Daredevil by Mark Waid, Volume 1

I loved the artwork and the concept, and had some issues with the story/dialog. It was good enough to make me want to read more but definitely had some problematic points that were cringy to say the least (seriously every line about Foggy should not be fat shaming people, come on). The art styling was wonderful and played with sound effects in a way to convey the powers of Daredevil. That said, if you are coming to this because of your love for the Netflix version, the differences are profound as to be a totally different character.

Daredevil has traditionally been a superhero I don't really know/care that much about? Except for how amazingly terrible his movie was? Like... so terrible.

Anyway, though, this was on ALA's best graphic novels for teens list so I figured I'd give it a try. I liked it OK? I like the visualizations of how Daredevil's powers work. I didn't like how, within the first few pages, Daredevil kisses the bride at a wedding he's trying to protect and says he couldn't help himself because he liked her perfume so much? WTF DAREDEVIL?? That's not okay! So then the whole time I was expecting that to come back and bite him but it never did.

Apparently this is kind of a reboot with a more fun, fancy-free Matt Murdock b/c in the past he's been pretty angsty? The afterword said Mark Waid wanted him to be funny, but not Spider-Man funny. Funny he should say that because probably my favorite part of this whole thing was his teamup with Spider-Man and Black Cat. (His “teamup” with Black Cat, wink.) YO, I need to read more Spider-Man books, was basically my takehome message from this book.

Challenge: Read a graphic novel

I decided to start reading more about Daredevil after finishing the Netflix series.
This is not an origin story but I quite enjoyed this volume. There were a few references to other stories that made me curious to read more but did not make me feel lost.

I liked the artwork quite a lot, especially when we get to see from Matt's perspective. I thought that the use of onomatopoeia, heart-rates, sounds and smells were really interesting.

As regards characters, I really Matt and Foggy. Their relationship continues to make me smile. This could be because of the show but I really liked them together.
Matt's quite cheeky and his lines were quite fun to read. There were some silly moments but overall, I liked him as protagonist. When he said that he could sense snipers approaching but could not tell if the taxis were taken or not broke my heart.
I also enjoyed seeing Matt and the blind boy's interactions and I hope to see them together more in the future.

There's a hint of a love interest in this first volume which I could care less. Maybe in future issues, we'll see some development in the character but I'm not looking forward to the romance, to be honest.

Quite a nice introduction to the character but I think I'll read some origin stories before continuing with the next volume.