Daredevil #21 – Review

By: Mark Waid (story), Chris Samnee (art), Javier Rodriguez (colors)

The Story: The awkward moment when you realize you’re beating up the guy who saved you.

The Review: With all the Marvel NOW! frenzy going on, I hope no one forgets the titles that Marvel always had reason to be proud of—and it’d be very difficult to forget, considering the stamp on the cover reminding you that Daredevil has won the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series.  I’m not sure how I feel about such craven advertisement on a comic book, but regardless…well played, Marvel.  A little kick in the nuts to all the non-winners out there.

At any rate, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that the acclaim is deserved.  Through this title, Waid has demonstrated something I’ve always believed about the superhero genre: it gets a whole lot more interesting when you minimize the powers involved.  Too often, writers find themselves distracted with generating interesting ways to use their characters’ special abilities, and more often than not, that results in bland fight sequences that are mostly beams and blasts of energy anyway.  Strip down the powers, and the feats get a whole lot more impressive.