Daredevil: Reborn #1 – Second Review

by Andy Diggle (writer), Davide Gianfelice (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: A wandering Matt Murdock finds himself in a small town filled with secrets and nasty people.

What’s Good: On the art front, this is a comfortable and enjoyable book.  It’s not mind-blowing and some readers may be put off by the cartoony feel, but I’ve been a fan of Davide Gianfelice since his first issues on Northlanders, so seeing him on Daredevil is something of a treat.  Matt Hollingsworth’s colours are also wonderful and work very well with Gianfelice’s art.  If anything, the book ends up looking as different as possible from the Daredevil comics of the past, which I think is thematically appropriate.  Also, thanks largely to Hollingsworth’s fantastic colour choices this month, we get a comic that feels bright, dusty, and a little bleak and, as such, a perfect contrast to Hell’s Kitchen.  While tastes vary, there’s little to complain about on the art front.

As far as the story goes, the best I can say is that I’m glad to see Matt Murdock get back to basics and finally divorced from the larger Marvel Universe after the chaos of Shadowland.  That lack of focus was probably the worst thing about that event, so seeing the old Matt Murdock monologue text-boxes was more than welcome.  Certainly, it’s nice to once again feel connected to, and invested in, Matt.  I’m happy to see him riding solo once again.