Really That Good: Frank Miller’s Daredevil

As a comic snob and Silver Age fanboy (I still don’t think the Marvel Age work on Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Thor has ever been topped), there’s always been a part of me that’s wanted to say that Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil is overrated.

A lot of that impulse comes from it being known as the Daredevil run and from future creators’ attempts at recapturing that magic.

Every time the Hand has shown up in the last 30 years, it’s been a snooze-fest, Stick is a frankly unnecessary retcon to throw into the mix 20 years into the book’s existence, and the focus on grim misery that’s largely defined all Daredevil media has broken free of the fun-loving DARE aspect of Daredevil’s name to focus on the Devil.

I’ve recently gotten close to completing a full run of Daredevil (or at least close to a full run of Daredevil starting around issue 80…those Silver Age prices are slowing me down), and I figured, if I’ve got all these comics lying around, I should do a massive read through of every Daredevil comic in my possession.

So I’m chugging my way through and enjoying the various runs…going to San Francisco with Black Widow, Steve Gerber taking things in a sci-fi direction (let’s revist Matt’s relationship with Moondragon!), then finally getting to the Marv Wolfman and Roger McKenzie runs.

As I’m reading them, I’m like “Wait, is all the good stuff from the Frank Miller run just set up here? Wolfman introduces Bullseye with a banger of a story. He occasionally gets a goofy gag (trying to shoot Daredevil with a MASSIVE arrow is a great one), but on the whole, he’s almost instantly a compelling villain. Then we get Roger McKenzie taking over and introducing Ben Urich