Daredevil: Ninja, Marvel Comics Review
Daredevil: Ninja by author Brian Michael Bendis, Illustrations Rob Heynes
Brian Michael Bendis is an extremely prolific comic book writer. He’s even written a ton of Daredevil that I adored, see End of Days.
However, Daredevil: Ninja proves that Bendis has some down points in his career and he most certainly hasn’t always had a grasp of Daredevil as a character. I suppose it makes sense that it could take a while to really find your footing with a new project, but did he not do any research at all?
Daredevil: Ninja is a completely pointless short run that ads nothing to canon and barely even has a plot. Additionally, the art is plain, simplistic, and dull. With the comic book medium it is essential to jude a book based on both.
For some reason this version of Daredevil is snarky and quippy. It reads more like a Spiderman comic book than a Daredevil one. It really threw me off and I didn’t care for it at all. Marvel has too many snarky and sarcastic superheroes. DD is supposed to be a serious one.
Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock, is a lawyer by day. He’s not a wise cracking journalist or student. He’s a serious professional. The most lax he gets in his communication is when he’s wooing the ladies as a sexy blind man. He’s a serious and sometimes humorless character, he is Catholic after all. Making him quirky doesn’t fit his persona at all.
I didn’t recognize the main villain of the story so it seemed like a throwaway. Honestly, the whole conflict was. Nothing really happened, nothing really got settled, I didn’t care about any of it.
With all of this, you’d think this would be a 1 star review. Well, here’s the deal, it’s still not the worst run of Daredevil I’ve ever read. That title goes to Kevin Smith’s abortion of a comics run. I will never not be salty about how bad that book was. Kevin Smith is a menace fan boy run amok.
So compared to that, this is still very readable. It wasn’t offensive and that brings it up to a full 2 stars. Also, I’m glad that it wasn’t an origin story. We really don’t need any more of those so at least Daredevil: Ninja tried to be something else. Seriously, how many times can we see Murdock Sr in a boxing ring, getting killed, and then a montage of Matt training with Stick? We get it!
If you’re a Daredevil completist like I am then you’ll need to pick this one up. If you are not, then I would definitely suggest you pass. There are plenty of other great issues to choose from so don’t waste your time here.
2/5 devils 👿👿
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