Whether you’re waiting for Daredevil and Kingpin to return in Born Again or just want to celebrate the Man Without Fear’s 60th anniversary, these ten comics from Marvel are sure to get you caught up and excited for new Daredevil stories.
Daredevil is celebrating his 60th anniversary this year. While the year was supposed to be run in with the launch of Daredevil: Born Again, that doesn’t men there won’t be any celebration.
Whether you’re celebrating Daredevil’s 60th anniversary or are patiently waiting for the next MCU adventure, here are the ten best Daredevil comics and where you can buy them.
Contents
- The Man Without Fear
- Guardian Devil
- Daredevil: Yellow
- Out
- The Red Fist Saga
- Daredevil by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee
- The Devil in Cell Block D
- Devil’s Reign
- Last Hand
- Born Again
10. The Man Without Fear
Fans of the Netflix series will be quick to recognize Man Without Fear. The seminal series by industry legends Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. laid the groundwork for the Netflix series and is the inspiration for much of Daredevil’s modern backstory.
Released in 1993, The Man Without Fear is a five-issue retelling of Daredevil’s origins. After decades of being embroiled in an eternal conflict with The Hand, this tale returned Matt to a street-level Marvel hero, updating his origins as a crime fighter and how he evolved into Daredevil.
These days, Daredevil’s origin is fairly well explored. But for 1993, this return to form led to a darker, grittier Daredevil than fans were accustomed to, setting the stage for much of the hero’s crime drama-inspired stories at the turn of the century.
9. Guardian Devil
Though a distant memory today, the Marvel Knights relaunch was a really incredible time to be a comic fan. After a period of downturn in the ‘90s, the relaunch returned characters like Black Panther and the Inhumans to prominence.
Daredevil was the marquee character of the Marvel Knight comics imprint, with a very high-profile story written by Kevin Smith and drawn by Joe Quesada. Guardian Devil puts Matt’s role as a superhero and his faith as a Catholic directly at odds when he finds himself safeguarding a baby who may be the antichrist.
The story was praised at release for its classic Daredevil stylings and how it humanized the characters, though its twist-ending villain met with some disappointment from fans. While the comic itself has yet to be adapted, much of its imagery and its climactic Bullseye fight made their way to Daredevil Season 3.
8. Daredevil: Yellow
If The Man Without Fear retold the heroic origins of Daredevil, then Yellow retells the human origins. Set shortly after Guardian Devil, this mini-series by the superstar team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale explores the early days of Daredevil when he was still running around in his original yellow and red suit.
Yellow is framed as an exploration of the grieving process, with Matt writing letters to the deceased Karen Page to cope with her loss. In the letters, Matt recounts his early days as a costumed adventurer and the formation of his early law firm with Karen and Foggy.
Yellow was part of a series of stories by Loeb and Sale, who by this time were an acclaimed duo for their work on Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons. It’s certainly a more modern and emotional take on Daredevil’s beginnings, but it’s a lovely counterpoint to grim and dark Man Without Fear.
7. Out
Out by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev features one of the most shocking modern Daredevil moments: the public reveal of Matt Murdock’s identity.
It’s not necessarily a new idea. After all, the legendary Born Again begins with Karen Page selling Matt’s identity, information that makes it’s way to the Kingpin.
But Out does it in such a grander, messier scale. Matt Murdock is outed as Daredevil in a tabloid, and his already unusual personal life offers a weirdly immediate validity to the claim. Matt struggles not just with the reality of being exposed, but the domino effect it has on his personal and professional life. The revelations of Out would haunt Matt for the better part of a decade, making it a modern Daredevil must-read.
6. The Red Fist Saga
Ever since his vision was stolen, Matt Murdock has been on a collision course with destiny. He is fated to battle The Hand to a bitter end, raised to be a weapon to stop the cult from taking over the world.
The Red Fist Saga sees Matt finally forced to reckon with that reality. With the world believing Matt Murdock has died, he can fully commit himself to becoming Daredevil and joining Elektra as a leader of The Fist, an organization designed to destroy The Hand.
Red Fist Saga is the endgame of Chip Zdarsky’s legendary Daredevil run, with some truly spectacular moments, including Daredevil’s wedding and a confrontation with The Punisher. The story does lose some nuance if you’re a new reader, but there’s something here for everyone.
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5. Daredevil by Mark Waid & Chris Samnee
Daredevil comics have something of a reputation for being dark and melancholic. For 2011’s Daredevil relaunch, writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee changed that by giving the Man Without Fear some levity.
Recovering from being possessed by The Beast following the Shadowland event, Matt Murdock returns to New York, reinvigorated and seeking to reestablish himself. This run is unusually cavalier, with a Daredevil who could almost be described as swashbuckling.
Where most runs would dive back into the melancholy of Matt Murdock’s misery, Waid and Samnee’s run explores a Daredevil with a renewed lust for life, free from the shackles of guilt – or at least pretending to be. This run, spread across two volumes, also includes an incredible twist, making Daredevil’s identity public and relocating him from the dreary Hell’s Kitchen to sunny San Francisco.
4. The Devil in Cell Block D
Stuck in prison, the Kingpin plays the biggest card he’s been holding. In exchange for his release, he’ll tell the feds everything he knows about Matt Murdock’s actions as Daredevil.
Surprisingly, it works. Nothing they have on Kingpin can stick, and Matt’s actions are illegal. This leads to The Devil in Cell Block D, a story that sees Matt in prison awaiting trial. But he’s locked up with criminals he put away…and the Kingpin.
The Devil in Cell Block D is a hell of a story, told in the shadow of Marvel’s massive Civil War event. If the tension of Matt being locked in prison isn’t enough to entice you, then the mystery of just who the hell is running around Hell’s Kitchen in a Daredevil costume is sure to win you over.
3. Devil’s Reign
With the help of The Purple Man’s children, Matt Murdock erased everyone’s memory of him as Daredevil. He started his life over. But the Kingpin has discovered what was taken from him, and now he wants to make Daredevil pay.
Devil’s Reign follows Kingpin’s bid for bloody revenge after Daredevil messed with his mind, all while he attempts to cement his power as the mayor of New York. All of Marvel’s NYC heroes are here to lend a helping hand, but make no mistake about it: this is absolutely a Daredevil event.
Devil’s Reign is the payoff to a lot of big ideas, including the Kingpin’s evil Thunderbolts and the superhero ban in New York. It’s also the inspiration for the MCU’s Daredevil: Born Again revival, so there’s no better time than now to give it a read.
2. Last Hand
Matt Murdock may have the worst luck with his secret identity. The latest to discover he’s Daredevil may be the worst, though–it’s none other than his oldest foe, Bullseye.
But Bullseye is evil and twisted. He won’t just hunt down Matt and call it good. He wants to ruin him, and that involves picking a fight with someone very, very close to him. Someone who is supposedly the greatest assassin in the world.
Bullseye vs. Elektra is easily one of Marvel’s most iconic fights, and Last Hand is easily one of the most important single Daredevil stories ever published. The fallout of this story kicks off a lifetime of Daredevil arcs, and its ramifications are still being felt today.
1. Born Again
Karen Page left New York to become an actress, but she came back with a crippling drug addiction. She sells the only thing she has left: the secret identity of Daredevil. A piece of paper that drifts through the criminal underworld until it reaches the one person who knows what to do with it: the Kingpin.
The Kingpin systematically destroys everything about Matt Murdock: his reputation, his name, and even his home. Beating Daredevil in a fight, Kingpin fakes the unconscious Murdock’s death by placing him in the back of a stolen cab, sinking it in the East River, and waiting. And to the Kingpin’s shock, the car is found – but there’s no body.
It goes without saying that Born Again is THE Daredevil story, as a paranoid and broken Matt must find the will to fight back from a total loss. While its use as the title for the MCU reboot is likely more marketing than anything, the original Born Again is a tense trial by fire that made Daredevil a household name. Fans looking to find where the fascination with the character began need look no further to learn why Daredevil is known as the Man Without Fear.
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