Daredevil

Daredevil liveblog

Hello, I'm Abigail Brady and I have booked off Friday from eating and needing to go to the toilet, so I'm going to be liveblogging Netflix's Marvel's Daredevil, starting at 0800 sharpish (midnight Pacific). Watch this article from then for updates about how I didn't understand a thing because I was too busy writing about it, until either I finish or pass out.


Nearly 12 hours later: Well, that was certainly the best Daredevil film I have seen. It could stand to lose a few hours.

My recommendation: don't marathon it, don't even rush it. Eke it out. There are some big spoilers out there but you should be kinda able to see them coming anyway, and while I wouldn't recommend seeking them out, I don't think your enjoyment will be substantially reduced by it.

The boldest thing about this series is the decision to entirely dump the overall tone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that mix of humour, action and emotional truth, that everything from Iron Man to Thor to Agents of SHIELD to Agent Carter has been going for (with varying degrees of success - I'm as fervent in my dislike of SHIELD as James is). This feels very different. There's a combination of tenseness and violence to it quite unlike any of the MCU stuff, with a kind of stylised approach that's also not like any of the grim crime dramas I've been watching lately. It's its own thing. I'm still not sure whether I liked that thing. But it absolutely did what it was trying to do.

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Cinematic Universe Episode 1: Daredevil (2003)

There may be as many as four Panel Beats readers who've been wondering what's happened to our podcasting arm since we last put out an episode of the Alternate Cover pod in (checks) cor, blimey, May of last year. Well, various circumstances conspired to mean that we had to put having regular recorded chats about comics on the back burner: and then an entirely new burner came along and offered us the opportunity to talk about movies instead, so that's what we did. This, then, is Cinematic Universe.

The teaser poster for Netflix's Daredevil is very Christopher Nolan (but also very cool)

Of course, we reserve the right to continue to be sceptical about this show until they confirm that at some point he's going to change out of that silly black ninja costume and into a proper red one.

BECAUSE WE'RE NERDS.

The 5 Best Things From NYCC 2014

This weekend past saw the ninth annual New York Comic Con take place, not in San Diego as expected, but in the surprise venue of New York. One half of the main PanelBeats team (James) was there; so it makes perfect sense for the half that wasn't (me) to be the one to do a round-up of what happened. So in a completely unfocused and to be honest somewhat ill-informed manner, here are my five favourite things that were announced, or otherwise happened, at the convention.

10 Superhero Comics of the '90s that were Actually Good

It is a truth universally acknowledged, as Jane Austen once said, that comics in the 1990s were shit. Just Google "90s comics" and you'll find a plethora of articles with titles like 10 Reasons Why Comics Sucked During The 90s, Why I Fear The 90s Revival Happening, The 10 Most Asinine 1990s Characters and Reasons the 90s Almost Killed Comics. Some of them even get the apostrophe in the right place.

While many of the criticisms offered by this kind of article are more than valid, it's long seemed to us to be somewhat unfair that the entire decade gets written off as filled with excessive, gimmick-driven, pouch-laden dross. It could just be that we started reading superhero comics ourselves (mostly) in the '90s, or it could be that there were genuinely some absolutely terrific comics produced in that decade amid whatever fiasco Rob Liefeld was involved with that week. Even putting aside the obvious likes of Sandman and Preacher, if you look specifically within superhero comics you can find things that are capable of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the preceding late '80s age that draws so much acclaim.

So to prove this, we've come up with a list of ten superhero comics that all began publication in the '90s (and ended it, if not within the decade, then close enough to the end of it) that we think are genuine, un-ironic, bona fide classics.

Comixology Sale Picks: Indestructible Hulk

Today's Marvel Monday Comixology sale is an Incredible Hulk special, which covers two different runs: the first ten issues of Mark Waid's Indestructible Hulk from 2012/2013, and 2005-2007's "Planet Hulk" storyline, by Greg Pak (with a 4-issue prelude by Daniel Way). So what should you buy?

The Alternate Cover Podcast #13

If you don't already know James and I from our existing comics site Alternate Cover, then you may not be aware that we publish a (usually) monthly podcast under the same name. And if you're not, then this is the perfect time to get yourself acquainted with it.