Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

Shadowland: Blood on the Street #1 of 4

By Hervé St-Louis
August 15, 2010 - 11:47

Misty Knight is asked by a petty mobster to investigate the murder of his brother, which he attributes to Daredevil and the Hand. Elsewhere, The Shroud investigates the same murder and many more. International mercenary Silver Sable is on a similar case which ends too early as her target has already been taken out by the Hand, or another mysterious assassin. What does the Paladin has to do with all these murders and why is he blaming the Hand and Daredevil?

I don’t know how I ended up with this book on my pile. My local comic book store crew likes to add stuff in my box they think I may like. Well, I didn’t hate this issue at all, but had I checked more closely my books this week, I would have taken it out of the pile. I don’t need to read a series that marginally (so far), is linked to the Shadowland crossover which is not that impressive in the first place.

I was intrigued a bit by some of the characters, which I had very little exposure with. For example, I had never heard of the Shroud before. He feels like a mix of Doctor Mid-nite and Obsidian from the Justice Society. I know Misty Knight of course, but like her blacksploitation personality in Shadowland better. By the way, I sure wonder how she’s gonna find the time to remove her braids and replace them with her traditional afro in time to show up in Shadowland #2 and #3 in just a few hours. That’s the kind of continuity and storytelling goofs that tells me this series was unnecessary. Her personality and looks in two series that are part of the same crossover are completely out of sync. The story shows what are the effect of Daredevil’s takeover of Hell’s Kitchen in a way that Shadowland and the regular Daredevil series do not. For that alone, the story has something unique to bring. But were Shadowland and Daredevil better  written, readers would not need to read a mini-series staffed with third rate characters to find out what happens on the streets of New York, when Shadowland’s whole premise is about the streets of New York...

Alves is good here. I don’t know this artist, but he’s ready to tackle the challenge and tell a story visually. He seems to like big panels and cannot work in anything smaller than the “landscape cinema-wide” format it seems. That means that most of the story could have been told in but a few pages with a traditional artist, but here a lot of space is given to the visual display of the story. It only reinforces the feeling I have that this series is unnecessary.

This is one I only will recommend to hardcore fans of – hum I don’t know. I don’t really know who this series is addressed to. It’s not really for Daredevil , Spider-man or Punisher fans. It’s not crime noir, it’s not about blacksploitation, intrigue or suspense. It’s not bad, like wrote above, but I don’t known who should read this. Perhaps Marvel Comics should have asked themselves that question before they put out this series.

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12