For a while there I was slightly concerned that there would be no first appearance Daredevil. Most of the time throughout Marvel Legends history, whenever we’ve had a release of the standard red-suited Daredevil, there has been a variant “first appearance” costume followup. However, a traditional red-suit version showed up in a Spider-Man wave with no variant. Gasp! It seemed criminal, especially since the last first appearance Daredevil was on that horrible early Hasbro body. Scrawny, skinny, weirdly crotched — it was a mess.
With a brand new Daredevil getting the best release he’s ever had, I wondered if a first appearance costume had missed its shot. Then SDCC came along, and a Walgreens-exclusive first appearance Daredevil was announced. Oh happy days.
I’m oldish and getting older every day, but I’m not quite old enough to have been around when this was Daredevil’s main costume; however, I am old enough so that this was the costume Daredevil was wearing when I read my first Daredevil story. Through the magical world of reprint comics like Marvel Tales, which reprinted comics from the ’60s, I first ran across Daredevil teaming up with Spider-Man to combat the Circus of Crime. I had no idea that this story was chronologically unbound and I didn’t care because back then was a wonderful time when classic and modern mingled together freely and was not an obnoxious argument. This, of course, led me to pick up my first issue of the actual Daredevil comic, where he was wearing his traditional red suit.
I figured he had changed his costume … and I was right. I was just a dozen years or so out of synch.
Long-winded point being, it wouldn’t have been right to not get a version of his first appearance costume on this superior Daredevil body. Now with the pair of them, I finally feel complete. Thanks Walgreens!
Daredevil is on the sleek Black Panther body with the same billy clubs and holster of the previous Daredevil figure. I like the fact that these billy clubs can slot together with a peg, but the trade off is an awkward fit in his holster. I’d have preferred them to be a bit shorter also. I do like that these are red instead of white. Daredevil’s clubs have switched back and forth between red and white so often I sometimes can’t keep it straight what color they’re supposed to be. If you have both and enjoy symmetry, you can give these red clubs to your red-suited Daredevil and give the white ones to this one, or keep the red and white with their origin figure. Either way, you have options now.
This body is perfect for Daredevil. I know a lot of people think he shouldn’t be so ripped, but Daredevil is a gymnast who swings through New York all the time. The dude’s life is upper-body work. This body is fine.
Daredevil comes with an alternate Matt Murdock head. And by that I mean he comes with a Hawkeye head painted with the appropriate head and hair colors. It’s a decent-enough reuse and a nice addition that will work well on a spare Chameleon or Coulson body if you want a lawyer Murdock figure. I wasn’t overly fond of the head for Hawkeye, and It really doesn’t do much for me here either, but if you like it then it opens up another avenue of Murdockness.
His costume is pretty simple, so there’s not a lot of room for error. The dot details on his boots are a little off, but not enough for me to care about. This has the true first appearance single-D on his chest, and it’s sized a little large in order to negotiate the ab crunch and still be a D. I think it works pretty well based on that.
Overall this is a well-done variant that I’m glad found a home somewhere. If we can get an armored ’90s-styled Daredevil at some point, that would be pretty cool, but for right now I’m very happy to have these two versions. He’s been showing up at Walgreens lumped in with the Spidey wave, with a more concerted roll-out expected in December. He’s also showing up on the Walgreens website in and out of stock, so keep checking there. I wasn’t having any luck in the stores, so that’s where I got mine. It was a little pricier, but worth it to not have to keep checking stores.