Comic Info
Comic Name: Daredevil Noir
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Alexander Irvine
Artist: Tom Coker
# of Issues: 4
Release Date: 2010
Daredevil Noir #3
Reprints Daredevil Noir #1-4 (June 2009-September 2009). Matt Murdock realizes his dreams of being a lawyer aren’t realistic as a blind man but continues to fight the fight as an associate of Foggy Nelson. Using his enhanced abilities as Daredevil, Matt prowls the streets, but the appearance of a woman named Eliza harkens the danger of a turf war between the mob bosses Halloran and Fisk…and Matt could learn the truth about his father’s death.
Written by Alexander Irvine, Daredevil Noir was part of Marvel’s limited series Noir line. The issues feature art by Alexander Irvine and were also collected as part of Marvel Noir: Daredevil/Cage/Iron Man.
Marvel and DC Comics always try gimmicky things with their characters. Be it manga versions, English superheroes, or in this case 1930s crime versions, comics have always tried to expand and market their characters in different way. In some ways Daredevil Noir works, but in many ways it just feels like a What If? story that ran long.
The funny thing about Daredevil Noir is that it essentially reads like a Brian Michael Bendis Daredevil storyline. This means that its setting is almost pointless and if you didn’t know you were reading a Noir story, you might just think you are reading a highly stylized telling of a regular DD story. This isn’t necessarily a criticism, but it also makes the novelty of the Noir setting rather pointless.
Daredevil Noir #4
The story also runs long while being extremely short. Not much happens in it. Matt Murdock makes the wrong decision about a woman (like he does in every Daredevil story) and he squares off against the Kingpin (like most Daredevil stories). It doesn’t feel original, and it is also is stretched out.
Tomm Coker’s art for the series does work and fits the Noir style that Marvel is seeking with the line…but once again, this is negated by the actual Daredevil comic which features similar art in a similar setting. It might be the Great Depression, but Bendis and Brubaker’s stories look and feel like this story already.
Daredevil Noir is an ok entry in an ok experiment. It isn’t revolutionary and it isn’t that innovative. The character feels like it should be more extreme and the story feels like it needs tightening up some points while expanding other points to be a better, rounded, and more importantly original Daredevil story instead of a regular Daredevil story that just happens to be set in the ’30s.
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