Well, Daredevil, we had some good times together, but it seems that our time is over, now that they´re trying to make you upbeat, your comic is going downhill, it´s a shame my friend. I recognize that Brubaker did some really bad stories with you, then Andy Diggle really messed things up badly with all the Shadowland crap, and in the last collection it seemed like a slow but interesting new approach by Mark Waid, but this collected edition doesn't get better.
It´s amazing how many stories Waid was able to fit into a single collected edition, but none of them stand out, and even worse is the fact of how uneven in quality the artists drawing this title are (which happens almost everytime there are several artists in a collected edition), Paolo Rivera is good ( not as good as he was in the previous collection, but still good enough), but the other ones, who I´m not even going to look for their names, are really underneath a good level.
The only reason I did not give it a single star was because it got me engaged enough not to leave it, but this is a really bad story and the art has some huge lows in here.
The fist story is ok, but it has some really strange things in it. Matt decides to take some blind kids into the woods or someplace that they can´t reach because they crash. After the crash, why does Matt puts his mask on? that´s total nonsense, if he´s trying to keep his daredevil persona as far as possible from his Matt Murdock identity, this is the worst way to achieve it.
Later, when Matt is guiding the kids through the forest, by mistake, he yells at them to run, the kids start running all over the place, thinking that something is chasing them, but all of a sudden, they all react when Matt gets injured, even with their blindness, being scattered all over the place, with the sound of the strong wind that Matt mentions, all the kids are able to notice that something happened to Matt, and they immediately help him. This is nonsense again, and also extremely corny. I´m willing to read the adventures of a bright daredevil, but a corny one, after some of the great dark ages he has gone through? no thanks.
Then there´s the story with spider-man and the catwoman from marvel. This story has some nice moments, but that´s it. The interaction of the three of them is fun at times, this new love triangle gives probably the best moment in the whole book when peter realizes that it was a terrible idea to have this two working together.
The covers that Lee Bermejo did for this stories are great, they can be found at the end of the book. I really like how he depicts Spiderman with a slovenly suit (this makes it look like Peter really made it when he was a teenager and and also makes the webs look like they have been restored time and time again, Matt wears a suit that has some remembrance of a fighter/wrestler.)
Then there´s the story of the Mole Man. What the hell is this? In the marvel universe there´s Asgard, a strange place where gods live and which can be depicted as a flying island, there is also the savage land, that island where there are still dinosaurs, there are pocket dimensions, and some other strange places and concepts that sometimes work in some stories. But if this wasn't enough for the strange geography of Earth 616, Dante´s Inferno is underneath NY inhabited by the Mole Man and some strange creatures. This underground place has just enough breathable air and water that a man can live there (and fight if the situation requires it so). I know that this Mole guy comes form far back with the Fantastic Four, but this is a terrible character, and his minions are also quite lame. So our villain decides to commit a crime so that he can get back with his wife who has been dead for quite a long time... poor Mr Freeze!, I mean Mole man, this is such a tragedy! And what a bad luck for Matt that his dad was buried in the exact same graveyard, what a relief that his friend Foggy was just there when things started getting weird. Also what was that with Mole Man being a breakdancer? this was like a scene from Martin Lawlence`s Big Momma, this old, fat hermit breakdancing Daredevil apart in the discoballsphera (yeah, like the stratosphere, there`s a disco ball layer of the earth in the marvel universe). Then Matt concludes that since no one is going to win, he´s going to grab some diamonds to put some blin blin into the graveyard. Thug life Matt! (just imagine the youtube video of this!)
And then there´s the final chapter of this book. OH BOY! Who is this undercover editor form DC comics that has managed to infiltrate Marvel, and gotten to a position where he selects the artists that get to work with important writers and titles such as Daredevil? This guy is a genuis, he hires some crappy illustrator for the book, who is so bad, that the reader ends up thinking that marvel is getting every cent that you paid for this book, because not a single dime goes to a decent artist. Marvel really needs to put attention to who they hire as their headhunters for artists.
I mean, Come on! how can you have Paolo Rivera next to this art aficionado? And working with one of the most important writers in the industry!? Bad idea marvel.
Then, there´s the story about the super hard drive, that pulls all the other ones together, but in the end it`s not very interesting, the most interesting point is that the bad guys hired black cat to steal it from Matt (but love was there to avoid it, just imagine Meatlof singing +I would do anything for love+), in the end I coulnd´t care less for the hard drive, or the Megacrime villians trying to get it ( though I liked when they started talking about the politics of attacking Matt and how that could be considered a direct attack to the avengers).
Also, can someone update the villians from the big evil corporations? they don´t just speak in an extremely boring way, but they dress and seeem like total idiots in a bad Halloween party. I was really tempted to skip the parts when they were scheeming together.
So this is it Daredevil, another of my extremely long reviews, and though I will read the following collected edition it´s very possible that it will be the last if your stories don´t get better, I certainly hope that they get better, and that you get a stable and good artist in your book, you certanly deserve it. Anyway, you´re still looking just a little better than with Brubaker, but don´t push your luck.