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This is it. This is my Daredevil.

Published 1993

I was 8 when the 2003 Daredevil movie came out and it was rated PG-13, so my first experience with this character was the Netflix (now Disney+) show. This comic is clearly what the show tried very hard to be, which won it quite a lot of critical acclaim. And yet, it still doesn’t quite live up to the heights of this book.

Now Frank Miller, the writer, has started to go a little insane in recent years (Dark Knight 3: Master Race). But in this era? He had a rare writing trait that I see very rarely in comics: Momentum. I would read through 4 pages, realize I hadn’t looked at any of the art, and force myself to go back and look. The writing just carries you forward with such force that you want to keep going.

On top of that, we also see the dry humor that is such a staple of the show. I can easily hear the actors’ voices when I read these panels:

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The art from John Romita Jr, meanwhile, is what I call “Good 90s”. See, the 90s, especially later 90s, were… shall we say, overdesigned:

Liefeld holds a lot of the blame here, but this was a general 90s trend. In an effort to make things seem more gritty and grimy they just kept adding more and more lines to their penciling. Problem is, too many lines haphazardly placed start to muddy the image. It’s the comic equivalent to a Michael Bay Transformers action scene.

But Romita Jr. manages to give this book that 90s edge while still making the finer details legible, even in the rain.

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If you’re a big fan of the TV show, definitely check this out. But be advised: this version of the character only avoids killing if it is convenient. But sometimes a grenade presents itself, and what is a Daredevil to do? Ignore it? Impossible.