Mild spoilers for Daredevil to follow.

Marvel's Daredevil has a nickname: "The Man Without Fear." The comic book publisher's movie studio should claim the title for themselves. Logic doesn't dictate Marvel. Rules won't limit it. And every punch is expertly calculated, even when the target isn't in sight. They appear blind to convention only to deliver. Fittingly, Marvel's Daredevil, the studio's first collaboration with Netflix, tinkers with a machine that isn't broken. The show's thrills are ingrained in the departure.

Daredevil, created by LOST veteran Drew Goddard and overseen by Spartacus creator Steven DeKnight, is only a "Marvel Cinematic Universe" fixture at its core. The show's exterior recasts the high fructose, splash page aesthetic of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America with neo-noir attitude. Goddard and DeKnight drench Daredevil in shadows and blood. The latter comes as a bit of a shock. Flinch and one mistakes Daredevil for a TV spinoff of Christopher Nolan's Batfilms, morose and willing to break a few bones. That doesn't happen in the MCU. At worst, Tony Stark spits a little blood after a Hulk-sized punch. Daredevil is Marvel After Dark, violent, morally hazy, and peppered with cusses—closer to HBO's animated Spawn series than anything that's come before it. The show forsakes the Walt Disney Pictures logo for a reason.

When the rights to Daredevil reverted back to Marvel Studios from 20th Century Fox in 2013, the Internet's nerd factions yelped like sports nuts over LeBron's return to the Cavs. The MCU was in a financial and critical prime. Daredevil could finally come out to play. The hero didn't earn his own movie (everyone's still reeling from Ben Affleck's 2003 version), nor did he show up for a flyby in a Thor or Captain America post-credits scene. Instead, the blind hero went straight to Netflix, kicking off a four-series franchise set to culminate in the streaming service's answer to The Avengers. It was the right move. Faithful to the comics, Matt Murdock, the man behind the mask, is a prodigy lawyer trying to start his own firm in New York City's Hell's Kitchen. By night, he's a Batman-esque detective, investigating a human trafficking ring run out of the same hood. Both sides play into the procedural genre's brightest qualities, giving the series episodic and standalone elements primed for binging.

Judging from the first five episodes, Charlie Cox is the reason to watch Daredevil. Previously seen in Boardwalk Empire and the Oscar-nominated Theory of Everything, the actor adds a new flavor to the MCU: calm, cool, and collected. As Murdock, Cox is a thoughtful protector of the innocent, his disability amplifying, not only the rest of his senses, but his intellect and sensitivity. He's a swinging pendulum who succumbs to darkness when he puts on his proto-Daredevil threads (sorry, no red leather comic costume just yet). On the streets, Murdock unleashes a bloody hell upon wrongdoers—the Grim Reaper in a ninja costume.

On the big screen, Marvel's heroes live and breathe their identities. Daredevil is the first Marvel property to deal in secrets. The serial format allows Daredevil to drift back and forth between present and past, sparing audiences from a straightforward origin story. Murdock wrestles with the past as he confronts the present, watching his two lives intersect with disastrous results. The duality gives the everyman Cox plenty to chew on. Even when his sidekick Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) suffocates scenes with wisecracks and Daredevil's central mystery meanders through back alleys, Cox prevails with his determination, conveyed entirely under the cover of sunglasses. The relationship he forges with Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple, a no-bullshit source of wisdom and bandages, is up there with Marvel's Peggy Carter-Steve Rogers romance. That little sweetness provides a much needed cut through the darkness.

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Did we mention Daredevil was dark? While more reserved than the CG bloodbath on DeKnight's Spartacus, Daredevil establishes its style with instances of Murdock repeatedly smashing a man's face with his fist and a terrified goon impaling his own eye socket to escape a murderous employer. This is not your grandpappy's MCU (your grandpappy loved Iron Man). The hard-R style allows the smaller-scale action to maintain Marvel's big screen thrills. A sequence in the second episode is part 24, part Oldboy, a one-take choreographed frenzy that demonstrates just how brutal Murdock can get if kidnapped children are on the line. Daredevil's owes a great deal to Asian crime cinema's threaded narratives and violent crescendos, turning the show into more of a comic book version of The Departed than a fight-of-the-week drama like ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..

There's a downside to Daredevil: Not every scene can involve Matt Murdock. Throughout the first half of the season, the show splinters Foggy and victim-turned-secretary Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) off on to their own investigation, teaming the pair with an investigative journalist antsy to peer into Hell's Kitchen's underbelly. It's an overly complicated, crippling thread, reminiscent of the Star Wars prequel's explanatory trade federation BS. What Daredevil takes five episodes to do, it could do in three, a problem that could derail binge-watchers. Trudging through this mud is worth it for the big bad's reveal. Vincent D'Onofrio costars as Wilson Fisk a.k.a. The Kingpin, an introverted mobster prone to Tony Soprano-like fits of violence. Wrong him and he'll drain your head with a car door. Daredevil takes time to nuance the character, unheard of for a villain in the MCU. Fisk is a romantic, an idealist, a fighter, and not terribly different than his costumed opponent. When his master plan comes into view, Daredevil can't completely write it off.

Daredevil is hardboiled and undercooked, another gamble from The Studio Without Fear that could pay off over time. Luckily, what works—Cox's intensity and the sucker punching to match—prevails over what doesn't (we wanted to like you, Foggy) and that's enough to demand attention. If Daredevil goes on to a second season, it could evolve into a great cable drama. If it doesn't… well, that's the beauty of Marvel. Once in the MCU, always in the MCU. With Netflix's A.K.A. Jessica Jones on the horizon, Luke Cage and Iron Fist series to come, the proposed Defenders team-up for the lot of 'em, and enough Marvel movies to squeeze in an inevitable cameo, this won't be the last time we see Cox suit up as Daredevil. Which works out for fans: he's perfect for the role.

Daredevil premieres on April 10 at 12:01 AM PT.

Matt Patches Senior Writer Patches is a Senior Writer at Esquire.com.

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