Mark Waid and his artistic collaborators in Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin bring us a refreshing take on the Man Without Fear. Waid returns Daredevil to its swashbuckling roots which is light-years away from the Frank Miller inspired stories that came after Miller's seminal run. I like this new direction very much. Superheroes need to move away from the dark and gritty era that has influenced mainstream books for more than a quarter century.So how did Waid deal with the fallout from the misguided Shadowland miniseries and the looming presence of recent Bendis and Brubaker runs? The Shadowland fallout was dealt with in two issues with an awesome battle with Captain America. The revealing of Matt Murdock and Daredevil being one and the same, which was the most popular consequence of the Bendis and Brubaker runs was given an interesting treatment by Waid. It formed an integral backbone of his run. This impaired Murdock's ability to practice law so he comes with an interesting solution that is integrating into the writer's ongoing narrative.The art tandem of Rivera and Martin is top-notch and matches the superb writing of Waid well. The two handle half of this collection and their styles actually mesh well. Both of them push the boundaries of their storytelling skills. It's like every issue has an innovative technique that would make Will Eisner proud. It's easy to easy why the two of them deserves their Eisner awards.This is pretty much a seminal book that would influence other books of the same vein like Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye and Charles Soule's She-Hulk. Dumb, brightly-colored, optimistic Daredevil. It's not complex, interesting, meaningful, or funny. I picked this up hoping for more of the lighthearted (though surprisingly empathetic) sort of material that Matt Fraction's Hawkeye is.Unfortunately, there's nothing much to this. It reminds me of golden age comics. If you miss and love those, read this. It's very much like them. It's a better version, in some ways (not all), in fact. Matt Murdock doesn't seem like real person here though, not even as much as he did in Frank Miller's or Brian Michael Bendis' versions. Read those instead, if you haven't.
What do You think about Daredevil, Volume 1 (2012)?
beautifully illustrated and a solid story
—dpurser
