by fieldy snuts » Thu Dec 02, 2010 10:04 pm
I'm torn as to how to sum up Daredevil #512.
You see, the Daredevil book during Shadowland remained very good despite it only being there to support the event itself...an event that went horribly off the rails with that Beast subplot. As much as I liked how it started that event got too stupid with the introduction of that plot device and irreparably damaged the core of the story surrounding Daredevil after he'd killed Bullseye. I'd go as far as to say that it's Marvel's equivalent of Parallax.
This issue itself felt more like an epilogue. Hell, it was...and showed where everyone goes from here: Foggy left to rebuild the firm on his own, Black Panther makes Hell's Kitchen his hunting grounds after vague hints that Daredevil was back before we saw T'Challa, Kingpin wants to take over the Hand (that just seems totally off for me), Black Tarantula is alive thanks to his healing factor as I anticipated and finally Matt Murdock gets off the bus at some desert in a piece of inner monologue that redeems a big part of Shadowland for me: Matt killing Bullseye was 100% Matt, not the Beast.
Small comfort, knowing how bad the Daredevil dialogue in the mini got once the Beast was revealed but knowing that Matt Murdock went that far on his own free will rather than being absolved Hal Jordan style was a good move for me.
Everything flowed very well from one moment to the next and cementing a future for the characters, and this SHOULD have been a great book but the stink of Shadowland will knock my rating of this book down a point or 2.
Art: I preferred Delatorre's art over Checchetto's in this arc. The latter's art isnt bad, but it lacks the distinctive noir feel I got from previous DD artists like Maleev, Lark, Delatorre etc.
Story: 7
Art: 6.5
Overall: 6.75