POP! Marvel Daredevil

Company: Funko

Series: POP! Marvel

Year: 2015

Daredevil has easily been one of my favourite TV series for this year, and – true confession time – one of the few new series I’ve watched this year. It added a really good slant to the MCU, and while the surprisingly upbeat ending felt a bit at odds with the tone of the other episodes, it was still thoroughly enjoyable. Season 2 is eagerly anticipated. It was made even more enjoyable by my relative ignorance of the character; I know he's blind (but can virtually see anyway) and that Elektra died, but not too much more than that. The show really sold me on a character who I previously associated with the fun but heavily flawed Ben Affleck film. 

So now we have The Man Without Fear himself rendered in Funko form. There are currently two versions available, the red outfit reviewed today and his yellow “first appearance outfit”. That one's not out in Australia yet, but has been available in the US for a while.

There is very little paint, which I think is a good thing; it’s not really necessary to render the costume effectively. But if there was nothing but cast red plastic, it would be a bit dull – so a few select details have been picked out in a slightly different shade of red, namely his “eyes”, gloves, billy clubs, holster and boots. The string binding his billy clubs/walking cane together is painted black, and a black tampograph of his “DD” logo decorates his chest. He’s quite good; from the front, he’s almost perfect in fact. On the back of his head, he has some white marks – I’m not sure if this is stray paint, abrasions from being dropped, mould or glue. Not a major drama, but I was a little annoyed considering how well done everything else had been. Incidentally, he is a MUCH brighter red than you see here -- my photo set-up at home is quite primitive, which I hope to rectify soon.     

I’ll be a little surprised if we don’t see some TV-based Daredevil POPs, but it may take a while. Sometimes Marvel’s wheels seem to spin a little slowly – for example, in spite of Agent Coulson’s breakout popularity since the release of The Avengers, he only just got a POP this year. While I’m not entirely sure on the actual Daredevil costume that’s worn in the show, I am a big fan of the black ninja-esque costume he wears for most of the series -- so the sooner Funko get cracking on that, the better. In the meantime, this a great comic-based version, well worth picking up for any Marvel fan.