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Well, that was dumb.

I think I just read my first bad Daredevil story. I respect what Loeb and Sale try to do. But the Devil is red and he lives in Hell's Kitchen, that's his schtick. Changing that, and doing it poorly, seems like a fuck up.

My biggest complaint is that Jeph Loeb's writing lacks the emotional charge of earlier DD stories. He also needs to do a mini-series without retelling the origin. Leave the origin alone and tell your story. How many times do we have to tweak an origin?

The dialog is off, and the characters are either shallow versions of themselves or just absent. This doesn't feel like Hell's Kitchen. In fact it feels like an Archie comic. Where's Stick? Where's Elektra? Where's Kingpin and Turk and Grotto and Detective Manolis and Ben Urich? Where's The Hand? The villains: Electro, The Owl (a Penguin knockoff), and The Purple Man. They're as interesting as they sound.

Jeph Loeb needs to work with someone other than Tim Sale. The artwork isn't great here, not as good as Miller, Janson or Mazzucchelli and that stuff is way older. This watercolor-cartoon style doesn't work with the character or context. It's too fluffy and cute.

Daredevil himself is featureless, his costume reverting to his original, cheesy and lackluster. But why not modify it? Why not red? Or why not just yellow? He looks like a hamburger in red and yellow. And why isn't he bright red? It's like disgusting red silk. He's a super hero not a stripper.

The worst part for me was the anticlimactic ending. Loeb tells us, like page one, that Karen Page is dead. Look it up, she is. I'm reading issue by issue in this slow burn, waiting for anything exciting to happen, especially to Karen, and it doesn't. Matt is all broken up over Karen's death and it never even happens! Come on, Loeb, that's just bullshit. It's like he's referring to something that happens in continuity but this comic isn't in continuity.

So this is a slow burn of nostalgia and reflection and there's not even a pay off. It's like Matt Murdock is reading his journal but he doesn't finish the damn story. Now I need to read something decent to wash this from my brain.