Customer Reviews

Essential Daredevil Volume 1 TPB

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once upon a time I bought every comic book that Marvel put out each month. Of course, that was back when comic books were about a quarter apiece. Then suddenly there was a giant proliferation of titles, the New Universe line, and everything else they could think of to throw our way. When "Conan the Barbarian" went down for the count I cut back big time and was reading only two Marvel title: Iron Man and Daredevil. I always thought there was some sort of significance to the combination, since there were relatively unique as Marvel superheroes without super-strength. I started reading "Iron Man" around the time Tony Stark starting hitting the bottle big time but "Daredevil" was the second Marvel comic I started reading after "Spider-Man." I liked the fact that Matt Murdock was a lawyer; actually I thought they should have played it up a lot more than they ever did in the comic.

I suspect "The Essential Daredevil, Volume 1" is going to receive a lot of attention once the movie version opens at the end of this week. Unfortunately, readers might be put off by the fact that they are not going to find Electra, Bullseye or the Kingpin of the Frank Miller glory years in these reprints of the first 25 issues of "Daredevil: The Man Without Fear!" They will find good ol' Franklin "Foggy "Nelson, as well as Karen Page, and even Mike Murdock, along with guest appearances by Spider-Man (#16), the Thing (#2), and Namor the Sub-Mariner (#7). Reading these issues again I was struck by how much trouble DD had finding really good villains. I think borrowing Electro from Spider-Man for issue #2 was a mistake, because that works against establishing the character on his own terms (ditto with the Ox in #15). The Owl (#3, #20) seems like a second rate Vulture, the Stilt-Man (#8) seems one of the most impractical villains ever, and it is a toss up as to who is sillier, the Matador (#5) or the Leap Frog (#25). Mr. Fear (#6) is the villain who should be pop up the most as DD's obvious counterpart, but it is the Gladiator (#18, #19, #23) who gets the most storylines. However, the best stories are those where Daredevil goes up against heroes like the Sub-Mariner, Ka-Zar (#12, #13, #24) and Spider-Man. No wonder it took a long time for Daredevil to find his own villains (the Jester was my favorite until the Kingpin became the major player in the series).

The front cover lists Stan Lee, Wallace Wood, John Romita, Gene Colan & Friends, which means a couple of significant artists get dumped in the "Friends" category, namely Bill Everett and Joe Orlando, who drew the first issues, along with Jack Kirby, who did layouts for Romita to ink on a couple of issues. With all due respect to the remarkable transformation Frank Miller in terms of writing and page layouts, Gene Colan was always by favorite Daredevil artist. I always liked the fluidity of his art, not only on DD but also "Dr. Strange" and "Dracula," not to mention the way he drew the ladies in general and the Black Widow in particular. The 25 stories represented in this collection are not the best Daredevil stories, but they are the groundwork for what was to come. Hopefully the fact that the movie has come out will get them to put out the next couple of volumes in this series (although we know they will stop long before they get to Miller's issues, which I believe are already available in full color reprints).

I actually owned several of these early issues at one time and it has been great reading through them again. I am a long time DD fan and love this collection. The black and white format did not in any way detract from my enjoyment. I was relieved to find the paper and ink quality has greatly improved with this collection. Some of the other essential collections for other charaters has been awful. I personally feel the stories Stan Lee wrote for these early issues were some of his best. And the art is the best of its time period. In this collection we get to see pages penciled by the great Jack Kirby, Wally Wood (who designed DD's traditional red costume), John Romita Sr., and Gene Colon. These stories are just plain fun and adventure before DD became the intense, brooding and, often times, tragic character he is today. Take my word for it: if you love DD as much as I do pick up this first volume of twenty-five issues, it will not disappoint.

It is so fascinating to compare the art styles of the three giants of comic art represented in this collection. After a so-so start with Bill Everett and Joe Orlando (inked by Vince Colletta), Wally Wood takes over with his eccentric, disciplined, almost scientific approach to illustrating castles, weird inventions and other gee-whiz stuff. Then John Romita brings his muscular, vibrant, dynamic and organic compositions to the title, and it really comes alive (his work looks exactly like the bright, catchy, somewhat "cartoony" classics Romita did for Spiderman as that character's best artist). Next comes Gene Colan, who's facile virtuosity, flowing figures, and unique camera angles became the definitive Daredevil "look" that originally caught my young eyes back in the '60s. Stan Lee's trademaked psuedo-hip wisecracking and underlying decency bring nostalgic warmth and amusement to my heart. Though the art has never been equaled and looks strong in black and white, this series of reprints should be in color! And not the phony computor color they're using nowadays with the little airbrushed-looking highlights, but just plain old ordinary flat comic book color like they had in the ones my mother threw out.

i'm about halfway through this collection, and it's not so bad. it does have that kinda corny 60s dialogue, but that's the way comics were back then. i am twenty years old, and i just started reading comics. when i was younger, i watched all the cartoons and collected the cards, but i never actually read the comics. now that i have started, i've realized how worth reading all of these comics are! anyway, if you want to start getting into Daredevil, this would be a good collection to read. once you get past it, i would read some of the issues that Frank Miller wrote. those are supposed to be some of the best. as a new comic-reader, i am open to reccomendations of good comics that i should read. if anyone has anything they think i should read, please let me know.

this has been Apollyon

This book contains the tales of the early adventures of Daredevil, a(nother) hero with two identities. Afetr a childhood accident, Matthew Murdock had radioactive waste poured in his face in an accident. He lost his sense of sight permanently, but his other senses were sharpened so much it hurts. Matt kept his senses as well as his natural acrobatic abilities a secret as he grew up and became a lawyer, opening a law office with Franklin "Foggy" Nelson. But when the murderers of Matthew's father are found innocant in court, Matt becomes the vigilante Daredevil to hunt them down, and eventually decides to war on all crime. One of the subpolts is about the love triangle between Matt, the law office's secretary Karen Page and Foggy Nelson.

This anthology collects the first twenty-five issues of the 60's Daredevil comics by Stan Lee and various artists, mostly Wallace Wood and John Romita. These issues are pretty enjoyable and contain several classics. These issues are light-hearted compared to the works of Frank Millar and later writers, nothing very dark or angsty. Anyone looking for the comic that inspiured the motion picture should look somewhere else; in fact, neither Elektra, Kinpin or Bullseye appear in this compilation.

However, their are many famous Daredevil villains making their first appearances: the Owl, Purple Man, Mr. Fear, Stilt-Man, Gladiator, the Masked Marauder, the Masked Matador, the group which will later become the Unholy Trio, Plunderer and the Leap-Frog. There are minor one-time villains like the Organizer and Klaus Kruger. In addition we have some guest villains from other comic series, including Electro, Ox, Eel and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. Finally there are crossovers in which Daredevils fights alongsie(or against) Spider-Man and Ka-Zar. Also of note is that Daredevil wears a yellow-and-black costume at first(but you won't be able to tell with the balck & white) until he changes into his more familiar red costume in the seventh issue. Finally there's a mysterious new character introduced in the final issue, and my only regret is that he doen't show up more often.

If you are excited, then you must make a choice: the classic Daredevil issues are collected in two differant forms. The Essentials are chunky phonebooks with black-and-white pages and a spine that falls apart, but it's cheaper and collects more comics. The Marvel Masterworks is fancy with color on nice pages and oftern intros by Stan Lee, but the downside is a higher price and that it only collects about ten issues per volume.

It is quite obvious, that with all the material that Stan Lee had to write each month, that obvious structural patterns in each book would develop, simply because of Lee's workload. If you haven't noticed, most of Lee's hero's have a girlfriend they want, but can never have, are noble, enjoy being a hero and forgo workload and social life to continue that interest.

Such is the case with Daredevil, which is a truly original idea in using a blind person as a Superhero. However, Daredevil, after the first brilliant issue, is left with the cliche' love interest that of course he can never have, a workload that he forgoes due to his superhero activities, and the usual noble character trait that drives him to being a hero. Therefore Matt Murdock comes across as somewhat one dimensional. Too bad. On top of that artwork was a bit uneven. We see good, but ineffective efforts, by many fine artists including John Romita, but it is Gene Colan that finally breaks Daredevil open and defines the character for the rest of the decade. That art, really stands out from the rest of the book!

Many complain about the black and white in these Essential issues, but this reveals the true work of the artist and you never get that when it is masked by color. Here we see, for the first time, how good Colan's work is and how well he brought Daredevil to light. Since this is the first issue we don't see the great Kingpin saga's yet to come, but we do meet Spiderman and it is great to see Daredevil know when he is outmatched by someone else instead of getting the usual "I can defeat him" lines. Overall, this books is great to have, just realize that Daredevil is having some growing pains and it will be many more, unreleased issues to come, before Daredevil finds his niche.

Having read the first 25 issues of Daredevil when they first appeared, I remember how much I enjoyed them. However, that was a time when I was younger and the audience was less sophisticated. In reading the dialog in this collection, I was struck by how repetitive it was. Matt Murdock is blind, yet possesses such heightened senses that he has an awareness of his surroundings that is superior to the sighted person. This allows him to function as Daredevil, a costumed crime fighter that must constantly remind the reader of those heightened senses. In caption after caption, Daredevil (Matt) mentions that he is blind, usually something like, "Imagine if they knew that they were fighting a man who cannot see!"
These reminders take away from the action, which is drawn with such skill. There is no color in the interior of the book, which limits what can be done, yet the level of detail is still striking. I also found some amusement in the verbal sound effects. Words like "Thum" and "Thud" for the sounds of a club, "Thik" and "Krrack" for the sounds of bullets and "Thak" and "Chupp" for the sounds of punching. At one point, Stan Lee pokes fun at that, informing us in one caption that the second consecutive n in a sound effect is silent.
This book is a walk down memory lane for me. As is the case with nearly all returns to your childhood, the memory is better than the fact. Nevertheless, this collection of the first 25 issues of Daredevil was fun to read and I recommend it to everyone interested in comics, especially how they have developed over time.