A review by crookedtreehouse
Daredevil by Mark Waid & Chris Samne, Vol. 1 by Mark Waid
5.0
I started reading Marvel comics as a teenager because I picked up a copy of X-Men vs Fantastic Four #1 when I was hanging out with someone I thought was cool, and was trying to impress. This led to a couple of years following the X-Men comics before losing touch with comics for five or six years.
When I got back into comics, I started picking up other titles, and found that I preferred the street level characters: Spider-Man and Daredevil, and a few years down the line Punisher and Hawkeye.
I had lost all interest in Daredevil during the Shadowland run, and apart from reading X-titles out of habit, had mostly abandoned Marvel and DC for Image comics and some of the less-mainstream biographies and other non-superhero books. But I still read comic sites that talked about ongoing titles so that I could continue to recommend books to customers with an affinity to superhero books, without being the old guy who told everybody to read Watchmen or Fables because he'd grown out of touch with more recent books.
Some article mentioned that Mark Waid's run on Daredevil was really refreshing, as it marked the first time in twenty-five years that Daredevil was smiling on the page of a comic. So I picked it up. The smiling wasn't the hook, though. [a:Paolo Rivera|16432718|Paolo Rivera|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s layouts are spectacular in this book. And, sure, his art is miles away from the Maleev/Gaydos/Mack/Quesada/Lark/Francavilla eras, but that's as refreshing as Waid's lighter tone in writing.
I love that this isn't a fresh start, and yet Matt Murdock is virtually unrecognizable from the previous runs. Sure, he's still a blind lawyer playing dressup and fighting crime, but the Catholig guilt noose has been cut away from him, and he's started to be more focused on solving problems than brooding over past mistakes.
While, after Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada's run, I never felt like the Catholocism in Daredevil was rammed into the reader's eyes, it was always there. The guilt. The rituals. The guilt. The brooding. The need to confess. The belief that you're being punished for being imperfect. I enjoyed the story, but it was So Heavy.
Waid has, at least for now, lifted that heaviness away. Do terrible things still happen? Yes. Innocent people are still targeted. Criminals still win sometimes. But it's not because of some judgey old white guy's God, it's just life. And instead of waiting for God to give him answers about things, Murdock is finally just trying to solve problems to move forward, not atone for his past.
When I got back into comics, I started picking up other titles, and found that I preferred the street level characters: Spider-Man and Daredevil, and a few years down the line Punisher and Hawkeye.
I had lost all interest in Daredevil during the Shadowland run, and apart from reading X-titles out of habit, had mostly abandoned Marvel and DC for Image comics and some of the less-mainstream biographies and other non-superhero books. But I still read comic sites that talked about ongoing titles so that I could continue to recommend books to customers with an affinity to superhero books, without being the old guy who told everybody to read Watchmen or Fables because he'd grown out of touch with more recent books.
Some article mentioned that Mark Waid's run on Daredevil was really refreshing, as it marked the first time in twenty-five years that Daredevil was smiling on the page of a comic. So I picked it up. The smiling wasn't the hook, though. [a:Paolo Rivera|16432718|Paolo Rivera|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s layouts are spectacular in this book. And, sure, his art is miles away from the Maleev/Gaydos/Mack/Quesada/Lark/Francavilla eras, but that's as refreshing as Waid's lighter tone in writing.
I love that this isn't a fresh start, and yet Matt Murdock is virtually unrecognizable from the previous runs. Sure, he's still a blind lawyer playing dressup and fighting crime, but the Catholig guilt noose has been cut away from him, and he's started to be more focused on solving problems than brooding over past mistakes.
While, after Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada's run, I never felt like the Catholocism in Daredevil was rammed into the reader's eyes, it was always there. The guilt. The rituals. The guilt. The brooding. The need to confess. The belief that you're being punished for being imperfect. I enjoyed the story, but it was So Heavy.
Waid has, at least for now, lifted that heaviness away. Do terrible things still happen? Yes. Innocent people are still targeted. Criminals still win sometimes. But it's not because of some judgey old white guy's God, it's just life. And instead of waiting for God to give him answers about things, Murdock is finally just trying to solve problems to move forward, not atone for his past.