Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil One-Shot

Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil One-Shot

After a fairly spectacular end game for the last year by Ed Brubaker, we now have his replacement on Daredevil, Andy Diggle. However in the story proper we don’t get to see new regular artist Roberto De La Torre. So all in all this issue should serve two purposes. 1) Setting up Diggle’s new story arc. And 2) continue the story for The List storyline. So is this what we get? Not really.
To begin with while the plot all revolves around Norman Osborn sending Bullseye after Daredevil it doesn’t feel like it’s even relevant. This could have easily been, Bullseye tries to kill Daredevil story and done the exact same thing. Norman even only appears in two pages total and he’s not scripted poorly, he does feel scripted. In fact, the entire plot begs to wonder, if Norman can send his Avengers as their villain personas after people, then why bother have his Black Ops Team, Thunderbolts exist at all? It doesn’t make sense.
Other things that don’t make sense? Lady Bullseye and The Kingpin’s involvement. Now I’ll admit, I really liked how subtle the entire plot that they have laid in placed, and I think I might have missed this had it not stuck out like a sore thumb, but it is an interesting turn and gives me quite a bit of hope for Diggle’s storyline. The only flaw is the obvious questions involving Bullseye and Lady Bullseye. You would think that someone who practically worships a character, would either have reservations about manipulating them or would have tried to interact with said character. It is a small g ripe that might be a storyline that Diggle will address, but in this one shot I’m really disappointed.
The bulk of the issue however is an action sequence that doesn’t do anything too terribly original for a Daredevil Bullseye fight. The conclusion of the fight is cool and most certainly much more drastic than we’ve seen Bullseye take before, but everything else is simply inconsequential. The result of said actions only lead Daredevil to the same story point that nearly every other hero in the Marvel universe has been jumping on board to. Apparently wanting to stop Norman Osborn is this years “Who do you Trust”, “are you a skrull” editorial theme.
The best elements are the potential that Diggle establishes. He has taken the cast and supporting characters that Brubaker(and to a certain extent, Bendis before him) had established and set them up for a more involved recurring role.
Billy Tan’s art well done most the time, giving characters diverse character traits(such as head size). He even manages to frame a few sequences in a minimalistic way to improve the story. That said most of his framing feelings typical and traditional, failing to break new ground and show off the gritty world of Daredevil, instead evoking images I’d expect out of an Avengers book.
I need to give the editors their due, they give you a sneak peek of Daredevil 501 and some sketches of De La Torre’s new design for The Hand Ninjas which look like they fit the world of Daredevil.

SCORE: 6.2