Daredevil

It's kind of hard to call something "all-new, all-different" when it's really just more of the same. Martial arts master Matt Murdock suits up in black to fight the villains of Hell's Kitchen as Daredevil. This costume may look like what DD was wearing when the Hand turned him evil in the "Shadowland" crossover, but it's not. The comic never gave any explanation for why Matt joined Peter Parker and Jean Grey in the "I'm a hero again but I'm dressing like my evil self" club - he just did it with no clear reason. Well, no explicit reason: they never come out and say it, but after the way he forced his secret identity genie back into a bottle, he's in a pretty low place; it isn't until he starts feeling better that he switches back to his traditional red devil pajamas. So basically, this figure is Emo Daredevil. If this was really meant to be his Shadowland look, he'd have two have big blades strapped to his forearms, no red other than his chest and eyes, and much bigger horns. Unshockingly, Daredevil uses most of the same molds as Daredevil and Daredevil. I know, it's alarming, but try to carry on. The body is exactly the one you think it is, but the gloves and boots are new. Unlike typical superhero footwear, these boots actually have laces running all the way up the fronts, while his "gloves" are really just cloth wraps that go from his elbows to his knuckles - he's been taking fashion tips from Iron Fist! The toy gets the same belt and leg holster as seen on the others, but the style of the big Double-D's on his chest is different: they're looser and wilder, like they were simply painted on (the costume, not this toy). One advantage the black costume had in the comics was that it allowed Matt to blend into the dark backgrounds, with only his red accents standing out (pay no attention to the fact that was something the art pretty much always did, no matter what color the suit "really" was). It also had white highlights the toy (smartly) doesn't try to duplicate. Daredevil moves at the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, hips, thighs, knees, boots, and ankles, just like the other uses of this body. And like the other Darededevils, he comes with his billy clubs as accessories. This time, though, you can't plug them together to form a longer baton. Worry not, because Hasbro replaced that feature with something better! Both clubs have a hole in the end, so you can plug in the cord that connects them. It's a bright white piece of plastic, molded with big jagged bends, just the way Joe Quesada used to draw it. That's an interesting accessory. We also get alternate closed fists, for punching. And speaking of extra hands, Daredevil comes with the right arm of SP//dr, the big robotic BAF for this series. Charles Soule's Daredevil run started off kind of clunky - the Waid/Samnee team was a hard act to follow - but it definitely picked up as it went along. This figure is more than a simple repaint, but it's really the billy club line that keeps it from being boring. -- 12/09/18

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