Guilherme Preusse — Daredevil is usually written as a darker, gritty character. Be it from the fact that he's a street level character or the fact that Matt Murdock works as a lawyer, he's more used to being in contact with the mundane than most Marvel characters. It's true that besides Kingpin, his antagonists are not always common criminals but compared to other Marvel villains, the Owl, Stilt-Man, Mr Fear and the Hand are to be considered "mundane". He's a grounded character, not exactly supernatural in nature, even with his radar senses, which are better than what a normal person could achieve. Daredevil's super power is his extreme bad luck. He's Batman or Donald Duck (more on that later) but in Daredevil #253 - a Christmas issue - Ann Nocenti writes the character like Santa Claus.

It's Christmas time in Hell's Kitchen.

Daredevil as Santa was a brilliant idea, Kingpin as Scrooge was an even better one.

If the Kingpin represents the opposite of Daredevil - one believes in justice and the other works against it, one believes in the law even if he acts like a vigilante and the other is a criminal himself- here he represents the idea of cold hard capitalism that doesn't care about the well being of its workers and the only thing that matters is to get results, while the objective in this specific case is quite simple: annihilate Murdock. Which is why the holidays are annoying to Fisk and are a barrier to his goals, people want to spend time with their loved ones while he doesn't get to do that.

The issue begins with the Wildboys Jet and Spit, recurring characters in this run, stealing things from a salvation army Santa while Eightball sees this happening and considers following in their path. It's normal for Daredevil to fight crime, but in this issue he does so to show that bad boys will be punished and good boys will be rewarded.

At one point in this issue someone asks Daredevil if he has a family. His answer is that the abused, the forlorn, the lovelorn, homeless kids, rebels and outcasts - this collection of strangers- are his family. Daredevil helps those in need because he feels it's the right thing to do, but also because he feels good doing it. His Catholic guilt wouldn't let him do otherwise.

Kingpin is miserable here, his only motivation being the complete annihilation of Matt Murdock. He doesn't care about anything else, he doesn't care about anyone else. When his assistant tells him it's Christmas Eve, he doesn't know why he should care about it. If Daredevil represents the idea of justice, with Murdock working as a lawyer and a vigilant, which should be unethical yet is almost always presented as the paragon of justice in the fictitious of the story, Santa is the kindness that could, or maybe should, fix everything. Daredevil works in individual cases of injustice, Santa works for the betterment of the community. And that goes against capitalist ideals that are embraced and represented by Fisk. He doesn't care about anyone else besides himself, he can buy his workers time even on Christmas Eve. There's nothing his money can't do. And when he understands that's not how it works for everyone else besides himself, he understands that to destroy Murdock he has to destroy everything he holds dear. He has to destroy the community, he has to destroy his family.

I mentioned how Daredevil is like Donald Duck -a good man with bad luck trying to do the best he can- and so I arrive at the conclusion that the Kingpin is being written here like Scrooge. Am I saying that Kingpin is Scrooge McDuck? Well, yes and no. Scrooge McDuck is only Ebenezer Scrooge when he's alone. He's grumpy and doesn't care about anyone however that's only true when he's living by himself, previous to Christmas on Bear Mountain or Ducktales' first episode. His reunion with Donald and meeting his nephews for the first time is a call to action yes but these characters are also his consciousness, his family. Scrooge alone and Scrooge with his family are two completely different characters. So Kingpin is what Scrooge could've become if he hated Daredevil so much? Maybe.

Daredevil represents the coal giving, punishing bad boys aspect of Santa, while Murdock is the good man rewarding those who deserve it, as he does so in a certain part of the issue, gifting Eightball and his friends the skateboards they wanted. They function exactly like Louie, Huey and Dewey -Donald's Nephews- they're the homeless kids that are Matt's family as he himself said. Perhaps if Kingpin had a loving family he wouldn't be like that.

And now I need to talk about the art in this issue. John Romita Jr inked by Al Williamson (personally my favorite inker for JRJR) are responsible for most of the art in this run. Here in the late 80s/90s is where JRJR's is at its best, most energetic period of his career. The way he plays with shapes, with Kingpin in particular, is unique. I once heard someone describe his style in this period as low poly, distilling every character and object to only its essential lines. The way this plays into the characters acting is lovely, they are so full of life which is something he can't quite replicate now for whatever reason. In one panel that shows Kingpin sitting alone in the dark the character is just drawn with as few lines as possible, everything else being hidden by the shadows and it convenes exactly this, the sadness, the emptiness necessary to make it impactful.

After an elaborate plan involving Typhoid Mary seducing Matt to drive him away from Karen Page and the community he so desperately wants to help the Kingpin is somewhat successful in his objective. The result of this can be found in the next Christmas issue in Daredevil #266 in which Daredevil spends his Christmas by drinking alone at a bar when in the previous year he had Karen and the outcasts that comprised his family. Sitting in that bar he meets others who are doing the same, people who have failed and now find themselves there. Maybe he could find another family of miscasts among those in that bar but instead he ends up fighting Mephisto, the Devil himself. From this moment on he becomes apathetic, wandering aimlessly away from Hell's Kitchen, being driven by nothing except his guilt and helping others as only a reflex, he doesn't know what to do otherwise and so like the Kingpin himself, Matt Murdock finds himself alone.

Guilherme is a Brazilian freelance writer who loves to read comics and write about comics. You can find more of his opinions and hot takes @ gpp2099 on Twitter.