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With the overflowing amount of cross over events from various comic companies flooding the shelves, the people have cried out for help in keeping up with the many-issued-madness! Well, that call has been answered by two guys who have answered a call or two in their lives! Infinite Man and Aron Fist are here to save your sanity, and hopefully save you from picking up that really crappy tie-in book that has absolutely NO REASON to exist!  So sit back and check us out as we give you the SHADOWLAND SHAKEDOWN (click here for part 1) on just about everything pertaining to this event, while we also try to figure out why DD has gone off the deep end!

***CAUTION: Review May Contain Spoilers!***

Shadowland: Blood on the Streets # 1
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Antony Johnston
Art: Wellinton Alves
Cover: Francesco Mattina

Crooks and mobsters are showing up dead, all over town. They’ve been slashed and run through with blades, and the cherry on top of each killing is the mark of the Hand on each victim’s face. The cops think Daredevil is responsible. So do the other criminals. The Shroud is investigating a body killed in that manner, but the body is found outside of Hell’s Kitchen. The victim is a small time mobster with no convictions. A S.W.A.T. team interrupts Shroud’s investigation. Over at Knightwing Restorations, the victim’s brother is trying to hire Misty Knight to look into his brother’s death, stating that Daredevil is the one who did it. Misty, not believing it is Daredevil, declines the case and decides to look into it out of her own curiosity. Silver Sable is in town tracking a bounty for Interpol. Posing as a stripper, she gets the drop on her target, only to find out that he’s been sliced and marked by the Hand. Again, this scene is invaded by a S.W.A.T. team. So, we’ve got the hero community thinking these killings are fishy, the bad guys scared and pointing their fingers at Daredevil, and the cops thinking that these cases are easily closed because of the Hand markings. To top off all this mess? Paladin is running around causing his own brand of trouble.

It looks to me like we’ve got some copycat killers on the loose. If Daredevil has sanctioned these murders (doubt it, Shroud found one OUTSIDE Hell’s Kitchen), he’s really gone off his rocker. This is a book using primarily unused characters. I know little about Misty Knight and Silver Sable, and I know absolutely squat about The Shroud and Paladin. Never heard of them. The Shroud is a blind black man with a costume similar to Cloak’s, and he uses some kind of power called The Darkforce. There is a case file in the back of the comic that shows The Shroud to be white. What’s going on? I like The Shroud, though. He’s cool. The art is pretty standard for a comic book, and the story walks the thin line between intriguing and irrelevant. 3/5 -AW

Daredevil # 509
Publisher: Marvel
Writer(s): Andy Diggle and Antony Johnston
Artist: Roberto De La Torre
Cover: John Cassaday

Master Izo and Elektra have snuck into the fortress of the Hand and found out that the Daimyo inner circle plans to bring Snakeroot into our world through the corruption of DD. So after listening to the conversation, Master Izo and Elektra plan on going to NY to head the bad guys off. Unfortunately, they are found out and during the chase Izo stays to hold off the group of ninja in pursuit, so Elektra can get away. While back in the Big Apple, it looks like DD’s long time friends Foggy Nelson and Dakota North are about to be taken out by Hand ninja, when Iron Fist and Luke Cage show up and lend a hand. After the fight, they just can’t believe that their friend would give an order to kill them (guess they didn’t get the memo), so it’s decided that they’ll go and have a talk with DD. Things actually couldn’t get any crazier than this, but a former Initiative member shows up to actually join up with Lord Daredevil, and seems to want to help further his cause. While hiding out in a safe house, Foggy and Dakota are still reeling from the night’s events when there’s a huge explosion from Daredevil’s castle. So you can only guess as to how good that “talk” is going.

Antony Johnston and Andy Diggle continue to make Daredevil one of the better Marvel titles out there on the shelf right now. From what I gather after reading this issue, it takes place right before and during events in Shadowland #2, but Diggle and Johnston don’t recycle what happened in that issue to fill pages here. You get a story filled with new material that moves the events of Shadowland along and leaves you wanting more! De La Torre’s artwork is still gritty and moody, but it’s definitely growing on me, since I was really liking Checchetto’s work on the title as well. Daredevil is a must for the pull list, folks, and even a blind man can see that! 3.5/5 -IS

Thanks for coming back for another round of SHADOWLAND SHAKEDOWN, folks, and once again you get a couple of quality books to add to your collection. Next we’ll be checking out two number 1’s in Shadowland: Daughters of the Shadow and Shadowland: Power Man. One focuses on a lower tier character and the other is introducing a brand new character all together. Yep, I’m nervous, too, but we’ll see what happens during the SHAKEDOWN!

For more on Infinite Man & Aron Fist, click here!

Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net

Aron White
aron@comicattack.net