The historical origin of Matt Murdock [Daredevil] is told in an interesting manner with a few twists that regulars of this title will find interesting. There is a reference to a villain in the opening scene named Joe Quesada, yep to those of you who catch this one will know the history here, a definite give away as to the seriousness of this one-shot. It is quite plain to see that it was aimed well away from the fan and straight towards the general public. With this in mind it is kind of weird that this book was a pre-release before the movie aired. One might have thought a release after the movie might have sold better to the general public. Anyway who am I to question mighty Marvels marketing machine?

The story is nice enough and based pretty tightly on the movies storyline I guess. It sometimes seems to take big leaps and have some strange gaps here and there. One specific scene which comes to mind is the meeting between Matt and Electra. A very strangely written few panels, no real depth or development of character, but by the end of the couple are virtually old friends/lovers. The whole relationship between Matt and Electra just seems completely void of any soul and vastly underdeveloped, but yet by the end of the story Matt is completely involved/in love with her. The story seems to cut from one place to the next, hurriedly trying to fit as much of the movie script in as possible.

Overall this had nice colouring and artwork. One thing I spotted was the new twist given to the way Daredevil “sees” the world. A nice artistic approach to this and the use of water in scenes to explain Daredevils “sight” was quite clever, however unrealistic they may have seemed. A whole bunch of new character design, based on the movies reworking of the originals has been incorporated into this version of Daredevil. I would have been a whole lot happier if they had called this Ultimate Daredevil, it certainly seems to be leaning more that way than in any other direction. New character design with a more 2003 look and feel, e.g. Bullseye with all his piercings etc. and an altered origin helps to place this in an Ultimate line of things.

Definitely a few sore points in this for the true fan, but that’s not who Marvel seems to be aiming at with this one. Overall a nice one-shot if read in the mind state of whom it was aimed at. Still think it could have been called Ultimate Daredevil, but a nice effort nontheless.

Score 6/10
Reviewed By:Iain Duncan