Daredevil #8 Review

Written by: Chip Zdarsky
Art by: Marco Checchetto
Colors by: Matthew Wilson, Erick Arciniega
Letters by: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover art by: Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: February 8, 2023

Daredevil #8 kicks off the long-awaited conflict between the Fist and the Hand as Punisher fights Daredevil, ninja fights ninja, assassin fights assassin, and dragons fight everyone else.

Is It Good?

This is it, sports fans. This is the big fight this series hyped up since the beginning. Does Daredevil #8 make the wait worth it? Yes and no.

There’s not much critique in terms of story because the issue is effectively one long battle. Snarky jibes, grandstanding insults, and plenty of posturing fly between the respective armies as soldiers attack with everything they’ve got. If you’re into this issue for the sheer spectacle of the fight, you’re in for a good time.

The major credit for the success of this issue goes to Checchetto, Wilson, and Arciniega. The art is big, loud, dramatic, and gritty. Everything you could hope for in a rain-soaked battlefield where blades and fists are the weapons of choice. The art in this issue is gorgeous and almost worth the cover price on its own.

There are, however, two down points in this issue. One minor, and the other, a little short of a major.

The minor down point is in the lettering. There are a lot of characters running around, sometimes multiple characters in a single panel, so the narration shifts from one character to the next fluidly. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear which narration box belongs to which character, so you regularly lose track of who is expressing a specific thought.

The more serious down point is the battle between Punisher and Daredevil. If you’ve been keeping up with Jason Aaron’s run on Punisher, which is essentially a sister series to this one, you know Punisher is powerful enough to kill Ares. The Ares. The God of War. If Punisher is saturated with enough mystical power to kill one of the ancient gods of Olympus, there’s no way he should have an ounce of struggle fighting Daredevil. Yet, Punisher gets as good as he gives, which turns into a mismatch between the Daredevil series and the Punisher series when they’re both supposed to fit together.

In short, you get one big battle that’s visually entertaining, but the writing execution has a gap or two.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces

Daredevil #8 gives readers the big battle readers have been waiting for. While the action lives up to the hype, it’s hard to follow who’s saying what, and the power mismatch between Punisher and Daredevil doesn’t make sense.