I read my first issue of Daredevil back in 1979. I was 11 years old, vacationing at York Beach, ME, and my time was divided between playing video games, buying comic books and running around the town and the beach. All in all it was a delightful vacation, and the activities I enjoyed the most then have always had a strange attraction the further in my life I have progressed.
I bought quite a few comics back then, mostly indiscriminantly. I don’t recall what my opinion of Daredevil was at the time. I remember my brother Brian became a big fan of the Fantastic Four, and I became a big fan of the Avengers and Captain America. Among all the comics we bought that year and the next few, there are only a few issues of Daredevil. There is little to indicate how important the story of Daredevil would become for me.
The next time I read Daredevil was in 1988. I was a sophmore in college and my neighbor down the hall had some trade paperback comics in his bookcase. One day I borrowed “Daredevil: Born Again” written by Frank Miller. It made a very great impression on me. Matt Murdock had everything he wanted, a career, friends, money. Systematically these things were taken away. The Kingpin learned that Matt Murdock the lawyer and Daredevil the vigilante were one and the same, and he intended to hurt Daredevil by destroying his actual life. The Kingpin’s revenge was outwardly simple, but the way Matt unraveled fascinated him. Matt was a man living on the edge, and the pressure the Kingpin applied pushed him over. His subsequent actions make little sense at first. He alienated his friends and his Daredevil persona became increasingly violent. But I think I understood as I read the story why Matt would react that way. Matt had spent himself pursuing justice as both sides of the coin, the lawyer and the vigilante. His ability to balance one against the other was all that kept him from becoming a danger to himself and to others. Without an ability to practice law, Matt lost sight of the reasons he fought for justice as Daredevil. This led to the crisis which led to his near death at the hands of the Kingpin.
In the end, Matt lost a number of things. His ability to practice law, his home, many of his friends, much of his money. Yet after it all, Matt maintained that he lost nothing. These things were burdens which had been lifted from him, and he was happier now than he was before. For a time I think that that was true, but after awhile these things were returned to him and he seemed happier for it. His life more and more resembled the life that had been taken away.
The Kingpin tried to hurt Matt again, this time more subtly. He found the perfect weapon to use against Matt, a woman named Mary who could torment both Matt and Daredevil. Mary destroyed Matt, but Daredevil somehow remained. In a series of stories written by Ann Nocenti, Daredevil left New York City and simply wandered around for a time. Readers were critical. They couldn’t understand how Matt could just leave. Who was Daredevil without the city. The intermediate stories were troublesome, but the begining and end stories involving Mephisto deserve accolades. Nocenti got to the core of Matt and Daredevil in these stories. Unfortunately readers wanted Daredevil fighting his old villains. They failed to see that his greatest enemies lurked within.
When Ann Nocenti left the title, the stories became unbearable for me to read. All the comics I was reading at the time were going through creative difficulties, but Daredevil’s problems were the most troubling. After all, DD was the reason I had gotten back into reading comics. I decided that the best thing to do was to give comics up completely. And within a couple months I had. For four years I bought no new comics.
Last year (1996) I decided to investigate what had happened while I was gone. I went to a local comic convention at S. Plainfield, NJ and browsed around. The comic market had collapsed and the collectible card market appeared to be in bad shape. Many vendors were just dumping stock and I quickly picked up hundreds of issues of the comics I used to read for about $0.50 each and sometimes less. Daredevil was still a disappointment. They destroyed his life again to try to instill new vigor in the title, but it was done poorly and without consideration to who Daredevil was. I still buy the issues, but the stories for me have become meaningless. I wish to see Matt struggling with his past, not going toe to toe with the villain of the month. Perhaps some writer will come along and resurrect the title, building on the great work of Miller and Nocenti. Until that happens, Daredevil is just another crime fighter. No substance at all.
Daredevil Links on the WebLast modified: May 12th, 1997
Kevin Chase