The few shortcomings aside, Waid & Rivera nail another issue!
Mark Waid deserves a round of applause. He has taken a character that has been beaten to a pulp by dark, doom-and-gloom story lines and given him life. The new Matt Murdock is witty, easy-going, and most of all a lot of fun. "Daredevil" #3 brings the first arc to a close as Matt finds himself trapped in Klaw's crazy sound wave machine. While this is another well written and fun issue, I found it to be the weakest of the first three books. While Klaw is actually made interesting, he's not a character that I'm all that excited about. I also felt Waid spent to much time with Daredevil in the machine trying to figure out who his captors were and how he could get his hand loose. But where Waid really excels is in the character moments. I loved every panel that Foggy appears in and the entire Jobrani case side story is incredibly well done. The final three pages are some of the best of the series so far and they're so dramatically different from past Daredevil books.
I've loved Paolo Rivera's work on this series. His pencils combined with Javier Rodriguez's rich and vibrant colors give the issue a vivid and energetic tone that sometimes overshadows Waid's wonderful storytelling. Much like the story, the art is strongest in the character driven scenes. The action sequences are well done but not as strong as in the previous issues mainly due to a lack of clarity. There were some panels where I had a hard time deciphering what was taking place which really hurt to flow of the scene. But as a whole, this was still a visually strong issue.
Even with a few shortcomings, "Daredevil" #3 is still better than tons of other books on the shelves. I'm running out of ways to say it but Waid and Rivera have injected new life into a character that desperately needed it. This is shaping up to be an incredible run and if you haven't been reading Daredevil you're missing out on something really special.
