Shadowland # 5

Cover Artist: John Cassaday

Published: January 2011

Original Price: $3.99

Title: Untitled

Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Billy Tan
Inker: Victor Olazaba w/ Billy Tan
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Guru EFX
Assistant Editor: Tom Brennan
Editor: Stephen Wacker
Editor-In-Chief: Joe Quesada 

SYNOPSIS
Hell's Kitchen is consumed by a riot with the police unable to calm things down. Outside the Shadowland fortress, Matt Murdock's friend Foggy Nelson attempts to scale the castle's wall. He loses his grip and falls, but is caught by the Ghost Rider, who tells him next time take the stairs. Inside the fortress, the demonically possessed Daredevil stands victorious over the heroes he has defeated. He senses the Ghost Rider and leaps toward the wall, which the Rider breaks through on his motorcycle. Daredevil surprises him by kicking him off his bike and back out through the hole in the wall. The Beast, who has taken total control of Daredevil's body, explains that he has caused the people to riot in order to feed him with the destruction he craves. Ghost Rider replies with a blast of hellfire from his mouth, which the Beast easily absorbs. He grabs Blaze and absorbs all of the hellfire from his body, leaving the Ghost Rider an immobile skeleton.

Inside, White Tiger brings Foggy Nelson to Daredevil's throne, ready to kill the man. Daredevil stops her so he can do the kill himself, but Foggy is able to reach Murdock outside of the Beast's control. Using this opportunity, Iron Fist uses his chi to strike Daredevil - but it wasn't meant to harm him, it was meant to heal Matt's spirit. Daredevil begins an internal struggle with the Beast and is losing his fight until Elektra enters the dream world tells him that the only way to defeat the Beast is to kill himself. He takes a sword and stabs it through his chest, which frees him from the Beast's possession but nearly kills him as well. Foggy tries to save his friend, but Elektra tells him to let Murdock go. Meanwhile, outside, the rioters awaken, confused by what's been happening.

Back inside Shadowland, the heroes take stock of everything that's happened, feeling lucky that Bullseye wasn't resurrected. But Daredevil's body has mysteriously vanished, and Elektra finds his discarded mask at the end of a tunnel. Later, the Kingpin arrives at Shadowland and finds Typhoid Mary in charge of the Hand. Fisk reveals a trigger phrase that gives him control over Mary, and in turn control over the Hand as well. Elsewhere, a living Matt Murdock wanders into a church and asks the priest for forgiveness.

ANNOTATIONS
Ghost Rider's next appearance is in Wolverine (2010) # 2. 

This issue was released with a variant cover by Billy Tan.

Cover Artist: Billy Tan

REVIEW
Despite my disappointment in the previous issues of Shadowland, I was really looking forward to this final chapter. The solicitation and covers promised a major confrontation between Ghost Rider and the demonically possessed Daredevil as the climax of the story. Consider my disappointment when I finally got to read the issue...

When the covers (both the regular AND the variant!) promise an epic battle between Ghost Rider and Daredevil, by god that's what I bloody well expect! What I didn't expect was for Ghost Rider to be defeated within two pages, which is just plain sad. Diggle spent a lot of time in previous issues building up Ghost Rider as this unstoppable force, and having him so easily defeated by Daredevil is another instance of the heroes getting owned way too quickly (see Daredevil trouncing Iron Fist and Shang Chi in the third issue). Ghost Rider really gets no respect in this issue - not only is he defeated so easily, but the heroes leave Shadowland with Ghost Rider still hanging paralyzed on the wall! I guess Johnny Blaze just wasn't important enough to save when they're all crying over Matt Murdock.

Diggle also gives us an incredibly cliched ending with Daredevil taking back control of his body via a battle in his subconscious. Yet again, the struggle is over far too quickly with the Beast being defeated without even a goodbye rant. Diggle tries to sell us on the emotional journey at the end, but it just seems lifeless. This was a mislabeled "event" that took two issues worth of story and stretched it out to five (not to mention the numerous number of superfluous tie-in books). I understand that something was necessary to clear the decks for Daredevil before his book relaunches, but this just wasn't a good series. It was formulaic with no surprises at all - Diggle is a great writer, but this is like he phoned his work in. We also get another terrible piece of dialogue, this time from Ghost Rider: "What in the name of Hades' Mercedes?". Ouch, that's bloody awful.

Billy Tan's artwork does pick up some in this issue, though, with a few nice touches that I appreciated. I really liked how Daredevil's body transformed and elongated as the Beast took more and more control, and I also liked the page with Iron Fist striking the Beast in the chest. The perspective is handled nicely in that panel, with Daredevil looming like a giant over Iron Fist. I knew Tan was capable of better work than he showed in previous issues, and it's glad to be reminded of that.

I have no choice but to deem Shadowland a complete and utter failure as an event story. The creative team is capable of doing so much better than what they produced here, which makes the awfulness even more disappointing. I'd recommend picking up the Shadowland: Ghost Rider tie-in, which was quite good, but avoid the main series.

Grade: D+