Daredevil Back in Black Volume 1: Chinatown
by Charles Soule, Gorun Sudzuka, and Ron Garney
Did Daredevil have a prior black costume? Ah, he did. There was the red-on-black costume of "Shadowland," and, even before that, the armored costume with red-panels-on-black-undersuit.
I haven't read any of those, so Soule's run marks my first "black costume" Daredevil read. After Mark Waid and Chris Samnee concluded their wonderful DD run, Soule took over from runs on She-Hulk and Death of Wolverine. Daredevil once again went "back in black," to fit in with the tone of the title. Gone was the day of Matt Murdock stopping to smell the unique scents of each strawberry. This Matt's all business, so he wore his business suit.
The five issues here involve the story of "Tenfingers," a man who escaped from the undead ninja cult, The Hand, and took some of their magic, gaining ten fingers on each hand. It's a neat visual.
Tenfingers starts a cult in Chinatown, promising the residents answers to their numerous problems and even recruits Sam's mom as a Lieutenant, bestowing on her eight fingers per hand. The creative team places equal emphasis on both the man and the mask, when Matt is responsible for indicting Tenfingers, which eventually fails and requires the mask.
It's a straight super-story from there, with the occasional curveball. You can tell that Soule has places to take Matt to, and it'll be a stylish read with Garney's pencils. It's almost Sin City-esque with its focus on lights and shadows, and sheer color to represent a shape. Check out this page from one of the early issues:
The only way to tell where Matt's shoulder ends is using the color of his shoulder against the background. This man is nothing but black, white, and red all over! And in that second panel Old Man Steve Rogers is nothing but color, with just his boots popping out as red. Matt Milla does a superb job using color to tell a story, and it's great fun to see what he's putting in front.
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