Echo is back in Hell’s Kitchen and just in time for Daredevil to need some assistance investigating kidnapped children. Find out what they discover in Daredevil and Echo #1 by Marvel Comics!

DAREDEVIL AND ECHO #1 (OF 4)

Writer: Taboo & B. Earl
Artist: Phil Noto
Colorist: Phil Noto
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Editor: Annalise Bissa and Devin Lewis
Publish: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: May 24th, 2023 

Previously in Daredevil and Echo: Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer who had an accident that heightened his senses allowing him to become the vigilante Daredevil. Kingpin raised Maya Lopez until she realized that he had killed her father. Using her photographic reflexes, Maya became the hero, Echo. Echo recently lost her connection to the Pheonix Force and is back in town after a time with the Avengers.

Daredevil and Echo #1 have two timelines. One is in 1835 Manhattan, where the main point of view character is Tommy Murdock. Tommy learns that people are being murdered and losing parts of their flesh. Tommy and his old gang meet a Native American, Soena’hane’e, sometimes called Creeping Death. Creeping Death reveals the settlers built their church on tainted land. She leads them to a church and reveals a secret passageway leading down into the earth.

In the present day, Daredevil and Electra find a person’s body missing some of their flesh and spleen. As Elektra remains to see what the police know, Daredevil recognizes that Echo is back in town. After their reunion, a mind-controlled kid attacks them with a sonic scream. When they try to stop her, the child snaps out of it and reveals herself as deaf. Maya, also deaf, communicates via sign language. The child directs them to the ruins of the same church as Tommy and Creeping Death. There they find the same hidden passageway but discover the villain, Demagoblin!

Echo is one of my favorite characters. Her abilities are engaging, and despite being deaf, she is a great dancer and pianist due to her superpowers. The relationship between sight and participating in something musical and rhythmic always captured my attention. I knew that I would pick up Daredevil and Echo #1 due to the inclusion of this character alone. As I did my first readthrough, the elements I am familiar with weren’t incorporated into the narrative arc. We usually get moments of Daredevil’s perspective as a blind superhero that reveals information about a situation otherwise hidden. Unfortunately, we did not get a moment like that in this issue. And Echo was somehow able to understand things without lip reading. I was distracted by the hug Daredevil gave Echo, where Daredevil could not discern the child about to attack them. Echo somehow understood Daredevil despite not looking at his face. Due to that oversight, I lost interest in the actual child attack—an unexplained attack, for that matter. The story felt like it deleted present-day evidence in favor of the nonlinear storytelling of the past.

The book’s colors are excellent, but I sometimes lost the more important line details on Daredevil’s costume specifically. Every other character design worked well enough, in my opinion. I’m unsure if that was intentional, but sometimes it felt like a blob of undefined red while the rest of the panel used colder colors.

Daredevil and Echo #1 feature two of my favorite characters and a robust street-level plotline. But there were creative decisions here that I disagree with. I think the innovative team spent too long trying to introduce the plot that they didn’t include foundational things for the characters. Daredevil and Echo #1 is a 2.5 out of 5 stars, but I think it will improve next issue.

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Daredevil and Echo

47%

47%

There is Potential

Daredevil and Echo #1 did not have the familiar marks that define these characters.

• Writing

  4
• Art

  5
• Coloring

  5
• User Ratings (1 Votes)
  6.8