Essential Daredevil Volume 2 Tpb (Essentials)

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Summary: Stan Lee and Gene Colan take Daredevil to new heights
Review: To be clear on what book we are talking about here, this is Volume 2 of "The Essential Daredevil," which collects not only issues #26-48 and Special #1 of "Daredevil: The Man Without Fear!" but also issue #73 of "The Fantastic Four." The addition of this last story is great because it completes the story line from "Daredevil" #37-38 where Doctor Doom switches bodies with Daredevil so that he can attack the FF. That trio of stories is pretty much the high point of this collection so being able to read the entire story without cursing because Volume 3 of "The Essential Fantastic Four" ended about a year short of issue #73 is a good thing.

"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 liked Gene Colan's artwork and in "The Essential Daredevil, Volume 2" he is the book's artist, while Stan Lee continues with the scripting chores.

There are some major developments for the cast of characters in these issues. Having created a fake brother, Mike Murdock, to be Daredevil while Matt continues to be the blind lawyer, but eventually "Mike" gets killed (#41). Then there are the episodes where Daredevil ends up really being blind (#30-32), just to put DD through the wringer. Yes, some of the villains are pretty lame (the Beetle was always a joke and how the Stiltman survives a fight more than 30 seconds I will never know), but in #42 the Jester shows up and even if he is a combination of the Riddler and the Joker he is still one of the best DD villains and I like the cover of #45 where the two are fighting over a photograph of the Statue of Liberty. Spider-Man swings by in issue #27, Thor shows up in #30, and DD ends up fighting Captain America in #43.

The issues with Doctor Doom and the Jester are far and away the best of the bunch in this collection story-wise, but you also get the Cobra and Mr. Hyde, the Trapster, the Exterminator, and the Unholy Three, not to mention Foggy Nelson and Karen Page back at the office of Nelson & Murdock. Even with Jack Kirby drawing the "FF" issue, I will still argue the chief attraction here is Colan's artwork. His finest work for my money is always going to be "The Tomb of Dracula," the first two "Essentials" volumes of which are also out now, but "Daredevil" is pretty good as well and nobody in the Marvel Bullpen drew better women. That is why when Daredevil had to share his comic with the Black Widow it was a gift from the heavens.