Many Daredevil fans were wondering what would happen to the Man Without Fear following the events of Shadowland. Marvel answered their question with the introduction of the new protector of Hell’s Kitchen, The Black Panther: The Man Without Fear.
When I first saw that Marvel was replacing Daredevil with Black Panther, I was not only confused, but also slightly upset. I had no idea why Marvel was not only replacing Daredevil in his own going book, but I was wondering why they decided to choose Black Panther. After some careful thinking, and deductive reasoning, my little brain figured out what Marvel was doing; they were trying to make more money. At the end of Shadowland they set up a story for Matt Murdock about how he was going to repent for what he had done while he was leader for the hand, which means that Marvel is going to be doing a mini-series that follows Murdock during this time. So Marvel thought that during this time, they needed to do something with the Daredevil ongoing, so they use Black Panther. To me the choice doesn’t make sense, but enough about this, let’s get onto the issue.
Even though I had a negative feeling about the issue going into it, I tried to keep an open mind about the issue and give it a fair shot. The first thing I noticed about the book was its art. It felt like Francesco Francavilla was trying to mimic the trademark art of Roberto De La Torre, using primarily dark colors, emphasizing on shading to give it the dreary feel of Hell’s Kitchen in general. Sad to say that he was unable to do it successfully, and the art really detracted from the story as a whole.
Contrary to the disappointing art, the writing of David Liss was definitely the best part of this issue. Liss, best know for his fiction novels delivered no less than a top notch story in this issue. He developed two storyline for this Black Panther arc, one following Black Panther, and the other following the main antagonist of the upcoming arc, Vlad the Impaler. He used the perfect amount of balance between the two stories, slowly connecting them as the issue progressed. In addition to this, he was able to use the perfect amount of story telling, and dialogue to keep the issue not too quick, not too long, but purely enjoyable.
Despite all of this though, I have fears for this book. Black Panther is a character who in the past has been given many shots by Marvel at his own series, mini-series, and much more and has never been able to really keep one afloat for a substantial amount of time, which really boggles me as to why they once again are using him as the protagonist for yet another story. I feel as though his lack of popularity will hinder the sales of the Daredevil title, despite the great story by David Liss. Only time and sales will tell if my prediction is correct, but I can assure you that this does largely affect this book as a whole.
6.5 out of 10
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