I just finished watching season 1 of Netflix’ Daredevil and
I’m ready to render my verdict. Be forewarned, I’m a big fan of the modern T.V.
and film takes on the superhero genre and you won’t see much bashing here, just
an analysis of what is effective and what could be more so.
I’m of the firm opinion that if you’re an old school Marvel
Comics fan, you have to love Daredevil. Daredevil is the essence of what Marvel
was all about before it became a mutant-riddled playground whose goal was to see
how many books you could shoehorn Wolverine into. Marvel Comics were supposed
to be about superheroes who were real guys with real problems. Daredevil is
BLIND. What’s a bigger problem than that? Daredevil was also a guy who fought
real crime in a real city. He never had billions of dollars to fund his nocturnal
enterprises, or a butler, or some cool tech like web shooters or rocket boots,
or a magic ring, or any of that business. In so many ways, Daredevil IS Marvel.
That being said, comparisons can be drawn between Ol’
Hornhead and a DC character who’s headlining a “dark” drama, namely Green
Arrow. Sure, the Arrow fights crime down and dirty using mostly his wits, but “Batman
with a Bow” vs. “Batman Blind?” There’s no contest as to who’s got a tougher
row to hoe.
It’s not really fair to compare “Daredevil” and “Arrow,” as
they appear on two very different networks with two very different audiences.
That being said, I think “The Flash,” which appears on the CW, as does “Arrow,” in some ways beats them both, combining faithfulness to the source material with just a dash
of realism, and as little of the young love drama as we can reasonably expect
from a CW show.
“Arrow” is great, but I have a few issues with it. A) it’s about Green Arrow,
whose mythology is a little thin for the everyday viewer, forcing them to draw on a lot of Batman’s
stuff, leaving us to wonder where Batman fits in in the CW DCU, B) It tries to
be dark while still being CW, which is a tough task for anyone to master, and C) They made Atom into a cheap Iron Man
knockoff (although that may change), which, 1, Why? And 2, if you’re going to
do that, Ted Kord AKA the Blue Beetle probably would have been a better choice.
But I am massively digressing. Daredevil, I think, is the
perfect melding of genre and medium. Being on Netflix, the Daredevil team can
afford to go as gritty as they think DD needs to be, which can get pretty
gritty at times. I think their choices to not put him in the iconic red suit
until the last episode, and not to reveal the Kingpin right off the bat, were
both genius. It told the viewer, this is not a superhero show, this is an
action drama that happens to star a superhero.
But the real success of Daredevil, I think, is as proof of
concept of the Netflix model. It has been said that much of today’s “Golden Age”
T.V. shows are like 13 hour movies, more than your classic procedural story of
the week shows of the past. If any new series is a 13 hour movie, it’s Netflix’
Daredevil. The first few hours bring us through the arc of Matt Murdock
becoming, the middle episodes have him running up against the Kingpin and
finding himself in many ways wanting, and we wrap up with Matt the conquering
hero, lessons learned, with more battle scars than anyone would have hoped, but
with the evil he set out to stop vanquished. We could easily believe the story
ends here, if we didn’t know Marvel with all of its planned “Phases” better.
So thumbs up for Daredevil. A well-executed, well-acted,
well-written show, which effectively used the new medium offered it. Eagerly
looking forward to Netflix’ next Marvel offering.
