I thought I'd try this. These threads are fun for me even though I don't think they're read all that much. But everybody loves Daredevil so maybe this one will be different!

We'll see how far I can get. I'll probably have long bouts of not writing in it, but maybe other people will keep the thread alive during those periods. (Beachy?)

So! I'll go mostly in publication order ... BUT! There is nothing wrong with the occasional continuity-implant/retcon series!

So I thought I'd start with

BATTLIN' JACK MURDOCK issues 1-4
The trade collection of this reads pretty fast -- probably faster than a Stan Lee Daredevil issue, despite being four times that length. In the Doot Canon, I think of this as Daredevil Issue 0.

It's written by Zeb Wells, who I think is one of the best guys out there doing superhero comics right now. Just about everything I've read by him has been excellent. And this series might be my favorite of his.

The artist (also credited with co-creating the story with Wells) is real good too. Carmine Di Giandomenico, whose work I only know from this and from "Magneto Testament" (which is itself kind of an X-Men #0, so this artist has really established himself as part of the "origins" in the Doot's canon of favorite superheroes). I believe "Testament" came before "Battlin'." The former deals with "heavier" subject matter, but I think the latter is the more affecting work.

THE PREMISE
Kind of a "high concept" series, based on the bit in Daredevil's origin wherein his father Jack has to take a dive during his fight, but ultimately chooses to prove to his son that he's a winner. He wins the fight but pays a fatal price for it.

In this miniseries, Jack has to take a dive during the fourth round specifically. (That's a retcon; in the original comic by Lee and Everett, it's the first round.) So each issue is labelled not "Part 1," "Part 2," etc., but rather "Round 1," "Round 2" ... So the framing sequence is all set during the fight, and in flashbacks Jack takes the reader through key points in his life, starting with when Maggie first leaves him with baby Matt.)

RET-CONS AND SUCH
Plot-wise, this is essentially the classic Daredevil origin story, but told from Jack's perspective. I've read a lot of DD comics but not always systematically, so I forget sometimes what elements from the origin come from which re-tellings. I know Frank Miller added a lot, of course. For example, in the version of the origin by Wells and Di Giandomenico, Jack was a successful boxer who eventually fell on hard times and ended up being an enforcer for The Fixer. Eventually The Fixer realizes he can make more money out of Jack by putting him back in the ring for some fixed fights. Whereas in the Lee/Everett origin, the bit about being a head-breaker for The Fixer is not an element at all. In the 1960s original, Jack is a successful boxer who simply loses his heat and gets fewer and fewer bouts, and eventually turns to The Fixer in desperation.

I know Miller added the "enforcer" angle for the non-canonical Man Without Fear miniseries, but I can't recall if that was also something Miller added to DD's origin in the regular ongoing as well. I suppose I'll find out. But the parallelism of Jack enforcing the Fixer's will with a large club is such a great a bit of parallel imagery that it's obvious why it would have appealed to Miller years ago, and then decades later to the "Battlin'" creators. (Miller even had Jack wear a mask while working as a thug, pushing the parallelism further, although Wells and Di Giandeomenico eschew that bit for story purposes.)


That said, Wells and Di Giandomenico do incorporate a LOT of Frank Miller stuff into the backstory here. The material with Maggie is the most obvious, but we also get to meet Josie as a young woman -- well before she's the hardened older lady behind the bar of Josie's in Miller's material -- and Turk as a little kid!

Sounds a little cutesy, but I think it works in context. "Battlin'" also gives us an easter egg in the form of Jack's opponent during his final, fateful fight. In the original comics, it's someone named ... I forget now. "Dynamite Dyson" or something like that. Wells and Di Giandomenico retains the alliteration but add an Easter Egg. It's Crusher Creel! OMG! I think I read an interview with one of the creators and they were asked about that choice. They said it was just done for fun, with no larger agenda. It feels like it would make more sense -- or at least have more of a dramatically ironic ring -- if the Absorbing Man were a recurring Daredevil villain. But he isn't, really. (Although there is a Daredevil/Absorbing Man fight sometime in 1996 or 1997, I believe? Sometime during the "Heroes Reborn" stuff. All of Crusher Creel's usual enemies were off being drawn by Rob Liefeld, so he went after Daredevil instead.)

THE ARC
Ultimately, easter-eggs and continuity-implants aside, this series aims to turn Jack Murdock into more than a "dead-parent" plot device that spurs Matt's transformation into Daredevil (a parent in a refrigerator, if you will), and flesh the man out into a more well-rounded character. Since Jack's fate is sealed and all of us readers know it, the story is largely an internal one. At the core of Jack's conflict is the question of whether he's a good man or a bad man, which he sees in terms of "strength" vs. "weakness." There are other binary constructs and motifs at play as well, many of which fit into the "contradiction" motifs that have already been part of Daredevil. The idea of Jack enforcing the Fixer's will with a club is given large focus, like I mentioned earlier, alongside a monologue about how "laws" are just ideas that can be argued or ignored, whereas you can't do either against a strong man with a big stick. A core contradiction in Matt Murdock's life, spelled out early on.

THE STORY
Believe it or not, despite the fact that so much of the plot is locked-in by established canon, there is a distinct narrative here that adds some twists and turns to what had already been established about the character of Jack Murdock. I won't spoil them in this thread, but they're all very shrewdly done, and -- somewhat remarkably -- manage to enrich to the established Daredevil origin without messing anything up or overcomplicating the simple tragedy that's at the core of the original story. If anything, one could argue that some of the retcons actually make the origin a bit more coherent, and even more powerful. I won't lie, I shed some man-tears during the final pages of this one.

FINAL THOUGHTS
If you're a DD fan -- particularly of the Frank Miller version of the character -- this is a wonderful story. Beautifully written and very well-drawn. An origin story ret-con/rewrite that works; tightly structured, thematically coherent, with plenty of clever bits and surprising twists. And an ending that still packs an emotional punch even though any fan of the character knows exactly what's coming, before the story even begins. Brilliant work.

NEXT TIME
Stan Lee and Bill Everett's Daredevil #1!

DAREDEVIL #1

STRUCTURE
We start with Daredevil in action, then dive into the origin story, then return to the action. Classic A-B-A comic-book superhero origin stuff, am I right? Probably it was all Stan's idea and Bill Everett had no input whatsoever into that decision. Stan is the credited writer after all. Therefore legal, therefore good.

PART A
Daredevil busts into Fogwell's gym and beats up a bunch of thugs. But he's really after their leader, The Fixer.

PART B
Tons and tons of exposition! Anyone reading this thread probably knows the drill, right? Jack Murdock is a fighter in his waning years, and he promised Matt's mother (now deceased) that he'd raise their son to be more than just a tough guy. So Jack makes Matt study hard and never pursue athletics or sports. This makes Matt into something of a pariah, whom the neighborhood school children ironically nickname "ol' Daredevil!" (Kids can be so cruel!)

Matt decides that even if he can't explicitly engage in athletics, he can still train in secret. So he does, even as he continues to study. Meanwhile, Jack Murdock becomes affiliated with The Fixer, who sculpts the aging boxer into a champion by fixing a bunch of fights in Jack's favor.

Then the fateful day comes when a blind man is crossing the street and is almost hit by a truck carrying a bunch of radioactive chemicals on the back. Matt pushes the old man out of the way and the truck swerves, not hitting either of them. But alas, some radioactive schmutz is spilled. Right in Matt's eyes!

He's blinded, but the radioactivity enhances his other senses. We're also told that it might have enhanced both his mind and his body too, since after that his studies seem to come easier to him. I think that stuff has been tacitly retconned away after this first issue. I don't recall a lot of references to Matt's intellect having been artificially juiced up. And as for Matt's increased athleticism, that will eventually be retconned into having a quasi-mystical component when Miller adds Stick and all the "ninja" training into Matt's backstory. But, I get ahead of myself!

Matt continues to be super-smart, so much so that he gets into law school, where he meets Franklin "Foggy" Nelson. After they graduate, they start a law firm, Nelson and Murdock. The firm has only one employee apart from the guys whose names are on the door: Karen Page, the receptionist.

Then comes the night when Jack has the biggest fight of his life, and The Fixer tells him to throw the fight in the first round. (Not the fourth, like in the Zeb Wells version, but that's a pretty minor detail.) Jack decides that he wants to make his son proud of him, so he knocks out his opponent, as an awesome "F you" to the Fixer. The Fixer, of course, has Jack killed in return.

Matt decides he wants to get revenge on The Fixer, but he also wants to keep his promise about not being a "tough guy." His very lawyer-like loophole of a solution is to come up with an alternate costumed identity. "Daredevil" will be a tough guy, but Matt Murdock will not. Shysters, am I right?

BACK TO PART A
Daredevil is still at Fogwell's gym, waiting for the Fixer to show up, along with Slade, the trigger man who actually shot Jack. When they do, Daredevil goes after both of them. He gains the advantage pretty quickly, but in a moment of arrogance he lets them both escape. A chase ensues, leading to a subway tunnel. DD manages to get the better of Slade and capture him, but when he chases The Fixer, there's one last twist: The Fixer dies of a heart attack, before Matt can really lay a hand on the guy.

In an epilogue, Slade calls Nelson and Murdock to defend him in court. Foggy turns him down since he doesn't want to defend someone who's so blatantly guilty. Matt says he doesn't mind that. "Not one little bit!" Thus, no dramatic conflicts of interest between Matt's law career and his vigilante career in this first story. But there will certainly be plenty of time for that kind of thing in many many stories to come, so why rush it?

WHAT'S HERE, RIGHT FROM THE START
Quite a lot! The Jack/Matt material is all solidly in place, even if people like Miller and Wells will add some tweaks in later years. The contradictions at the heart of Daredevil are all set, including the big one about breaking his promise to his father literally every time he puts on the suit to dispense vigilante justice.

The super-powers are pretty much exactly set. The range of DD's "super-senses" will kind of vary from story to story depending on the needs of the plot, but the parameters that are laid out in this first issue pretty much ring true for the character, even today. (Well, the part about being able to tell what color different fabrics are by touch, that's been dialed back a bit, I think.)

The suit will eventually be tweaked, but even that ... It's not like this costume is miles away from the all-red one that will become his iconic look. (Trivia fact: My own personal Battling Jack, Doot Senior, maintains that the original yellow suit was a cooler Daredevil costume, noting "He looked like Iron Man!" I don't agree. It's the all-red suit or bust, man. I hope he and I aren't still arguing about this right up to the day I get blinded by radioactive schmutz.)

Fogwell's Gym is here right from issue 1, and that locale will always loom large in the DD legend. "Nelson and Murdock" will forever be the name of the law firm, and it's established right here. (When I say forever, I know that actually the firm will have its occasional mutations ... but it will always reset back to Nelson and Murdock.)

Our two supporting characters are here right from the start. I have to say, I've never been hugely impressed with Stan when it comes to Foggy and Karen. We've already established that Matt stole Iron Man's yellow-and-red motif, and I'd go a step further and suggest that Foggy and Karen are pretty much Happy and Pepper, version 2.0. Heck, Foggy and Happy are so alike you could pretty much cast the same actor to play both of them in film versions.

I don't know how long Stan milked the Stark/Happy/Pepper love triangle, but ... he definitely milks the Matt/Foggy/Karen one for ... let's say "for a minute," as the young people like to put it. That said, there's not a lot of "romance comic"-style soap opera in this first issue. We learn that Karen looks at Matt as someone she'd like to "take care of." Meanwhile, Foggy wishes that she would speak in such a loving tone about him ... at the same time, he's Matt's best buddy since college after all, so he can't resist talking up Matt when he speaks of him to Karen. Then again, he says specifically that Matt gets around perfectly well despite his handicap, which sounds positive but maybe the subtle implication is, "He doesn't need a woman to take care of him! But ME, on the other hand...." More on this love triangle as it develops (and then quickly starts spinning its wheels).

P.S. It's always bugged my aesthetics ever-so-slightly that Matt's best friend is Foggy and Jack's gym was Fogwell's, but there's no actual connection there. It's just a bit of redundancy as Stan and Bill were naming things in this first issue. It's ever so slightly distracting to me.

RETCONS (i.e., WHAT'S IMPLICITLY HERE FROM THE START, BUT TECHNICALLY ISN'T THERE UNTIL LATER)
I already mentioned the retcon involving Matt's mom. There's also the whole "Irish Catholic" component that Frank Miller will add later, but which makes perfect sense with what we see. "Murdock" is an Americanization of "Murdoch," an Irish name. And Matt didn't choose bat imagery to try and scare the superstitious, cowardly criminals. He chose "devil" imagery, implying a Catholic upbringing. It's kinda already there if you squint.

Also of note: Fogwell's is said to be on the "Lower West Side" of New York, which is the only really specific geographical bit we're given for any of the action in this story. The idea that Matt is tied to the area of Manhattan known as "Hell's Kitchen" is another of those really obvious linguistic connections to make, so much so that it just seems intuitive, like it was always a part of the DD mythos ... but it's not in issue 1. Is that another bit not added until Frank Millers comes on board? At any rate, Hell's Kitchen is on the West Side of Manhattan, though I'm not sure if it would be considered "lower West side." Probably close enough though, I'm guessing.

I WAS SURPRISED TO NOTE
They seem to suggest that Matt is only 22 in this story, but that doesn't seem quite right if he's already out of law school. Unless he's some kinda prodigy. Or possibly my math is wrong. Did Stan think you could just do four years of college and that was all the lawyer-schooling a person needed? Or, wait a minute ... WAS it all the schooling that you needed back in '64?

VILLAINS
The Fixer dies at the end of this story. He's one of those one-off "origin story" villains like Joe Chill or "guy who shot Uncle Ben." I'm somewhat surprised, now that I think on it, that no writer has ever brought back Slade, the man who actually shot Jack Murdock and who is alive at the end of this story. The name is catchy enough to belong to a recurring villain, a la Slade Wilson. Hm. Well, if I ever get a crack at writing Daredevil, I'm totally bringing back Slade.

ARTWORK
The art by Bill Everett in this issue is sweet, man. I especially love that opening panel of the front of Foswell's gym. So much detail crammed into that one page. Speaking of pages, his Karen Page is totally "Sixties Hot." (P.S. When I was younger it messed with my brain that Everett didn't draw the celebrated "DD vs. Namor" issue, since I knew Namor was his creation. It's still a little weird to me.)

Everett's work on the character-faces for all the various thugs is great, too. I'm not entirely persuaded by the superhero action visuals, which seem a little bland to me compared to what Kirby or Ditko were doing at this same time. But the regular people and locations are great.

WRITING
Not Stan's best. Is Daredevil the last original creation to headline a Silver Age series? Certainly at this point we already had Thor, Iron Man, Cap, Spidey, FF, Hulk, X-Men, (Gi)Ant-Man ... Who else? Doc Strange? I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe Stan was running out of ideas. A Spider-Man-like origin and power-set, and Iron Man-like costume and supporting cast ... Don't get me wrong, I love Daredevil and I do think he's got a great origin story ... but Stan doesn't seem at his most inspired. DD at this point is quippy like Spider-Man, but I don't find him all that funny in this opening issue. Eventually Stan found a unique comedic groove for DD when he created Mike Murdock ... but for now, most of the dialogue in this issue is a bit tepid.

That said, there are a couple moments that speak to the cool things that can be done with this power-set. Right from this first issue we get the "lie detector" aspect of DD's super-senses, and there is at least one example of Daredevil punching out a thug, who was sneaking up behind, without seeming to ever look at the guy. Which of course, to all the other thugs watching, makes DD seem to have a supernatural quality. Reminiscent of some authors' takes on Batman, in a way (including Miller's!). But yeah, the idea of a radar-like power that lets a superhero "see" in 360 degrees is a cool one, and Lee does already seem to be having fun with that.

FINAL THOUGHTS
As much as I love Daredevil, and as impressive as it is that so much of the character is very solidly established right here from Day One, I have to say that I find Lee's writing in this issue to be a tad on the tedious side. The origin story in the middle is awesome, but the superhero material is a little bland with all the lackluster quips. The twist of Fixer having a heart attack is nice, though.

And Foggy and Karen have potential for soap opera stuff, but Lee and/or Everett seem to run out of room just doing the origin bit, so they're really just window dressing in this first issue.

Ultimately, this is one of those Silver Age first issues that is notable for its potential but not really a home-run right from the get-go, at least not for me. Not surprising, I suppose, for a non-Kirby/non-Ditko piece.

NEXT:
Electro! Already, Karen has a rival for DD's affections, in the form of an exotic, sai-wielding ninja from Matt's past ... Wait, that can't be right.

This sounds interesting, as does a thread about reading Daredevil comics. There certainly was a time where
i had read every Daredevil comic. Even when I quit buying new comic books in the 1990s, I really didn't,
because I would still pick up DD (maybe not every month, but every other month or so where I was still able
to get both issues at the store I went to).

Battlin' Jack sounds like something I'd like.

As for being 22 years old, I just had a look at lawyer requirements. Apparently you need to earn a Bachelor's Degree
first, then complete a three-year JD (Juris Doctor) degree. Along the way you must pass a LSAT (Law School Admission
Test), intern as a Clerk, and "Pass the Bar" (a State by State Examination. Matt must complete one later for California
and probably some others as well since he tended to be Marvel Heroes' Lawer de arbitrium).

Anyway, so it looks like it wouldn't be too difficult for a driven man (who's not tempted to watch a lot of TV) to become a
lawyer in about six years. Might have been even easier in the late 1950s, so I can buy Matt being only 22.

This thread has already encouraged me to pick up and reread Daredevil Yellow to revisit what the team of Loeb and
Sale modified and added to for DD's Origin. Later retcons and flashbacks never stick with me as much as the tales
in the older books. And I never did finish Man Without Fear. I was buying it as it came out, and I just got annoyed
with how long it was taking. And, out of principle (I feel NO mini or maxi series should be started before the who thing
is completed), I never bought the last issue.

I never really thought about how old Foggy must have been (always assumed they were about the same age), but he
might be older than Matt, since he seemed to struggle more in his studies. But, he is also shown to be rather clever
in his own areas, and he has the rich-boy privilege background, so Mommy do doubt helped move him along.

My Dad had to go to Law School after college way back when.

I read that X-Men #1 may have filled Daredevil's publishing slot because Everett was so late with the art. He was an art director in Massachusetts and didn't have time to draw the comic. Ditko and Sol Brodsky inked some figures and backgrounds and Sol cobbled together the Kirby drawing for the cover and splash. Also, Kirby came up with the billy club and may have helped with DD's costume and layouts but no one is sure about that.

Yeah, I really should look at issue #1 again to see if I can see the Ditko in it.

You're just trying to provoke me!

This is an epic undertaking of epic proportions.

Maybe he has an Epic collection to help him.

Of course I will be skipping 1978-1987 because that part of the run is tainted by Shooter.

I might have one or two ...

I would never!

Did you continue reading through to issue 380, when they cancelled it and started with a new #1?

I'd say Battlin' Jack is definitely worth your time, and I'd love to hear your opinion of it!

For you.

Oh, you did say that.

I thought Daredevil was great right from the start, an excellent origin issue, and got even better when Wally Wood came on board.

Yeah, good call. It's probably just that I'm jaded from having read the origin re-told so many times. I get on board with issue 2. And I'll never have anything bad to say about the Wally Wood issues.

Oddly enough, I found an essay online that addresses the law-school thing.  I wasn't searching specifically for that (though I was specifically looking for stuff about Daredevil), but there it was!  A fascinating essay written by a lawyer, basically confirming that Stan didn't know what he was talking about, and thought that after four years of undergraduate school, a couple of dudes like Matt and Foggy could just go ahead and open up a law firm.  Totes inaccures.

Also, I should note that I was not quite accurate myself when I said that Stan says Matt is 22 in this issue.  What he does is write a flashback to when Matt was eight years old and he says explicitly that it's 1950.  For a comic published circa 1964, that puts Matt at 22.  But given the sliding timescale of Marvel, that "1950" date is pretty meaningless.  So ultimately the idea of Matt becoming a lawyer with only an undergraduate degree can be handwaved away.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Daredevil Yellow as well. I really like that series. As I recall, it retells only the first four issues of the original comic (even though DD had the yellow suit for the first ... six or seven issues, right?). There's not too terribly much to the story, but I love Tim Sale's reinterpretation of those earliest Silver Age stories and villains.

There's a book of essays about Daredevil ... I want to say it's called "Devil in the Details"? Very very inconsistent in quality from essay to essay, but there is a great one called something like "The Life and Times of Foggy Nelson" that pulls together a coherent portrait of that character, from all the different interpretations of him by different writers over the course of the Daredevil comic's history.

Oh, and Miller and Romita's "Man Without Fear" is my absolute favorite Daredevil comic. I love every single thing about it.

Wow, so X-Men might not have existed if Everett hadn't been late? I had no idea! Interesting connection between my two favorite Silver Age comics. (Well, two of my three favorites, I guess ... can't forget The Hulk.)

That's cool that Kirby created the billy club too. I knew none of these things!

DAREDEVIL #2

THE STUFF THAT HAPPENS
A bunch of herpa-derp with the Fantastic Four wanting to hire Nelson and Murdock. It strikes me as so borderline nonsensical that it's not even worth going into the details, but the upshot is that while the FF are out of town getting an award from the president, Matt Murdock has to visit their empty headquarters, the Baxter Building. Fate contrives that Electro is in there at the same time to rob it, leading to a DD vs. Electro battle. Daredevil wins, but Matt never gets to do what he was supposed to do, so the FF decide not to hire Nelson and Murdock after all.

THE VILLAIN
The previous issue promised in its "Next" blurb that in issue 2, Daredevil would face his first super-powered villain. Stan didn't lie, although it is interesting that he and artist Joe Orlando didn't create an original villain as DD's inaugural super-adversary. In a way, this is appropriate. These early Silver Age issues are always interesting in how they set certain things into a character or franchise's very DNA. In this case, it's pressed into Daredevil right from the start that he will poach Spider-Man foes for his own rogues' gallery. Including the Kingpin, the #1 Daredevil villain. There will be a couple others in the Silver Age before Miller does the Kingpin too. The Beetle comes to mind ... maybe some others? In the early 90s, they had Venom and Calypso show up a couple of times in the DD series, and then Kevin Smith had a hugely significant storyline with Mysterio as the main villain (which wasn't the first time Mysterio had showed up in the DD series). Mark Waid decided to follow suit when he took over in the 2010s or whenever that was, adding 80s Spidey villain The Spot to DD's rogues' gallery AND having Spidey's former lover the Black Cat become a DD love interest for a bit. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. At any rate, it's not my favorite thing about Daredevil. I prefer a hero to have his own rogues' gallery unto himself, and not poach from others. Ah well. At least Daredevil will never steal villains from any other heroes. Dr. Doom, Trapster, Cobra, Mr. Hyde ... those guys belong to Daredevil and NO ONE ELSE.

All of that said! Unlike the Kingpin, who was successfully stolen, Electro will always be considered a Spider-Man rogue, but that won't stop him from being a recurring Daredevil villain too, throughout the entire Silver Age.

SWASHBUCKLIN'
I just read an interview with Brian Michael Bendis where he talks about how the original Daredevil stories feel less like superhero comics and more like pulp adventures. That's an interesting lens through which to view early Daredevil, which hadn't occurred to me. But it was fresh in my mind on this reread of issue #2, and it really increased my enjoyment of it. I previously had never liked it much because it seemed kind of all over the place. But when I thought of it in terms of pulp adventure, it suddenly did make more sense to me. We see Matt Murdock, a guy whose powers are definitely not in FF or Spidey class, but scaled back -- that alone makes him feel a little old-school. And in this issue, he not only fights a guy shooting bolts of electricity at him, but he also ends up flying to space in a rocket, which he then crash-lands back on earth; he charges after the villain on horseback at one point, and then uses his cane to hook himself onto the bottom of a helicopter, then rides it until it passes a tower, into which Daredevil crashes via the skylight. His chase then takes him across town and into a Broadway theater where he interrupts a showgirl revue, which is my personal favorite element. The whole issue should have been about Daredevil and the showgirls, IMO.

It's a great example of Daredevil in "swashbuckler" mode, before the "ninja" and "crime/noir" stuff was woven into him. So, I'm turned around on this issue, I think. It's a pretty grand, sweeping adventure.

ARTWORK
Joe Orlando! I know he's a legend like Bill Everett but I know little of his work. I like it in this issue, though. It doesn't feel as typically "Silver Age Marvel" to me, which also adds to the sense of Daredevil being of a different, earlier era.

DIALOGUE
This issue doesn't have quite as much of DD doing "poor man's Spider-Man"-style quips, so that's nice. He's a bit more of a silent hero, which is how I always knew him, reading his 1980s-era incarnation as a kid. Granted, he doesn't seem all that silent because he's constantly got thought balloons over him explaining how he's using his powers to perceive the world despite his blindness. Stan really didn't give the readers a lot of credit here; he seems to think they'll need constant reminders of how Daredevil is doing all the stuff he does despite being sightless. This is one of those issues where one almost wishes that the first-person narrative caption had been invented, because Daredevil just thinking all this stuff to himself makes it sound like he constantly has to give himself mental pep talks. "It's easy for me to tell how close I am to the helicopter, just from the sound of the rotors!" and stuff like that. Still, from Electro's POV, DD must be coming off as very taciturn compared to Spidey.

SOAP OPERA
Karen knows a guy who knows a guy ... the upshot is there's an operation that could restore Matt's sight. But Matt doesn't want to risk the possibility that regaining his sight would make him lose his powers. I feel like I've seen this plot point criticized in reviews of the early DD issues, but I've never quite been on board with the criticisms. The powers are completely unscientific, so "radiation" aside, he pretty much got them by magic. Why NOT be paranoid that messing around with the source code of the powers might "break the spell"? Actually seems perfectly rational to me. He basically is entered into a contract with fate. What honest lawyer would ever be anxious to break a contract?

Also, Karen keeps a picture of Matt Murdock in her desk. Foggy makes some irritated noises when he learns about it, but also isn't surprised. This and the last issue both suggest that Foggy knows that Karen has a thing for Matt even though she's never made her feelings explicit ... Good intuition, Foggy! But I feel like later issues will have Foggy be not so discerning. At this point, the love-triangle stuff is still very much implied and in the background for this series. I don't think that's going to last much longer. Which is good, because I love the soap opera ... but also bad, because there's only so far you can go with soap opera when you only have three characters in your series.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The bad element of reading Daredevil comics in chronological story order with continuity implants like "Battlin' Jack Murdock" in there is that there's a huge tonal clash. To go from "Battlin'" to issue 1 and now to issue 2 is to go from a gritty, down-to-earth character piece with just a few action elements ... all the way to Daredevil flying a rocketship solo, and crashlanding it in Central Park. It's weird.

But taking this issue on its own terms, I've come to like it, particularly the audacity of the chase sequence that goes from rocketship to horseback to hanging-from-helicopter to dropping-through-skylight to showgirls. That's awesome. I'd love to write a musical with a sequence like that, but the horses might be tricky. Guess I'll skip straight to the showgirls! (Did Frank Miller get the idea for Batman-on-horseback from this old DD issue? Probably not, but it would be cool if he had.)

An enjoyable issue.

NEXT ISSUE
Wolverine! No, wait ... The Owl! Sorry, the hair and the three metal claws on each hand confused me ....

(P.S. There's a great splash page of the hot Broadway showgirls when this issue gets quasi-retold in Daredevil Yellow.)

Through #380, yes.

I think I bought issue #1, but also used it as a stepping off point. I couldn't stay away, though, so I picked up
an issue or two later, then filled in the missing gaps. I didn't leave for real until sometime during Waid's run,
which was not a reflection of Waid but of events in my life.

My original reading order of DD was #1-38 (where my Dad stopped buying them), then I picked up my first
issue with #101 and bought whatever DD book came to my town after that. An older friend of mine sold me
issue #80 from his personal collection. I am weakest on the DD lore between #39 and 100 because a good
chunk of those I bought all at once from a mail order dealer (so it was a big one-time info dump and not savored
like a monthly comic would be, plus I had to fill in small gaps in the collection after the fact many years later.
So I've never read them all sequentially. Daredevil was the first "big set" of comics I ever completed though.
Next was probably Avengers, as it was my next favorite book.*


* and I got to say "Avengers Assembled" afterwards.

Good call. But also you'll need to skip 1966-1973, because that part of the run is tainted by Gene Colan, as revealed in the spat with Shooter. We can't really be sure who to believe, or make a decisive judgment as to who and who is not a bad person. So it's best to steer clear of the Colan and Shooter eras.

But otherwise you should get a good sense of the rich history of Daredevil.