Daredevil squee
I've now finished watching all thirteen episodes and I really enjoyed it. I think it adapted the comics very well and is true to them.
Admittedly it is probably not the right series if you dislike grimdark and violence, but then that is true for much of the Daredevil comics ever since there *were* modern grimdark superhero comics. After all it was Frank Miller who shaped much of the modern Daredevil, and in reverse he started his career with that title (or at least it's the first he's become really known for) and developed his style there. I actually like Miller's work on Daredevil (unlike his works from Sin City onwards at least), but well, this still was pretty much what started superheroes going grimdark in the first place, as Miller's run progressed.
However I actually like that noir take on superheroes unless it goes truly overboard and becomes the kind of grimdark that is just a parody of itself without realizing it. And the Netflix series is IMO quite far away from that point.
For one thing at least to me the characters were still likable. I loved how they handled Matt and Foggy's relationship, and enjoyed the flashbacks to their college time that we got to see. I appreciated that Foggy found about Matt's secret identity this early in Matt's superhero career, and I thought the strain it put on their friendship that Matt kept secrets, and how they tried to patch things up again to still realize their shared dream was done really well and believably.
I also liked Karen Page and her dynamic with both Foggy and Matt. I liked the symmetry that all three of them did not just work together, but each also followed things up on their own. Obviously Matt as vigilante but also Foggy who convinced Marci to turn whistleblower on her law firm so there even was a legal case, and Karen's partnership with Ben Urich. I was sorry Ben Urich ended up killed, both because I really liked him, and because once again one of the few major black characters is the one who ends up getting killed for the story. On the bright side at least Claire survived, which considering the comic's legacy of Matt's female love interests and was something I was afraid for.
I also thought their take on Wilson Fisk was done really well, that balance that he first comes across as a sort of "white collar" criminal who doesn't need to get his own hands dirty, but in fact erupts into hands-on violence and killing rages, and is even strong enough to fight Daredevil directly. I also liked how they adapted Vanessa to be more open-eyed.
I thought the James Wesley character as Fisk's right hand man was a great addition, though that is partly because his interactions with Fisk pinged my service kink *hard*. So I was sorry when he got killed, but I liked that Karen took her opportunity to grab the gun, when he was distracted and just shot him to escape him, when he threatened her.
I also liked most of the minor tie backs to the comics that I caught, though I probably missed many. Like with the costumes, I enjoyed that Daredevil's new and improved costume was made by Melvin Potter, aka The Gladiator. And I thought it was a good choice to have Matt initially not wear a "proper" costume or armor, and of course that kind of black mask is like in the Miller/Romita origin miniseries.
As for hints of larger events to come I'm not that thrilled that much points to the mystical ninja foes side of Daredevil universe, because The Hand etc. are not my favorite villains. But with the Stick episode, the ending character being credited as stone, the "Greek girl" reference to Elektra it looks like they will play a role. Though the Madame Gao and "Black Sky" parts seem to be new additions (at least neither rang a bell for me?), so maybe the mystical ninjas will be mixed up more.
I liked how creepy Madame Gao was, and she seems to have some mystical aspects with her hint that her home is so far away and her vanishing act. Though it would have been nice if there had been any Asian characters who were neither drug trafficking criminal mobsters nor mystical martial arts ninjas (or both).
Unlike some other comments I've seen, I don't have much trouble to fit this with the rest of the MCU, i.e. the issue that the Avengers existing in the same New York where Hells Kitchen literally explodes in parts yet they don't show. Or not more than the standard suspension of disbelief in a larger comic universe that has various superheroes and villains at various powerlevels coexisting. As I understood, the giant explosions were all of Russian mob warehouses and such locations that exploded spectacularly because illegal weapons were being stored and presumably the general public prior to the inside knowledge becoming public assumed it was some gang war that got out of hand. So even with the media that Fisk corrupted speculating about blaming some masked vigilante, that's not yet a supervillain threat and it's not like it was aliens attacking or some global threat either, so why would the Avengers assemble? And in the aftermath, i.e. rescue work and such, the regular emergency services seemed to be able to cope. So unless Tony finds out the mobsters hoarded some of his Stark Tech weapons he's still trying to recover, it doesn't seem to be a case for Iron Man. And Steve probably opposes real estate developers intimidating tenants, as well as drug trafficking etc., but if this is post-CA:TWS he's presumably somewhere looking for Bucky, or otherwise still tangled up with Shield-Hydra, not fighting street crime in NYC.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun watching.
This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/567756.html. |
comments
Admittedly it is probably not the right series if you dislike grimdark and violence, but then that is true for much of the Daredevil comics ever since there *were* modern grimdark superhero comics. After all it was Frank Miller who shaped much of the modern Daredevil, and in reverse he started his career with that title (or at least it's the first he's become really known for) and developed his style there. I actually like Miller's work on Daredevil (unlike his works from Sin City onwards at least), but well, this still was pretty much what started superheroes going grimdark in the first place, as Miller's run progressed.
However I actually like that noir take on superheroes unless it goes truly overboard and becomes the kind of grimdark that is just a parody of itself without realizing it. And the Netflix series is IMO quite far away from that point.
For one thing at least to me the characters were still likable. I loved how they handled Matt and Foggy's relationship, and enjoyed the flashbacks to their college time that we got to see. I appreciated that Foggy found about Matt's secret identity this early in Matt's superhero career, and I thought the strain it put on their friendship that Matt kept secrets, and how they tried to patch things up again to still realize their shared dream was done really well and believably.
I also liked Karen Page and her dynamic with both Foggy and Matt. I liked the symmetry that all three of them did not just work together, but each also followed things up on their own. Obviously Matt as vigilante but also Foggy who convinced Marci to turn whistleblower on her law firm so there even was a legal case, and Karen's partnership with Ben Urich. I was sorry Ben Urich ended up killed, both because I really liked him, and because once again one of the few major black characters is the one who ends up getting killed for the story. On the bright side at least Claire survived, which considering the comic's legacy of Matt's female love interests and was something I was afraid for.
I also thought their take on Wilson Fisk was done really well, that balance that he first comes across as a sort of "white collar" criminal who doesn't need to get his own hands dirty, but in fact erupts into hands-on violence and killing rages, and is even strong enough to fight Daredevil directly. I also liked how they adapted Vanessa to be more open-eyed.
I thought the James Wesley character as Fisk's right hand man was a great addition, though that is partly because his interactions with Fisk pinged my service kink *hard*. So I was sorry when he got killed, but I liked that Karen took her opportunity to grab the gun, when he was distracted and just shot him to escape him, when he threatened her.
I also liked most of the minor tie backs to the comics that I caught, though I probably missed many. Like with the costumes, I enjoyed that Daredevil's new and improved costume was made by Melvin Potter, aka The Gladiator. And I thought it was a good choice to have Matt initially not wear a "proper" costume or armor, and of course that kind of black mask is like in the Miller/Romita origin miniseries.
As for hints of larger events to come I'm not that thrilled that much points to the mystical ninja foes side of Daredevil universe, because The Hand etc. are not my favorite villains. But with the Stick episode, the ending character being credited as stone, the "Greek girl" reference to Elektra it looks like they will play a role. Though the Madame Gao and "Black Sky" parts seem to be new additions (at least neither rang a bell for me?), so maybe the mystical ninjas will be mixed up more.
I liked how creepy Madame Gao was, and she seems to have some mystical aspects with her hint that her home is so far away and her vanishing act. Though it would have been nice if there had been any Asian characters who were neither drug trafficking criminal mobsters nor mystical martial arts ninjas (or both).
Unlike some other comments I've seen, I don't have much trouble to fit this with the rest of the MCU, i.e. the issue that the Avengers existing in the same New York where Hells Kitchen literally explodes in parts yet they don't show. Or not more than the standard suspension of disbelief in a larger comic universe that has various superheroes and villains at various powerlevels coexisting. As I understood, the giant explosions were all of Russian mob warehouses and such locations that exploded spectacularly because illegal weapons were being stored and presumably the general public prior to the inside knowledge becoming public assumed it was some gang war that got out of hand. So even with the media that Fisk corrupted speculating about blaming some masked vigilante, that's not yet a supervillain threat and it's not like it was aliens attacking or some global threat either, so why would the Avengers assemble? And in the aftermath, i.e. rescue work and such, the regular emergency services seemed to be able to cope. So unless Tony finds out the mobsters hoarded some of his Stark Tech weapons he's still trying to recover, it doesn't seem to be a case for Iron Man. And Steve probably opposes real estate developers intimidating tenants, as well as drug trafficking etc., but if this is post-CA:TWS he's presumably somewhere looking for Bucky, or otherwise still tangled up with Shield-Hydra, not fighting street crime in NYC.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun watching.
This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/567756.html. |
comments