Customer Reviews

Daredevil: Guardian Devil (Daredevil; The Devil Inside and Out)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this is a great comic book series it has a lot great art in int and a great great story

Currently there are three listings for "Daredevil: Guardian Devil" on Amazon. The oldest is listed as "Daredevil Visionaries: Guardian Devil" and it's from the year 2000. Praise for the book back then called it the best Daredevil since Frank Miller. I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies and his one man shows, and I've been reading Daredevil by Brian M. Bendis, which made references to this book. So, Guardian Devil has been on my radar for a long time. I finally read it and, man, it's disappointing.

Drugs explain away out of character moments, plot-holes are hand-waved out of existence, and most of it is overwritten. Sometimes the writing works with Mr. Smith throwing thinly veiled references to his film career and the moments with Matt's mom are great, but the ending feels like a gigantic cheat.

On the other hand, the art really saves it. This is the first time I've seen Joe Q's art and it's quite stylish: a mix of Frank Miller and Bruce Timm. The digital ink also gives the book some rich color that I've never seen on Daredevil. Even though he makes Daredevil look like a thumb, Black Widow is absolutely poured into her costume.

I'm becoming a Daredevil completionist. For completionist fans, I can only advise you to buy it later. Don't splurge and get it right away, wait until you have the extra cash. For the casual fans, I'd say skip it. If you were a fan of Bendis' run on Daredevil and want to get this because this was the launching point, I still say give it a pass. Bendis and Smith have clashing styles and you're not going to enjoy it. Other than "than one important thing," nothing is essential in this book.

I'm tempted to give it a 4, because the art is really stunning, but the writing doesn't hold up. It might have broken new ground ten years ago, but we've come a long way since then.

I've noticed most of the ratings for this book are directed at Kevin Smith himself and not the book. First I am a HUGE Smith fan, but I've also been a fan of Daredevil since I was 5 years old (30 now). The book is awesome, it is perfectly drawn and the writing is probably the best I've ever read. This isn't dick and fart jokes and there is isn't a huge amount of profanity. As a matter of fact this would probably pass the Comic Code Laws of 30 years ago outside of the development of one of the primary characters dealing with some pretty intense issues.

After having read Kevin Smith's Green Arrow (Quiver) and totally loving it, and being a major fan of Frank Miller's Daredevil from its original appearance in the 80s, and also being a fan of Kevin Smith movies, I was really looking forward to Guardian Devil. However, I was severely disappointed.

Guardian Devil is horribly overwritten - it should be a novel, not a comic book. But even as a novel, it would be pretty boring. The problem starts right on the first page, with a letter from Karen Page to Matt Murdock that goes for two pages, spliced up with no consideration for the content of the letter or real relevance to the background scenes of Matt Murdock and NY. As if that weren't bad enough, it then jumps to the next story element, using the narration boxes again, with words that far outstrip the images. Later on, a fight with demons from Hell is tamed down by dialogue boxes larger than the action sequences. Ho hum.

As for the story itself, it's just too dopey and never really all that believable (OK, it's a comic book, I know, but it didn't have a satisfying internal logic).

The drawing style is uneven. Its strengths are the cool action-lines made by DD and his weapon, a kind of replacement for Frank Miller's shaded-repetition to show motion. And the splash pages are awesome - art nouveau constructions that are as elegant as they are playful, especially the one with Dr. Strange.

The artwork's weaknesses are that almost every visual element is equally weighted and it all ends up just right in your face without much depth or subtlety. To add to the lack of subtlety, characters are very cartoony, with giant heads and stick-figure bodies, as if this was DD-junior or a Marvel-Heroes action figure collection for kids. Major shake-ups occur in Matt Murdock's life, but they don't make a big impact due in part to the cartoony drawings, which don't suggest anything major is going on in the story.

Sum: for Kevin Smith fans and completists only; otherwise, skip it and pick up with Parts of a Hole, which, despite having the same art team of Quesada/Palmiotti, manages a much better job with a way better storyline. Or, check out Smith's Green Lantern Quiver, from Marvel's "distinguished competitor," in which both the writing and art is clear, clean and sharp.