Quick Looks: A Review of Daredevil #6

written by Charles Soule
drawn by Matteo Bufagni
colored by Matt Milla

After spending the first story arc dealing mostly with Matt Murdock's new environment and supporting cast, writer Charles Soule kicks off his second arc with a most welcome blast from Matt's past: the assassin Elektra. She drops in on him at his new job with the Early Case Assessment Bureau as he debates over the proper bail for an accused, and has dinner with him shortly thereafter. Then, later in the evening, she tries to kill him.

Interestingly enough, this is the first encounter between these two characters in the context of Matt having magically deprived everyone except Foggy Nelson of knowledge of his secret identity, through means still not disclosed. It's an interesting situation considering that all of the romantic history between Matt and Elektra, as well as Daredevil and Elektra, remains despite the magical mindwipe, which is a first in the characters' entire shared history. Soule only touches slightly on what this implies before ending the issue with yet another twist. I rather liked this issue as it is the first issue of this new series that really explores just how different Matt's status quo is, and Soule does an interesting bit of striptease here with how things have changed.

The first arc, while it certainly had its good points, was, at its core, just another crimefighting adventure, albeit with some new faces and situations. Here, Daredevil finds himself facing the fallout from whatever "reset" button it is he pressed on his secret identity, and I have to admit Soule really has me looking forward to what's next. The art from newcomer Matteo Bufagni, while tonally consistent with Ron Garney's, (especially with series regular Matt Milla lending his noir-inspired color palette to this story as well) is, to me at least, notably cleaner. It would have been really nice had the interiors been drawn, as the cover was, by the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz, but as it is I'm happy enough to see a cover from this fantastic artist.

This story arc looks like it will only be a two-parter, but I'm hoping the next issue is generous with details on what really happened to Matt between the last volume of his book and this one.

7.9/10