Alexander Irvine (1) (1969–)

Meh. Noir-style things are often a hard sell for me despite my wanting to like them because there's frequently a lot of misogyny and other such things in the genre. For example, I liked the character of Eliza and I liked Matt falling hard for her--it felt fast, but I was sold on it--until the revelation that she was a "psychopath." I didn't mind the twist of her being the Bull's-Eye Killer, but making the reason why she does what she does be "because she's crazy!" doesn't sit well with me. It's a harmful stereotype against people with mental illness and poor writing.

Also I feel like there should be a way to do noir-style art that doesn't leave me guessing which character I'm looking at in each panel based on context clues. Between two-thirds of every character being in shadows and the other third being stylized noir-grit, good luck recognizing anyone except Daredevil. Even Matt himself was difficult to recognize outside of his red Daredevil costume.

Also, and I realize this is a somewhat minor nitpick, but I feel like Matt being Foggy's employee is a characterization misstep. Nelson and Murdock are partners, and them having an inherently unequal relationship sat wrong with me.

So, like with most noir-type things, I wanted to like this more than I did.

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Re-read this a second time, and I'm upping the rating from 2 stars to 4 stars. Know what to expect, I think, helped make this a more coherent read for me and thus a more effective one. I very much enjoyed this the second time around.… (more)