Excitement goes up, then it goes back down, and then up again.
Daredevil went too far when he decided to share his own form of justice of being judge, jury, and executioner. After killing Bullseye, the heroes (the street level ones only?) of New York are trying to decide how to handle this situation, until things get much worse when Kingpin becomes involved. As more street level Marvel characters become involved for this build up issue, we would see something that looks like to be the "the tip of the iceberg" of sheer action for our favorite urban heroes.
The Good:
- The artwork inside of this comic is actually pretty decent for what its trying to display. I like how you see the characters react with the dialogue and how detail some of the characters are displayed within this issue. Yes, there are a few hiccups here and there that does describe how tideous the artwork was for Billy Tan, but he is however improving himself as a comic artist with this event so far.
- When I say tip of the ice berg, its actually a build up for something that looks like a huge Royal Fight that seems to be more focused on fanbase instead of a connecting storyline. Which isn't bad, but I hope that Shaowland #3 does meet the expactations to that excitement as we see the same awesome fights that was shown in Shadowland #1.
- Some of the characters did introduce themselves pretty well in this storyline, without understanding how most of the characters are not fully justified on why or how they decided to be involved within Shadowland.
The Bad:
- As I said, the artwork did have hiccups here and there.
The Ugly:
- Once again, I personally cannot understand why Billy Tan couldn't just do the cover himself instead of John Cassaday, who actually made Kingpin look like he's wearing eye-liner and make-up. As I said before, Cover art is something that has to booming with awesomness, not something that looks like an artists first drawing of a comic cover. For what many believe to be a huge event, I honestly find it extremely cheap that Marvel would accept this cover for one of there most famous events.
- Well, naturally, I would judge a comic by what it is or trying to be, and for an event that took me to one of the exciting moments in the first issue to just a huge build up in the second issue, thats where I personally felt that this issue went wrong. Shadowland is something new for Marvel to try and experience, but what I see as the main entertainment is the character relation, meaning the fights, mindless fighting that many fans wanted to see. The whole Daredevil turning "evil" does have some fans feeling off as we see him pondering his devious plans while sitting in his oriental dark dragon throne, but as badguy lover myself, welcome to the darkside Matt.
Shadowland would reach my interest because of the action scenes and character relations it produces, but in this issue it tries to be something that its failing as horribly, a decent well made storyline.
- What really drvies me insane, is that I know both Marvel and DC are guilty of this, but when they produce a huge storyline, they would leave blankspots in their storyline that would have the main storyline fully unexplained. As a reader and a person who trully tries to understand something so I could promote it or avoid it, Shadowland would actually be guilty of this. In order to fullfill the explaination of certain questions that may arise would be fully answered in another issue that is connected to the main event, like a one-shot or limited series. That I really, really, and I mean really hate alot.
The Conclusion:
Well before I gain a plague of blood thirsty Comicvine commentators because im not being fair on this one issue, Im not suggesting to avoid this comic. Its full final judgement is when the upcoming issues are released, when we see how events turn out and that Marvel actually met their fans full expectations.
There is excitement with this event, but no storyline or full explaination of what its trying to display. If you want to see a huge build up to one huge fight scene, Ghost Rider, Moonknight, and maybe Kingpin in action, then by all means by this issue. I cant say its safe because of how it leaves me hanging and im not for sure if the next upcoming issue would meet the expectations of Shadowland #2.
Im that Badguy and I thankyou for reading this review,
