Straight from the Dark Age of comics, here comes Armored Daredevil!
With an armored suit and steel billy clubs, Daredevil vanishes into the night to defend the city!
In the '90s, Marvel had a crossover called Infinity War, in which Adam Warlock's evil twin tried to take over the universe by creating doppelgangers of all Marvel's heroes. It was a stupid plan. Most of them were defeated quickly, but Daredevil's double, "Hellspawn," hung around long enough to help DD fake his own death: Daredevil and Elektra force-fed him a virus that turned him human, then he was almost immediately killed. They buried the body as Matt Murdock, allowing Matt (whose identity had been outed by a tabloid) to pretend to be street hustler Jack Batlin. And along the way, he got this armored costume.
Honestly, as far as '90s armored heroes go, Daredevil's redesign honestly isn't too bad. I mean, compared to the suits Captain America and Batman were subjected to, this is something you could actually see the character sticking with. The armor is limited to a little bit of plating on the shoulders, thighs, knees and the sides of the shins - not enough to weigh down an acrobat like Daredevil. It definitely calls back to his ninja training, as does the black that makes up the majority of the costume. Meanwhile, the flashes of red remind us of who this is. Scott McDaniel did a lot of different designs for this costume, and there were some truly awful ones in there. This one is a winner.
One of the more subtle changes Daredevil made to his costume is the mask. It's black with red eyes, but that's not what we mean: DD's mask had always been just that - a mask; but this version covers not only his eyes and hair, but also his chin; the addition of the chin strap makes the mask look more like a helmet, suggesting it provides extra protection.
As one of the new Marvel Infinite Series figures, Daredevil's articulation is disappointing. He has a balljointed head, swivel/hinge shoulders and elbows, balljointed hips, double-hinge knees, and hinged ankles. No wrists? No torso or waist of any kind? Not cool. Even my crappy custom had a waist, and that thing's from 1997! It's not even like these cutbacks are doing anything to lower the price, because Target keeps creeping ever upward, even worse than TRU does.
Like the bio says, Daredevil's weapons of choice are his billy clubs, and the toy comes with one. Yes, just one: in this costume, he carried them strapped to his arms, rather than in a bag on his leg. That's much easier to fake in art than on a real object,
so the toy has one club molded in place on the left arm, and one actual accessory that he can hold in his right hand. Now, do you see anything wrong with that?
Pretend you have something strapped to both your forearms. Now, imagine you're grabbing one with your right hand. Where did you reach? There's no way DD would be able to take the billy club off his right arm with his right hand, but his left hand is molded as a fist, so that's the only way he can hold it.
Armored Daredevil is a decent figure, but we can't help but think how much better he'd be if Hasbro had released him in the Marvel Universe line.
-- 06/29/15
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