Warning, there are some spoilers below.
The Good
Issue #11 of DAREDEVIL is the finale of the three-issue story featuring a Spider-Man, Punisher, Daredevil team-up and marks the first appearance of Cole -- Punisher's sidekick -- in the Daredevil book. Mark Waid teams up with Marco Chechetto and Matt Hollingsworth for this issue, which stylistically doesn't deviate too much from the style Paolo Rivera has been delivering. Although Chechetto's artistic style is clearly his own, you can tell that he really took from Rivera's work and implemented that into this issue; which means that once it's been compiled, it won't be such an erratic reading experience.
Daredevil has been consistently good, and this issue is no different. The issue continues the Daredevil, Spider-Man, Punisher cross-over event where all three characters are forced to team up against various criminal organizations in the Marvel Universe in order to protect the Omega Drive. Punisher, his sidekick Cole and Spider-Man agree to go with Daredevil's plan to use the Omega Drive as bait; luring all the bad guys into one place. Things start off smoothly until one of these four betrays the rest and takes off with the Omega Drive. The issue's focus then switches up, and delves into one character in particular. Unlike the other two books connected to this one (PUNISHER #10 and AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #6) this felt like a Daredevil comic book. Although this issue features a team-up, it still feels like Daredevil is at the center of the story.
The art is great, the pacing is solid and the story closes very nicely.
The Bad
While the pacing of this issue was good, there were some moments that felt a bit contrived. Take, for example, the start of the issue where Daredevil is virtually pushed off the ledge into a crowd of villains just waiting on ground level to get their hands on him; this felt a bit silly. The scenes where Daredevil is talking to Cole also feel forced. For whatever the dialogue just felt forced in this scene. I think that there are ways that Waid could have written Cole to seem smarter, but that simply didn't come through in the story. Additionally, it almost means less to the reader to see Daredevil lecturing Cole, when she is The Punisher's sidekick. This lecture would have meant more coming from him because he's the one that has been nurturing a relationship with her character. The scene, (at least to me) in some ways felt out of place coming from Matt.
The Verdict
This is not at all a bad comic; in fact, it's very entertaining. There is some really fantastic art in this issue and it is a great end to a cross-over event. I personally really enjoyed reading these three characters team up and work together. I liked seeing them keep a common goal in mind even if they didn't agree with one another. The fact that they did not agree actually made the story even more entertaining to read. Overall, not a bad issue and this book managed to wrap up the story very neatly.
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