I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
This was, and still is, on sale at Comixology. I assume this sale is to promote the amazing new Daredevil series on Netflix which I get to watch on an eighty inch screen soon. And am so psyched about this I can't even tell you!
I've had a literary crush on DD for a while. He's a blind lawyer/superhero/snarky fun. He and Foggy Nelson have been practicing law and trading quips together forever. In New York. So when Matt Murdock and his new partner - maybe? - hit San Francisco, they leave Foggy behind. Well, no, they kinda take that urn with them.
And y'know... Foggy.
So how do I feel about his new legal partner/maybe-girlfriend? I don't like her. And I have no reason to dislike her. She helps both Matt and his alter ego, DD, find their way around the new city. She's understanding when he ditches her at an airport to chase after some random dude who doesn't have a heartbeat. She even rents him a super spiffy car to take him back to the plane.
And I've been struggling with this. Waid has done everything in his power to make her likable. Even while she deals with DD, and the complications he brings to her life, she's cheerful but not a doormat. For example, Matt insists his name be first on the door; she has the painter writer her name first, then his really small underneath hers. (Later, his name is first, they're both sized the same, but his first name is Magoo instead of Matt.) All I'm saying is that she's got backbone. She puts up with shit, because she knows that Matt's balancing, well, Matt and Daredevil. I get the feeling if it came to him walking all over her, though, she'd put her foot down.
So why don't I like her?
The simple answer? She's not Foggy. Foggy and Matt had a relationship that feels like it was... easier? No, not easier, but like they were more quirky and quip-y around each other than Kirsten and Matt are. There are some funny lines, and some funny times, but it's not the same relationship he and Foggy had. How can it be? Even if the new partner were male and there was no attraction between them, Foggy's been with Matt since college. How could anyone else know Matt so well, put up with him and life as an outed Daredevil with such frustrated understanding? They couldn't. Conclusion: I wouldn't like any new partner, or I would resent them on some level for the simple fact of not being Foggy. Is it fair? No, not really. To Waid's credit, he could have made New-KarenPage another, um, Karen Page. She could have been a damsel in distress, she could have been in a love triangle with someone Matt and her work with, she could have been naggy or bitchy or caused problems by demanding that Matt give up his life as DD. None of this happens. While she and Matt seem to not be quite sure where their relationship is romantically, they set that aside, and work well as business partners. And as much as I don't like her - for the sin of not being Foggy* - I don't actively dislike her. I admire her a bit, in fact.
Also, the Deputy Mayor Charlotte (nicknamed Charlie) is helping Daredevil (and meeting with Matt to do so), she is also a strong, female ally of DDs. She has power, she's using it to make her city better without being unethical, and I doubt she'd take too much bullshit from Matt either. Which is going to be interesting: Matt has a pretty long history of lying to people for their own good, so I suspect this is going to crop up when it comes to these two characters later on. (In fact, one issue deals specifically with this.)
So, I liked it, I'd like to continue on with this series but not for twenty dollars for the second volume. Much like the last volume of Nova - five I think - I'm waiting for the price to drop a bit.
*Please note that sin of not being Foggy is not a gendered one. As I pointed out, other men wouldn't be Foggy, either, and they have the potential to irk me just as much as a female Not Foggy. Also, the 'sin of not being Foggy' only applies to fictional characters who are business partners with Matt. It's a pretty specific narrowing down of that, but, yeah.. I felt weird typing that, but it felt right, thus this way too long footnote.