The first person who made me sit up and take notice of Daredevil, was Brian Michael Bendis,before that I wrote Matt Murdock as the blind man who can see, but, having read Bendis' long lasting arc of the man without fear, I was soon turned into a Daredevil Fan.
So then, Daredevil Reborn, the story which leads on from the Shadowland arc, and shows us all what Mr Matt Murdock has been up to since last we saw him, when he kicked himself in between the legs so that he could evict the unwanted tennant of the Hand.
Now then, Matt Murdock; Former Lawyer, Former Superhero and current vagrant.
If you didn't read Shadowland, the crossover comic from Marvel in 2010, I would recommend reading it now, namely for the facts of, I found it to be an interesting read and it shows that any character is fallable, and also it was quite well written and serves as the basis for Daredevil Reborn.
The story takes place some time after Shadowland, and serves as the way to get Matt Murdock from loner and vagrant, moving on from town to town without spending much time anywhere, back into the role of Daredevil, the man without fear and superhero of Hell's Kitchen.
This trade paperback reminded me alot of Green Lantern Rebirth, the Geoff Johns 6-issue mini series that DC produced to get Hal Jordan back to being a Green Lantern and away from Parallax and the Spectre, the trade paperback was alright, a lot of people didn't like it because of the fact that there wasn't a lot of action and it was mainly an introspective on Hal Jordan, and I feel that this is going to go the same way.
But, although I do like both of those story lines, and how they manage to get their respective characters back on track, I felt that Daredevil Reborn was a little bit rushed.
The overall storyline was very good, though I feel that flushing out the character of Calavera, and also making Matt Murdock's soul searching more of a character focus compared to him doing detective work.
How could they have improved the story line?
An idea that I had when I was reading this trade paperback was that you could have the entire story with Matt doing his soul searching in a leafy suburb of somewhere like...I don't know, San Diego, while he feels he is going insane because of what happened during Shadowland, with a mutant character hired by....Owl? Fisk? Putting subtle mental suggestions into Murdock's head to make him slowly go off kilter, like what happened when Mysterio tried it on with him.
This would make his mental stability and him coming back to Hells Kitchen and his mantel of Daredevil more of a definitive and long lasting ending, rather than him suddenly turning around to the blind child that "He had been running from his demons, he understood that now".
I can understand what is meant by this and why the comic went in this direction, but there was a possibility here to make a comic book trade that was more of a psychological commentary on superheros who are just normal people and even super powered individuals, this comic book could have had more of a deep and meaningful look into the psyche of Matt Murdock and how becoming Daredevil has changed his personality and his view on the world for the better or for the worse.
But that is what we have to wonder, should we be dumbing down the comic books that we read? Or should we be asking for something that has less tits and violence and has more; political intrigue, psychological depth or covers things that people don't want to necessarily think about E.G. sex slavery, prostitution etc, which I feel I am just naming arc's from Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX series and EX Machina.
I feel like I am rambling on about this but I think that we as a group of people who read this medium should have more choice in terms of the subject matters that we read, because if I want to read something that covers politics, I have to read EX Machina, if I want to look into the seedy underbelly of society, I either go out around Manchester or I read Punisher MAX, and I want for us to have more choice other than to read the same old same old.
Ultimately, I recommend Daredevil Reborn and I really enjoyed it, I just wanted to make a point that I feel is going in the comic book business at the moment, also I pretty much glossed over the artwork and I feel that I should comment on that, the cover's by Jock were fantastic as was the artwork, and they functioned really well in Daredevil and I feel that this artwork would be great for any non-powered superhero
The Pros and the Cons
Pros
-Great Artwork
-Good Storyline
-Interesting plot twists.
Cons
- I feel that Diggle missed out on something but that's me and that is in hindsight.
If you liked this you might also like.
-Green Lantern: Rebirth.
-Hellblazer: Tainted Love
-The Losers
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