Let me sing the praises of Ed Brubaker for the first (real) time this Wednesday morning. The Daredevil annual is a well-written piece of work, to put it bluntly. The story starts with the devil suffering from the flu. For someone with enhanced senses, something as simple as the flu takes him out of the equation — his radar, his balance, everything.

Enter Carlos LaMuerta (subtle naming, eh?). Carlos has an alter-ego, the Black Tarantula, but he’s recently on parole from Ryker’s Island. Flash back to Brubaker’s first arc, when lawyer Matt Murdock (that’s Daredevil, for you uninitiated) was imprisoned, LaMuerta treated Murdock straight, and there’s appreciation from Murdock for that. So when Carlos gets paroled, he seeks out Murdock in order to help himself keep on the straight and narrow.

Murdock attempts to give LaMuerta a gig assisting Dakota North (an investigator attached to the Nelson & Murdock law firm) but Carlos isn’t at home with computers. He’s at home on the streets and that’s where the issue goes.

Brubaker spins his normal, solid tale. During Bru’s arc on the Man Without Fear, Murdock’s life has been systematically destroyed, and he’s just now getting things back on track. LaMuerta could have thrown everything in a tizzy, but there is some respect between the two that’s documented quite well in the book.

The art is done well, with the frustration of LaMuerta coming across well when the Tarantula is working in the office, and the action scenes do a good job of showing Daredevil under the weather.

All in all, this is a very good addition to the Daredevil mythos, and sets up the Tarantula well for future appearances. Does he go back to his life of crime? Does he go all Punisher on the crooks in his neighborhood? Does he stay straight and narrow? Time will tell.