Daredevil Noir #1

So I have never really read anything from Daredevil.  My closest experience with this hero has been the god-awful movie with Ben Affleck and the appearance of Matt Murdock as defending Spider-Man in court in Amazing Spider-Man recently.  But, since I've been reading Spider-Man Noir and it is incredible, I figured I'd give Daredevil Noir a go.  I know all about Daredevil and his character and I figured he would be easily adaptable into a noir-type story.  So, I was hoping it would be as good as Spider-Man Noir and it almost was...

Daredevil Noir #1

Written by Alexander Irvine

Art by Tomm Coker

We begin the issue with a scene of mass murder in a house, or a bunch of guys lying in a ransacked room with tommy guns lying about and bullet holes in the wall.  Then, the Kingpin in his shadowy room, the door open and the shadow of a man with devil horns on the ground.  I was immediately on board.  The grainy, shadowy images in every panel are amazing.  Very few faces are completely visible, Daredevil's own face is always completely blacked out in shadow or they create a face that truly makes him look terrifying.  The images look like the comics of old, lots of point shadowing and faded colors.  It is the Prohibition Era, New York City, Hell's Kitchen.

The beginning pages show Daredevil face-to-face with Kingpin, ready to "end this".  But, as Kingpin points out, to know the end, "you have to know the beginning" and so we go back to the beginnings of this story and of Daredevil.  His origin is the same as it is in the regular books, the son of a murdered prize-fighter, stricken blind as a young boy.  He's not a lawyer in this book, but the assistant to one.  We're given his origin amidst a courtroom scene, where Murdock sits with the lawyer, viewing Hell's Kitchen justice, a man who we're led to believe is guilty, is let off scott-free.  

There's talk of the "Bull's Eye Killer," homage to the villain Bullseye, who I am expecting to make an appearance later on.  A woman comes to Murdock and his friend, the lawyer Foggy Nelson, she is the girlfriend of Hell's Kitchen crime boss Orville Halloran.  Halloran is a bad guy on the verge of war with the Kingpin, both dabble in the business of illegal liquor.  She is prepared to give up information for Halloran but the lawyer Foggy is hesitant, Murdock is not.  He makes a hit on Halloran's business as Daredevil, and we get a glimpse of the Kingpin and Halloran attempting to make a deal to stop the impending gang war.  The end gives us a flash back to the scene with Daredevil and Kingpin and while Daredevil is eager to tell the story in a nutshell to us, Kingpin urges him to "let the story tell itself...it's just warming up".

That's exactly what this issue is, a warm up.  It's a great scene-setting piece, this is when we are, where we are, and who we're going to be dealing with.  You've got Orville Halloran, a bad guy not quite as bad as Fisk, the Kingpin, but bad enough.  Then you've got Fisk, a man who you know is the bad guy, as you can see the final showdown between Fisk and the titular hero is eminent.  The images are typical 1920s New York, dark, wet, bustling with both crime lords and businessmen working hand-in-hand or the latter in fear of the former.  Then you have Matt Murdock, the Daredevil, a vigilante blind man who is making a whispered name for himself, putting fear into the crime lords that the law cannot do.  They need to get rid of him for their business to work efficiently and we're set up to see Halloran attempt to do this, possibly using this infamous "Bull's Eye Killer".  As a precursor this issue works to the T, and I enjoyed every page and panel of it.

7.5/10

--Patrick