Daredevil Epic Collection vol. 1: The Man Without Fear

 Date Completed: 27 Apr., 2025

Grade: B-

Daredevil is probably the last Marvel Superhero who originated in the Silver Age whose early books I haven't yet read (Captain America kinda fit this mold too until I started this chronological reading of the Epic Collections). I had read Daredevil comics before, and even the occasional silver age book (I bought a few when I was young), but Daredevil was always one of those comics that I wanted to read, and just never got around to it. It was interesting to see how he was treated in the volume: the early issues referencing Spider-Man seemed like Stan Lee really wanted to duplicate the same success he had with Spidey for Daredevil. However, Daredevil lacked a wide supporting cast and his own villains. Besides Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, there really wasn't any other characters in Daredevil's private life (outside his father who dies in the first issue). Stan seemed to recycle a lot of Spider-Man's supervillains to fight Daredevil, and so he seemed to lack his own rogue's gallery (outside the Owl, Purple Man, and Gladiator). I suspect this may be a continual problem for DD, as a Spider-Man villain, the Kingpin, eventually becomes his arch nemesis (Or so I've thought from the few later issues I've read). I suppose the rotating door of artists also didn't help, as it felt like Marvel was treating the Daredevil book as an afterthought, with even mentions by Lee saying Romita had to do other work so a Different artist took over (and even lee himself admitted to not fully scripting one of the books because he went on vacation!).

So despite criticisms, there are still some great adventure stories in here. I loved the Wally Wood era when he introduced Daredevil's red costume, and was building up the secrets of the Billy club and what it could do (something that seems to have mostly been dropped by Romita afterward). Seeing early John Romita art is always fun, including some early Spider-Man work, and his typical version of Peter Parker. The extras included int he back were very interesting too! 



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