I think I’m not alone when I say that the recent Daredevil run by Chip Zdarsky (Batman, Public Domain) is one of, if not the best Daredevil runs period, so when Zdarsky announced that he would be continuing his run after the conclusion of the Devil’s Reign event, beginning with a new #1 a lot of us were excited. But, does the beginning of the new series live up to its predecessor? Can the creative team maintain the momentum and quality of their past work?
The first issue of this new series serves as a transition point between Zdarsky’s past run and his new run. In the aftermath of Devil’s Reign, the world believes Matt Murdock is dead and Daredevil has become one of the leaders of The Fist so it’s time he gets everything in order in New York before leaving on his next journey, but before that happens he might find some surprising allies along the way.
If this first issue is any sign of things to come I am happy to say that Daredevil continues to be in safe hands. Chip Zdarsky continues to show an excellent understanding of the character showing the reason Matt is such a great hero, while also showing the flaws that lead him to fail sometimes. In addition to this Zdarsky manages to present us with an epilogue to his past stories while also creating a prologue to a journey that promises an interesting development of Daredevil’s character. This means that old readers will be happy to see a continuation of the recent stories, but new readers won’t feel lost at the magnitude of past events.
That being said, my favorite part of this issue (as it was in many of the issues of the past Daredevil series) was Marco Checchetto’s art and Mathew Wilson’s colors. For the past few years, Checchetto has cemented himself as the Daredevil artist. Not only has he been one of the main artists for the character recently, but he even designed Elektra’s Daredevil costume, and I’m happy to say that his work on the new series continues to be nothing more than spectacular. His art is an excellent combination of beautiful, detailed, dynamic and fluid. You can really appreciate every detail in one of Checchetto’s pages without feeling like the action and movement getting lost.
In addition, Wilson’s colors work amazingly with Checchetto, really making the character stand out the page, and creating a really great atmosphere. This in combination with Clayton Cowles’ lettering gives this issue some amazing and accessible pages and layouts.
This first issue presents us with a promising future for the man and woman without fear, strating what looks to be a journey that will take the Daredevils to a new and uncharted territory where the characters will maintain the amazing character development the hero has been known for in the past few years. I’m really excited for this new age of Daredevil.