makeshift Daredevil costume – is mercilessly dispatched by Bullseye’s blades. It’s not going to be easy to stop this nightmare, even for The Man Without Fear. unite to fight and take back their city from villains intent on burning it all down.
Daredevil #19 is now available in a comic shop near you!
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