#Review: Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis by EVIL Imposter Biwie

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Thread for discussing Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis, reviewed by EVIL Imposter Biwie!

whole kettle
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Review continued: thoughts on specific topics.

Thoughts on Milla:
I did not like Milla as an inclusion here. As a character, Milla had the depth of a piece of drywall, and wasn't developed as her own character at all. The relationship also felt shallow, honestly making it seem to me like Bendis only created her for DD's villains to have a target. The absolute travesty of ||marrying Matt and Milla off-panel, then divorcing them an arc or 2 later|| doesn't help either. Right before this, Karen (the love of Matt's life), was murdered (see Smith's Daredevil), and while this was touched upon, all we see is Matt basically suppressing his feelings about it, which though honestly in character, is not necessarily very interesting to read.

Thoughts on the public identity:
Early on Matt's identity gets leaked by the tabloids, which Matt denies tooth and nail. For the vast majority of the run, that's the way it stays, people calling Matt Daredevil, and him denying. Bendis really didn't do much with this at all, heck even the lawsuit against the tabloid went away bc ||the owner of the tabloid got murdered for pretty much smth unrelated...|| While I really liked the initial reveal and the initial shitstorm that came with it, Bendis imo failed to do anything satisfying with it afterwards.

Thoughts on the Kingpin stuff:
||Matt declaring himself Kingpin was absolutely dumb to me. Similar to the public identity, I think this was a great idea, just with a poor execution. The issue with Matt as Kingpin is, nothing changes! He still doesn't want crime to happen, and he still dresses up as the devil to stop it from happening! What is different now that he calls himself Kingpin? What is different that he is now actually able to stop pretty much all crime in HK? Bendis does not shine a light on this at all, just from one minute to the next crime is gone! Again, it doesn't help that Bendis decides to basically skip a year ahead after Matt declared himself Kingpin.... why???||

Thoughts on the end:
I liked the end, probably the best part of the run. ||I'm not too big a fan of Bendis making such a big change, and then leaving the title to leave someone else (Brubaker) with the mess, but hey it was a good ending.||

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Overview of arcs and my reviews of them:

#16-19, Daredevil: Wake Up
This story follows Ben Urich and has David Mack on the art. Possibly my favorite Bendis arc, simply because his dialogue heavy writing style really works for this kind of story (also the art is gorgeous)
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#26-31, Daredevil: Underboss
The first "real" Daredevil arc of the Bendis run, and a solid start
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#32-40, Daredevil: Out
The arc where Matt gets outed as Daredevil
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#41-45, Daredevil: Lowlife
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#46-50, Daredevil: Hardcore
The arc where Matt ||declares himself Kingpin||. Among the better arcs of this run
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#56-60, Daredevil: King of Hell's Kitchen
This arc had me pretty divided, and probably showcases my issues with Bendis' run the best
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#61-64, Daredevil: The Widow
This arc focusses on Black Widow
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#65, standalone special issue
Reviewed alongside Daredevil: The Widow

#66-70, Daredevil: Golden Age
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#71-75, Daredevil: Decalogue
By far the worst arc of this run. Seriously, what was this?
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#76-81, Daredevil: The Murdock Papers
The conclusion to the Bendis run
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It's worth noting that before his main run, Bendis wrote a 3 issue Daredevil miniseries called Daredevil: Ninja. It is not collected in the omni's for his run, nor does it hold any importance to his run, but you can find my review for it here:
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mild cliff
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I skimmed through your arc reviews because I was wating for this, but there seemed to be a lot of dislike for this run, and even in this you say "it was just not for you", so I'm kind of surprised you gave it as high score as 7.5. But I agree most of the things you said, Bendis has better ideas than execution, most of the time is spent talking, and artstyle, while fitting, isn't that good.
Now that you have finished this, are you continuing into the Brubaker run? It feels like after ending like that one must keep reading, it's too big of a cliffhanger to leave it at that mattsip

whole kettle
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Yeah honestly I was thinking about giving it a 7, and who knows maybe I'll change my mind and do that. I think the run has a solid foundation, and individually most arcs are better than the whole, when you add it all up just not that much happened beyond basically stating the changes, then moving on to more dialogue

mighty hamlet
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I would say at the very least read Brubaker's Devil in Cell Block D, its the next arc chronologically and (IMO) its peeeeeak. Might be my overall favorite DD story

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mighty hamlet
whole kettle
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That sounds great! Good to hear :D

Just have a couple more other mini's to finish up before I continue with DD

mighty hamlet
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are you going to do modern Punisher (post-Shadowland) to? theres some interesting stuff in there

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mighty hamlet
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Oh man, this is a great list

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Definitely read Punisher: Year One its only 4 issues and its great

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mighty hamlet
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Theres a lot of What If DD comics

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mighty hamlet
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i have a bunch of them physical and am still reading them to, but some of them are pretty crazy

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oh

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I just realized What If Karen Page Had Lived slipped through the cracks, added that to the list too

mighty hamlet
whole kettle
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Yeah top left and top right I’m reading for this order, I don’t think I’ve read the others actually

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Maybe top middle