Daredevil #36

By Mark Waid,  Chris Samnee & Javier Rodriguez

Daredevil’s final issue hit shelves this week, and they weren’t kidding when it was billed as something that changes everything. #35 saw Matt Murdock expose himself to a shocked New York City, with the final battle with the Sons of Serpent on the horizon. It’s been a regular standout book for as long as Mark Waid and Chris Samnee have been working on the title and the loss would be more heavily felt if we weren’t getting a new number one with the same creative team sometime during next month, and as a result it feels more like the end of a season finale rather than the end of a series, with a final chapter that’s as close to perfect as you’re going to get. There aren’t any rough edges to this issue -making sure that the end of this run is something that is going to be remembered regardless of what the new series has to throw at us.

If you’ve enjoyed one or two issues of Daredevil in the past then you should really pick up this final act – despite the book taking place in its majority in the courtroom, it still allows for a drama that’s very entertaining and delivers a lot of action to boot. It’s everything that a finale could offer us, and there really is pretty much nothing wrong with this book other than the question remains that did it need to be a finale? Why not just have a .NOW issue especially if you’re keeping the same creative team? But regardless, it’ll be very interesting to see where Waid takes the book from here and with the debut of the new #1 it does allow newcomers who were perhaps turned off by the fact that this was one of Marvel’s longest running series during the initial Marvel Now! relaunch and didn’t know where to jump on. Hopefully this will as a result bring a host of new readers onto the title, allowing the book to become even more popular especially given the upcoming Netflix-exclusive TV series featuring the Man Without Fear.

Chris Samnee does an excellent job with the artwork on the book. His panels are wonderful, and the book really grabs your attention and isn’t really the sort of thing that you’ll only want to read once – this is a book that demands at least two read-throughs just to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of it all. And Samnee’s pencils are only enhanced by Javier Rodriguez’s colours, really standing out and doing such an epic book justice. Waid and Samnee feel like the perfect team behind Matt Murdock and hopefully they’ll remain on the relaunch for as long as they have here.

The final act in the series ends the book on a high note with some amazing sequences that really sets the stage for the next book. Now that Matt Murdock is no longer going to be in Hell’s Kitchen and his identity as Daredevil is revealed to the world, where can things go from here? It’ll certainly be very interesting to find out. One thing’s for sure though, based on what we’ve seen here, it should hopefully continue to remain excellent quality.