1. Diggle and Johnston are sharing writing duties here and I’m entirely unsure why. This issue is the set up to Shadowland #2, which is kind of silly since that’s already out.
2. Elektra and Izo sneaking into the Hand’s lair is hand waived away as something that couldn’t happen before. They get in and find out the Hand is summoning something evil using Matt, but when they leave only then does magic find them? Come on, what a cheap trick to write Izo out for now.
3. Murdoch is apparently already corrupted by killing Bullseye. No attempt is made to explain this.
4. Power Man and Iron Fist save Foggy Nelson and put him somewhere safe, thus deciding they need to talk to Matt and setting up #2. At least his ninjas trying to kill his best friend is good motivation for a stern talking to, but why didn’t they bring that up to him in Shadowland #2?
5. Typhoid Mary showing up to work with Daredevil after the Initiative fell apart is just making things evein worse for Murdock as she always drove him a little nuts.
6. Iron Fist here kills a hand ninja. I’m still not seeing why Daredevil killing Bullseye is so different.
7. This is relying heavily on prior relationships to characters to make me care. While it worked with Typhoid Mary, Elektra and Izo to this point feel like plot devices.
8. I get that this is street level Civil War, but, seriously, you guys have Thor’s # on Speed Dial. Use it.
9. The art here is phenomenal and really gets across the sinister tone without being unclear or unnecessarily brooding.
10. Rating: 6/10 – This is a fun comic, with a good ninja fight and lots of mystery, but a lot of the mystery requires overlooking plot inconsistencies and a lot of the characters are falling flat, something that will surely be addressed in all the one shots, but $4 extra per character to get this to make more sense is a bit much.
