Daredevil Message Board

[Kuljit Mithra]

DAREDEVIL #5 by Soule, Garney and Milla ships March 30th and here's a preview:



http://www.manwithoutfear.com/gallery/Daredevil-V5-005

Please use thread for all discussion on the issue.
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Kuljit Mithra
www.manwithoutfear.com

[Mike Murdock]

Spoilers, obviously:




I liked this one about on par with the last one (with these two issues being better than the previous two). I still stand by my statement that Soule is much stronger at writing Daredevil than Matt Murdock. I liked Tenfingers as a villain. The ruthlessness meets true belief meets complete selfishness and delusion worked great. His decision to kill his congregation when he's over his head actually caught me by surprise. Not so much as his fate, though (the decision to only use radar sense there was interesting, but made it a bit unclear what happened). I also thought Soule did a very good job with Blindspot this issue. I think it's fair to say this story arc is more about that character. I guess that's fair, but I also can't say it's what I want to open a Daredevil comic.

The complaint is Daredevil doesn't do a lot in this issue to solve the plot. Like I said, it was focused more on Tenfingers and Blindspot, but it still is a big deal. Second, obviously, is that Matt Murdock is still very much in the background compared to Daredevil. If I were reading this in TPB format, I might care less (although, even then, we're five stories in). Let's see next month. I also don't want this to be the last of Tenfingers.

Four Stars.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother

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I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons

[Dayle88]

I'll read it all again in one go but I think it should of been made clearer that Ten Fingers wasn't a threat because of what he might do as much as the consequences of what he'd done before we see him. We don't actually see him do anything horrible until he screws up and then it's pretty grim.

Unless I missed it the motivation for Matt was pretty non existent even in the wider protecting the city sense.

It was a good first five issues but nothing special. As a status quo, here's the current deal, kind of way it did it's job I suppose. We need more background for that missing eight months soon though otherwise it will begin to feel void of characterisation and feel like a Hickman comic.

I've decided I like the colour palette but I'd prefer it to be a bit more expressive. Along the lines of Lemire's Green Arrow when it sucked the colour out to highlight something.

[Sciurid]

I really liked issue 4, so this one felt a bit anti-climactic. Overall, the style of the art looks cool, but it feels like some of the detail gets lost in the "scratchiness" or whatever you want to call that. I still think that Blindspot's mask makes him look like a hyena, too.

This issue/arc (excepting #4) didn't pack big emotional punches for me, either triumph or defeat, but I wonder if it's intentional; DD is back, but he's treading water in both lives possibly because of whatever choice(s) he made.

What I am impressed with, though, is Soule getting him back to something more in the neighborhood of the 1998-whenever Waid made him sunshine and rainbows with a touch of depression. Hopefully it'll avoid the years of identity struggles (confession: I read it all on Marvel Unlimited in about a month, so I can't imagine how drawn out it must've been. Or maybe it was a feature, not a bug).

I know that he pretty much has no life outside work, but showing both types of work would be good.

The guns with the nine triggers seem really impractical.

I really love how he does DD's internal monologue.

Dunno what future plans for Tenfimgers entails, but Sam's could be a pretty neat villain.

[Mike Murdock]

[Dimetre]

I have found zombies very uninteresting for a long time now. I don't know why they're so huge in current pop culture. They have no personalities, and they aren't even alive. I guess other zombie stories make them a threat through sheer numbers, but in this issue there is one Hand zombie, called The Fist. I was unaware of The Fist before. This could be the first appearance, but he didn't cause me too much worry, and created little drama.

I will agree that the focus swung squarely onto Blindspot this issue. I think Blindspot seemed like a sidekick the previous issues, but he was centre-stage here. I don't mind him as a character, but perhaps he should get his own book, or maybe become a Young Avenger or Young Defender or member of Power Pack. I don't know. I want Matt to be front and centre in a Daredevil book.

I don't see how Matt can survive much longer at the New York County District Attorney's office. He doesn't have Foggy to stand in for him right now.

I was confused by the rather lethal-looking arrowhead at the end of Daredevil's billy club cable. It went through the shaft of The Fist's tomahawk thing. Why would Daredevil have that at the end of his cable? Why wouldn't he just have a hook? That made me uncomfortable. It also looked rather hurriedly drawn by Garney, and it wasn't the only spot in the issue where he seemed rushed.

I liked how Daredevil addressed the Fist, saying, "You know my name." That was cool, even though he's talking to a mindless beast.

But Blindspot is, again, front and centre here. I can't remember if previous issues had characters accusing him of dishonesty, but I liked the recurring line, "I'm not lying to you." If that didn't come up before, it seemed like an odd thing to shove into this issue, but it worked fine in this issue alone.

I'm surprised that we're already done with Tenfingers. I can't say I found him that enthralling. Obviously there is someone above him who is an even bigger threat.

That last page felt like a rushed attempt to wrap this all up in a bow, to give a sense of finality to the first trade paperback.

But here we are, five issues in, and we still don't know:

1. Why Daredevil is wearing the black costume. There were suggestions in number four, but nothing solid.

2. Why Foggy is angry.

3. What Matt could have possibly done to make everyone but Foggy forget who he is.

Honestly, we haven't dealt with Foggy since the first issue. Five issues, and we have been given precious little insight into any of this. Soule, and editor Sana Amanat, are being deliberately cryptic, and I don't think it shows much respect for the readership.

This issue is about as good as the first three issues, but not as good as the fourth. I give this one a three out of five, but the first arc gets a solid "meh."

[DesignDevil]

A solid issue. Nothing dramatic or special. Soule isn't reinventing the wheel. I'd give this issue a 3.5 but I rounded up to 4 for the poll.

I am liking Blindspot and enjoyed getting introduced to him.

I've really enjoyed this first arc by Soule and Garney. The artwork and coloring is cool with me. He does need to step it up though and delve more into Matt's life outside of Daredevil, especially his new job. If he doesn't get into that with a lot more depth soon, i will become much more critical of the book. I know SOule is playing a long game here, but we are five issues in and all we know about Matt's life is Foggy is pissed and the DA doesn't like Matt.

I may be going easy on Soule simply because last year at this time the book wasn't just in the toilet, it had been flushed and was drowning in the sewer. So an acceptable/good Daredevil book is still leagues better than a terrible one, which is what Soule was handed.

[ManWithoutBeer]

For me the little bit of hope I had for some good intrigue after #4 was destroyed by #5. This was a very ho-hum arc at best, and I'm glad it's over. I still have faith that things can get better under this team, but it hasn't been a good start to the run.

As others have said in this thread, I think we need to get some answers to these ongoing mysteries- how has the identity genie been put back in the bottle, why is Foggy mad, what happened to McDuffie, how is DD licensed in NY again, and why the black costume after the fiasco that was Shadowland.

I would probably not mind as much about not getting answers to those questions, had Tenfingers actually been compelling as a villain. He is not, IMO. He reminds me of the Chichester run and not in a good way. There were no stakes given to the reader as to what he was doing, what his motivations may be, his congregation was totally undeveloped so I had no reason to care about their being in danger due to following Tenfingers. The Blindspot subplot with his mother, etc.- again, we didn't get enough background on him to care that he essentially lost his mom to Tenfingers. Someone pointed out that she could be a cool villain- I agree. Way more compelling than Tenfingers, for sure.

Blindspot has potential.. hence my hope for better things ahead. But so far, it's largely unrealized. We just have lip service to his situation as an undocumented immigrant- no real insight into how it impacts his daily life, no sense of how he may have been inspired by other NYC heroes, and how he has been able to fashion his superhero persona to help his community.

Artwise, I don't have much to offer. I'm no well-informed art expert, but I don't think it's a good thing to have nothing much to say about the art on a book- I would hope to have some reaction. It's not bad, it's not blowing my socks off. I like that there is a specific tonal look to the book but beyond that, it's just OK.

I would give this ish two stars. Just killed the momentum established in #4.

[Darkdevil]

I thought this was a solid ending to this first story arc.

Tenfingers has been an interesting villain but his actions here were really shocking. Only willing to defend himself, he's not even willing to die along with his flock and only cares about protecting his subjective image of being a saviour of some sorts.

While the nine-fingered trigger gun is ridiculous, I have liked the expanding imagery of the Hand throughout this arc. He steals magic from the Hand and he gains extra fingers. Here we have the undead ninja zombie the Fist. DD confronting him was fun but did he actually try and garrotte the Fist with his billy-club wire? (After Matt says since the Fist isn't alive, he wouldn't feel guilty about doing this).

Yes, there was more focus on Blindspot here but I think it's necessary. If you going to pair DD up with a sidekick, we need to see and learn more about him and how that may affect his working partnership with Matt. I enjoyed the confrontation between Sam and his mother over protecting the flock, how his mother's perception of Tenfingers was shattered by his orders and actions, and finally, deciding to help her son one last final time.

Plus, there's Matt's later inner monologue about possibly confronting Sam over his keeping secret his mother's involvement. He's learning to trust Sam and so are we readers. (But will that trust be repaid in kind?)

Lastly, Blindspot's Twitter trick to reach DD was inspired.

Four stars.