Daredevil #1 review
Here comes....
DAREDEVIL #1!"
And indeed it did, and it did a fine job of establishing what Matt Murdock has come back to, and just what we can expect from Mark Waid in terms of storytelling, character development, awesome fighting, etc.
The first page is an average first page of a comic. A retelling of his origins and a shot of him flipping through the air, along with mini-panels with the origin (that's best I can describe it).
It starts off with Daredevil "looking" at this beautiful masterpiece of a building. The captions here is something I consider a highlight of the comic.
Basically, Daredevil describe the beauty of the piece of architecture. And it ends with "I'll bet it is a beautiful sight. I wouldn't know".
To me, right there, that was brilliant. I can't really explain why it was, other than saying that I feel like it captures a certain (albeit expected) reluctance of Matt Murdocks. That's the best way I can think of to describe it.
Now, the reason for Matt being here is established: "I'm crashing the wedding uniting two of New York's bigger crime families because there's a rumor in the wind that a hit is planned."
BUT THEN....
"The Spot. Dumb name. Disturbing power."
That guy happened. What follows next is an awesome display of Daredevil ducking and weaving through the crowded Mod wedding, whilst deflecting The Spot's attacks and protecting the Mob daughter, who The Spot was trying to kidnap. Mark Waid does a great job at displaying the range of Matt's talent with his radar sense. He ducks and weaves through the crowd, with the Mob's daughter in one hand and deflecting The Spot in the other, and manages to pick out the traitor that The Spot was working for by "pulling a blind man's bluff and listening for the spike of a heartbeart." Or.. something like that.It works. Honestly I'm still not sure what pointing that out did, but it DOES give us an awesome, brutal killing.The Spot opens a portal on the mans chest, sticks his arms out and reaches over, snapping the guys neck.Which I thought was really cool.
And then, suave Matt Murdock makes a bold... daring move...
Which also happens to be incredibly awesome.
Right after this, Daredevil gets pulled into The Spot's teleportation hole.The caption here is something I think does really well showing off the HERO in Matt Murdock.
"What the hell am I dealing with? I could just let go and run.
.... Yeah. RIGHT."
And then it cuts to a newspaper, displaying that Daredevil saved the day and showing how he beat Spot: tangling up in Daredevils signature weapon.
Oh yeah, before I forget. The artwork? REALLY GOOD.
Anyway, the way it cut off to the newspaper, I don't really like. I'd much rather have seen a further awesome fight between Daredevil and The Spot. What follows next shows Matt Murdock and what he goes through now that he's been outed as Daredevil. Of course, he denies it, but the harrasment causes him to be kicked off of a case and hassled by reporters.
"A while back. I got outed as Daredevil in the tabloid press. Turns out, in an era of Internet surveillance, Homeland Security, and DNA analysis, secret identies are BITCH to maintain."
Matt is then approached by Kirsten McDuffie, the new assistant D.A. Who, of course, hassles him about being Daredevil.Waid does a great job with Matt pretending that he's not Dardevil (witty remarks about it, being taken by surprise when she threw something at him, etc)But he finds out something interesting: That no one else wants his clients case and he sets off to find out why.Cut to Daredevil flipping around the city (or whatever), analyzing the information he currently has, right before he notices that someone is aiming a very big gun at him.The guy fires it and Daredevil makes it out to be anti-radar chaff, practically blinding him, which gives Daredevil the clue that whoever it is, knows him.Daredevil just barely makes out that an object is flying at him, and then the page turns and we see that it's Captain America's shield, but Daredevil can't make it out, so the cliffhanger leaves us with Daredevil 'bout to get knocked da fuck out.
And as an added bonus, there's an extra little story at the end, which is basically giving cool character development between Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson. We find out Daredevil can play a violin so well it makes homeless people applaud and that he hates Foggy eating microwavable popcorn all the time.All in all, I give it an 8 out of ten, and I'm definitely hooked.
Right, so there is my review. It's probably awful, it is my first review after all. Hope you enjoyed it.
