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Summary: The first eleven issues of "Daredevil" in reprinted color
Review: "Daredevil" finally became a hot comic book when Frank Miller took over as the artist, but I always liked the character from early on. In fact, "Daredevil" was the second Marvel superhero comic book I started reading after "Spider-Man" (the very first, for the record, was "Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos"). One thing I liked was the fact that Daredevil's alter ego, Matt Murdock, was a lawyer, an aspect that I thought they should have played up a lot more in the comic book over the years. Then there was the fact that I always like Gene Colan's artwork. However, "Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, Volume 1" brings together the first eleven issues of "Daredevil: The Man Without Fear," when the artists were Bill Everett, Joe Orlando, Wallace Wood, and Bob Powell. Clearly it was the character and not the parade of artists that made this comic book work, with Stan Lee doing all of the scripting except for #10, where Wood told the story.The Daredevil saga begins with the following tales: #1 "The Origin of Daredevil" has the superhero avenging the death of his father "Kid" Murdock at the hands of the Fixer; #2 "The Evil Menace of Electro" brings the Spider-Man villain in for a fight; #3 "The Owl, Ominous Overlord of Crime" has DD rescuing Karen Page from the Vulutre-wannabee; #4 "Killgrave, the Unbelievable Purple Man" gives off rays that allow him to manipulate the minds of people so they attack Daredevil; #5 "The Mysterious Masked Matador" is just a lame villain, sorry; #6 "Trapped by the Fellowship of Fear" has DD taking on the Ox, the Eel, and Mr. Fear, the last one being the best of the early Daredevil villains; #7 "In Mortal Combat with Sub-Mariner" has a great Wood cover of DD in his new red outfit and is my favorite early "Daredevil" story as Namor retains Murdock as his lawyer but ends up fighting DD; #8 "The Siltman Cometh" is another silly villain, but he does look sort of cool; #9 "That He May See" has Murdock checking out a possible operation to restore his sight; #10 "While the City Sleeps" the Organizer puts together the gang of Cat Man, Ape Man, Bird Man, and Frog Man, to frame our hero; and #11 "A Time TO Unmask" continues the fight with the Organizer's gang, and explains why there are eleven issues and not just ten in this first volume. The villains are less than stellar, but that is standard fare for the first year or two with most of Marvel's comics. The X-Men starting off with Magneto is the exception that proves the rule. But the chief attraction here is the character of Daredevil who has the standard comic book superhero problems when he does not have his costume on in that Matt loves Karen and Karen loves Matt, but either one of them mentioning this to the other is clearly too much to ask. Orlando does most of the drawing, but Wood's art makes a stronger impression. In "Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, Volume 2" Jazzy Johnny Romita will take over as artist and things will improve with Daredevil taking on Ka-Zar and Spider-Man. But there is something to be said for these early days of the yellow costumed Daredevil, even if he does not have the style of the Colan version of the cache of the Miller version. Besides, fans of the character have to go back to the beginning and with the Marvel Masterworks series they get to do it in full color.
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