How To Read Daredevil In Five Seasons, 1:The Man Without Fear

I'll get to the final two seasons of Batman before the end of time (I wrote a Season Eight note that was eaten by Facebook a couple of months ago, and just looking at that pile of books again makes me weep), but in the blindwhile:

With no computer last week, I was able to set aside time for some serious graphic novel reading. I read nearly all of the Daredevil that's been collected in trade format, and decided to make a continuity of my favorite titles for you to enjoy.

Much like the first season of the Batman continuity, a lot of the first season of Daredevil is written by Frank Miller and the team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Neither Miller nor Loeb are currently my favorite writers (The Frank Miller of the twenty-first century is misogynist, racist, zealot whose work shouldn't even be picked up with borrowed tongs. Seriously, if you pick up a book by Frank Miller with a copyright date that begins with "2", put it down, find an adult, and put a pot on the stove so you can boil your eyes pure again. Post 2007, Jeph Loeb's writing became erratic when his teenage son died, which is much more human and much less problematic than Miller's downfall but still pretty disappointing.) but their early work on two of my favorite comic book characters can't be ignored.

There's a variety of entry points to the Daredevil (hereafter referred to as DD) continuity, including Miller's own origin series "The Man Without Fear" (art by John Romita Jr., another promising talent who has been largely disappointing in the last decade). While Miller's 1980s work on DD is filled with three dimensional characters and interesting plotting, "The Man Without Fear" was written in the mid-nineties and, while not as misogynistic and filled with zealotry as his twenty-first century work, it's still problematic. The man created Elektra Natchios and gave her a cool origin story in his 80s DD run, but in this version of her origin, she's a groin-kicking, oversexed "bad-ass" much like every woman in Sin City. So skip the book entirely and start season one on a happy note.

Daredevil Season One:
The Man Without Fear
(showrunners: Frank Miller and Klaus Janson)

Serial 1: Daredevil Yellow (2 episodes) by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale is a fun, swashbuckling DD adventure that you won't be seeing again for a looooooooong time. Watch how the son of Battlin' Jack Murdock becomes the blind savior of Hell's Kitchen. You get to meet his close friend Foggy Nelson, and his interesting assistant Karen Page (who is awesome without being a groin-kicking, oversexed bad-ass). You also get to see him face two villains who will become important way down the line. And it's fun to imagine that they were in jail for over an entire season, compared to the revolving door villain problem over in Batman. And, as always, Tim Sale's art is gorgeous.

​
But now we delve into the Frank Miller run, a weirdly fun 80s continuity. Serial 2: Daredevil Visionaries Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Volume 1 (5 episodes) throws you into a storyline by Roger Mckenzie (and later Dave Michelinie) with pencils by Miller and inks by Janson. DD is an established superhero who works with Russian superspy, The Black Widow by night, but works at the lawfirm of Murdock and Nelson (good old Foggy) during the day. Karen Page is no longer the plucky assistant (don't you hate when they recast roles after an awesome pilot?) and Matt is now involved with a woman named Heather. The villains in this initial run are kooky and fun in a borderline silver-age way, including the hilariously inept criminal Turk (who I'll just hope received the nickname because the man is a turkey and not as a reference to his ethnic origin). It's not too long however before Bullseye shows up, and any time Bullseye is in a DD story, you can be sure somebody important is going to die. There are also cameos from The Hulk, Doctor Octopus, and Spider-Man, and we get to see The Gladiator in action. Although pretty much every issue in this could be a stand-alone story, the world building in the DD series is so much more impressive than the Batman continuity, it's kind of amazing. 


In fact, the stories roll right into Serial 3: Daredevil Visionaries Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Volume 2 (5 episodes) which is one of the most genre-defining superhero stories of its time. Now writing as well as penciling the series, Frank Miller gives us The Elektra saga. Turk, The Kingpin, Bullseye, The Gladiator, and The Hand are twisted around the lives of Matt Murdock and his DD persona. I don't have a heart, so I can't speak to it being wrenching, but it's certainly more emotionally satisfying than most 1980s superhero stories. And there are a lot of densely packed panels of dialog and internal monologue. If you don't know what happens in The Elektra saga, I won't spoil it for you, but daaaaaaaaaamn.


Serial 4: Daredevil Visionaries Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Volume 3 (4 episodes) concludes Season One (so easy to put this season together) by keeping all the same characters from volume two in play and throwing The Punisher into the mix, and bringing The Black Widow back. While Volume 2 is a great example of a character-driven soap-operaesque serial, Volume 3 turns the DD & Bullseye story into a morality play that far outshines the "Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker?" storylines in the DC universe. I mean the DD / Bullseye relationship is all kinds of fucked up, and it gets almost too-real. The end of the original Frank Miller run has a pretty devastating ending that would have easily worked as the end of the series.


Episode 17: Daredevil Love's Labors Lost, by Dennis O'Neil and Frank Miller, gives us our final story with Heather, and the first real uncluttered glimpse of Foggy & Murdock's complicated friendship. Frank Miller does co-plot the end of the collection, and the highlight is the art by David Mazzucchelli, who worked with Frank Miller on Batman: Year One.


In fact, Mazzucchelli stays on the book for the return of Frank Miller as the writer for Serial 5: Daredevil Born Again (2 episodes), where Karen Page returns and just completely fucks up what's left of Matt Murdock's life. The usual supporting cast: Kingpin, Gladiator, and Foggy all appear, but we also get some time with Captain America, and a villain called Nuke. Plus, maybe, possibly, we meet Matt Murdock's mom.


Now we step slightly away from Matt Murdock's tumultuous life to see Frank Miller and Bill Sienkewicz team up for the first time (this book started to come out a year before "Love And War" but it's a better fit, chronologically, here) in Episode 20: Elektra Assassin. This origin story for Elektra is weeeeeeeeird and wonderful and should probably not be read on hallucinogens.  But it should definitely be read.


If you watch Doctor Who, you know that between seasons (or sometimes between halves of the season) they do a Christmas special which is part of continuity but is usually a break from the overall storyline. In the spirit of that the Midseason Special is a potentially hard to track down graphic novel by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz called Daredevil Love And War is a creepy story of obsession involving characters you'll never see again, but it's also the love story of The Kingpin and his wife, Vanessa (who was a minor character in Miller/Janson omniboo). While the story is classic good Frank Miller, it's the Sienkewicz art that makes this a creepy must-read.

Season 1 is 20 episodes and a mid-season special.