Netflix’s Daredevil: A Review

When I first got into comics, it was just after Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil, but it was because of his work – and specifically the run collected in the Born Again graphic novel – that Daredevil was on my pull list. Ann Nocenti was writing, and it was good. Really good. Daredevil has continued to be a favourite character of mine.

I didn’t mind the Daredevil movie. I didn’t love it, mind you, but I didn’t mind it. I might have even enjoyed it. Watched the director’s cut, and found that good enough.

Thankfully, now I don’t have to settle for good enough. Now I can have a nice helping of awesome.

I watched the first three episodes of Netflix’s new original series, Daredevil. It is good. Really good. Like “oh-my-god-I-want-to-keep-watching-this-forever” good. Charlie Cox is really killing it as both Matt Murdock and Daredevil. The costume is not the one I remember, but it is apparently patterned on the costume from the Man Without Fear origin story – I need to look that one up. And it’s good. I know that the red costume will come, but you know what? I wouldn’t care. It isn’t the costume that makes a hero to me.

What the episodes I have seen have done is get Daredevil right. The stories, the characters, the action, it all fits with my recollections, with what I loved about Daredevil. That the red costume is going to play some part in all this is the frosting flower on top of the frosting that is on the cake – oh so awesome, but I’d be totally happy if it hadn’t been on the cake.

Netflix is going to do more of the miniseries, but we’ll be waiting for them. It’s going to be a lone wait. I’m especially excited about Iron Fist. The Immortal Iron Fist has been my bar-none favourite comic in the last five years. It helped get me get my toes back into the comics’ pool. If they can do as well with Danny Rand as they’ve done with Matt Murdock, Netflix will have earned every damn penny I’ve spent on it. And then some.

It’s a good time to be a comics fan and a Netflix subscriber.

I give Netflix’s Daredevil 4.75 broken ribs out of 5. It’s not perfect, but it is close enough that it doesn’t matter.