Daredevil #1

One of the beautiful things about comic books is that the whole industry works on a cycle.

If there's a comic book you like, but the creative team takes it in a direction you don't care for, you just have to be patient. Very, very patient. And with luck, eventually it'll go back to the version you liked.

This issue of Daredevil is a great example. I started buying the series very early on - I think the issue where he first fights the Purple Man was the first one I read (is that issue #4?).

I loved the character - he was brash, funny and clever. He cracked jokes and used his wits to outsmart the bad guys.

Daredevil is, of course, lawyer Matt Murdock, who was blinded as a child when a radioactive cannister struck his eyes. He lost his vision, but his remaining senses were heightened, and he developed a radar sense.

Given his natural athletic gifts, he became Daredevil - a hero much like Spider-Man in style and attitude.

I liked the lighthearted Daredevil, but ever since Frank Miller's dark (but outstanding) series, the hero became more and more humorless, and recent series have left him barely human. His identity revealed, his career ruined - in Shadowlands he became a villain, for crying out loud.

But when that series finally crashed and burned, the character was put in the hands of a masterful creative team - writer Mark Waid and artist Paolo Rivera. So fnially, after years of waiting, the lighthearted Daredevil has finally returned.

Waid kicks the series off with the hero crashing a gangland wedding in order to protect a girl from kidnapping at the hands of The Spot - and it's a fun, fast and furious sequence.

We see Matt Murdoch and his best friend Foggy Nelson trying to rebuild their legal firm and uncovering a mystery in the process.

The artwork is very good - Rivera has a fresh, upbeat style that fits the mood of the title perfectly, as the action sequences are a frenetic treat.

Just one issue into the new run, and I'm sold - the original Daredevil is back in New York, and it's a fun comic to read.

Like Mom always said, "Patience hath virtue." Once again, it has paid off - here's hoping "my" version of DD sticks around for a good long while.

Grade: A-

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