I was very much done with Daredevil sometime before Shadowland began, and there's not really a lot about Daredevil Reborn that's likely to reignite my interest. However, Francesco Francovilla was enough to make me take a second look at this retitled book.  Let me tell you, the man does not disappoint.  I feel like I've been looking at and loving his art for a long time, yet I feel like he never seems to do interior work.  This may be because although he's done a lot of work for indie companies like his Zorro stuff, the big two seem to have been ignorant of just how great the man is.  Now he's on one of the two biggest, oldest Batman books and a fairly big Marvel book as well.

Francovilla loves the pulps, and it's those old comics that his work here puts one in mind of.  The colour work sticks to a basic pallette and there's plenty of shadow. At the same time, it's pulp through a modern filter.  The layouts are dynamic and inventive, a brilliant example of storytelling rather than a constant stream of splash pages.  Francovilla fits in well with the likes of guys like Darwyn Cooke, Frank Quitely et al, where every image is important and vital.  The story is one of so-called street level superheroics, and as such is just right for Francovilla. 

The story I'm less sold on.  At times it lapses into the too wordy, first time comic writer cliche but I don't think that's the whole problem, especially as to Liss's credit it always feels as though the art is allowed to breath.  I think it's more to do with the plot itself.  Black Panther has reduced his life to the basics and moved into Hell's Kitchen  in order to both redeem himself and take Daredevil's place.  He manages a diner in order to get to know the neighbourhood and the people within it.  Unfortunately there are a couple of negatives that go along with this.  To begin with T'Challa is surrounded with people from all kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities, which is all well and good except that it runs almost to the point of cliche.  It's great to try to write about people from all manner of cultural backgrounds, but every person in this place appears to have recently run from some form of tragedy in a foreign country, including T'Challa himself.  It starts to feel a little contrived I'm afraid, despite the noble intent.

The other problem I have is that it doesn't feel fresh enough.  While the art and colouring are a beautiful change to a lot of Marvel's fare at present, the story feels like someone who thinks he's bringing something adult and original to the comics world when in fact we've seen it all before.  It has a European baddy of the sort that Hollywood's been peddling for decades, and I'm just not sure it's keeping my interest at this point.  Still, I'll hang around for the art and the fact that Black Panther has always been an interesting character.  It's early days and it's still a beautiful thing to hold.  Here's hoping it all comes together soon.