Quote Originally Posted by Balakin View Post
You rate Soule's that high?
I'm currently reading it, I'm just after the whole "Hand in New York" big hoollaballoo and it's fun and good, and reads better than Waid's (which I gave up on because the episodic nature just didn't motivate me to read more) but it's nowhere near to Bendis or Brubaker to me.
Gonna re read Miller's straight after Soule's cause it's been a while and maybe I won't hate most of it this time.
Not sure what I don't like about Soule's, I think his plots are very predictable sometimes, to the point where the characters seem stupid for not knowing what's going on.
Also his new villains are ridiculous garbage, like bronze age Iron man level. In fact I take the Unicorn any day over Tenfingers or Muse (Muse is probably the worst, so edgy and so cliched).

He always manages to throw in some good twists that make me want to read more though but I'm surprised of your high rating.
Also, while I like Garney's art it took him a while to develop a good visual language for DD. His fight and parkour scenes were super generic and boring, could have been any other street level character. And the chin strap on the black costume is gonna be the death of me. He got better since then and I like his art style in general just not his storytelling (also those pink/red colors in the first arc were really ugly)
The first fill in artist in the second story arc was so much better, with sometimes "forgetting" drawing the chin strap and his action sequences were much more tactile and logical, down to earth.
Soule's run is not "amazing" but it's generally an overall quite enjoyable run which reminds me in parts of Denny O'Neill's run. There are some very high points but also some slow moments. Soule starts of slow but then he gets your heart beating rapidly as he progresses. Soule pleasantly surprised me several times. But yes, there are a couple of "dumb" moments. I'm not a fan of Muse either. I liked Blindspot's involvement in the Muse story. Ten Fingers pops up later in a very good albeit short arc which IMHO could have been fleshed out more. I also didn't take to Garney's art in the first arc and I agree with you that he takes time to develop. I also believe Soule masterfully made Matt's identity secret again.

I think also with Bendis, by the time I had started reading his run I'd heard so much hype I probably expected more. Maybe a reread with no stops ( I initially read it intermingled with other DD appearances and Marvel events) will help. With Brubaker, he started well but there were a few things that knocked my rating down such as Matt's relationship with Dakota North, some partly ridiculous stuff with Vanessa Fisk and his ending with Matt taking over the Hand.

From what I understand Soule also had another story to tell and it kind of shows at the end but Marvel obviously decided that it was Zdarsky’s time.