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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Robins succeeds at capturing the essense of the characters, August 22, 2000
Daredevil: The Cutting Edge was good, entertaining reading. Madeleine Robins' greatest success was capturing the essense of Daredevil and his supporting cast. Daredevil, Karen Page and all the others "felt" like they do in the Daredevil comic book. I was just as interested in reading Daredevil's exploits as "blind" lawyer, Matt Murdock or those of his compatriots, Karen, Foggy Nelson and Ben Urich, as I was Daredevil himself.Robins plays with current events a bit, concerning the extents to which genetic engineering can go awry and be abused by renegade corporations. She also did enough homework on legal practices to make Murdock's lawyerly scenes believable. Matt, Foggy and Rosalind Sharpe all behave in a way that made me believe they were lawyers. (Better than you can say for the cast of Ally McBeal, anyway!) The villains are a tad on the "evil for evil's sake" side, but Robins tries to convey that primary villainess, Belinda Quayle, is wicked due to her cold, blue-blooded upbringing. As for "The Cutter," there isn't much in the way of explanation for his wickedness. Just one of those cardboard cut-ups that heroes need to beat some sense into. Daredevil is such a great street-level super hero character, that you almost don't have to mention the other goings-on in the Marvel Universe. And I sort of wish Robins didn't. Dr. Doom and a few other Marvel ne'er do wells are mentioned from time to time and it sort of throws the story off a bit. It almost would have been better if they weren't mentioned at all and that for the sake of the story, Daredevil inhabited his own universe. However, it's probably not Robins' fault. I suspect it's a Marvel edict that some mention of the other players in the Marvel Universe get mentioned. It's a fairly minor nit, but this does detract a bit from the story. The overall mystery of the story doesn't quite hold water at times. There are tons of clues and I have to admit that I was a little disappointed Daredevil didn't figure it out sooner. All the pieces were there, but Robins doesn't quite allow him to be as smart as he should be given what we know about the character from the comics. All in all, I enjoyed the book. It has well-choreographed action scenes peppered throughout the story and great character interaction. When Daredevil or the supporting characters in the story encountered problems or were hurt, I felt sympathetic toward them. Robins successfully gives her characters life and makes you root for them. If you're looking for a fun read featuring your favorite red-clad guardian of Hell's Kitchen and you'd like to see him in another medium besides comics, I highly recommend Daredevil: The Cutting Edge.
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