Daredevil: Born Again


By Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3481-7

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan.

He battled thugs, gangsters, a plethora of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wise-cracking his way through life and life-threatening combat.

However in the late 1970s, under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and latterly grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Miller’s tenure on the series was groundbreaking, transformative, commercially successful and critically acclaimed, but – as is the nature of comicbooks – brief. After thoroughly shaking things up, the auteur moved on to other landmark projects, but was occasionally enticed over the years to return for short stints and special events to the troubled advocate of both legal and vigilante justice.

Miller’s initial run was measured by a number of powerful relationships he wove for the sightless swashbuckler: primarily his doomed first love Elektra Natchios and his ultimate enemy Wilson Fisk, the undisputed Kingpin of Crime.

In 1988 Miller returned for a short run where, with artist-of-the-moment David Mazzucchelli, he wrote what is still considered by most fans as the definitive Daredevil tale, as well as one of the most memorable contests of Good against Evil ever seen in comics.

Born Again collects Daredevil volume 1, #226-233 (January-August 1985) and changed the way superhero comics were perceived by fans and by the vast world of casual readers beyond the confines of our art form.

Fisk has been untouchable for years. He has bribed, terrorised and colluded his way to a position of legal invulnerability and is, to all intents and purposes, beyond the reach of justice. This has resulted in an uncomfortable status quo and grudging détente with costumed vigilantes such as Spider-Man, The Punisher and Daredevil, but that is about to change forever…

Before all that however, a taste of things to come can be seen in ‘Warriors’ by Denny O’Neil, Miller, Mazzucchelli & Dennis Janke as former costumed villain and recovering mental patient Melvin Potter is blackmailed into committing crimes by crooks who have kidnapped his girlfriend.

In the past Daredevil had been a largely sympathetic opponent, but recent personal events have pushed the Man Without Fear to a dark, angry, unforgiving place, and when he confronts Potter in his Gladiator alter ego, the fight is brutal and without pity until the barely-resisting super-villain can explain the situation. Then, all that anger is supplemented by guilt as the Devil in Red deals with the real bad guys…

The main event begins as Miller & Mazzucchelli reveal the fate of a long-missed early cast-member. Karen Page had been Matt Murdock’s true love before eventually leaving him for an acting career in Hollywood. Now she resurfaces as a fading porn star and junkie, stuck in Mexico, who sells the secret of Daredevil’s identity for one more fix…

The revelation is toxic. As it inevitably makes its way into the hands of Fisk, the arrogant crimelord ensures everyone who passed the knowledge up the line to him is eradicated. He plans an epic vengeance against his foe and wants to share the joy with no one…

The mounting pressure of impending ‘Apocalypse’ first surfaces as an IRS audit and missed mortgage payments Matt knows he already paid…

He’s not even suspicious when his own accountant won’t talk to him and honest cop pal Nick Manolis formally accuses Murdock of bribing witnesses and committing perjury…

With his friends attacked and legal career destroyed, Daredevil goes on a rampage, trying to beat information out of underworld small-timers in a frantic search for the mastermind behind Murdock’s woes. Everything falls into place when his house blows up. Matt knows whose hand is behind the impossible procession of bad fortune…

In the heart of a New York winter, Matt Murdock vanishes. Penniless, homeless and pushed beyond all rational limits, his mind shuts down. ‘Purgatory’ sees the brilliant lawyer in the black depths of a breakdown, with Fisk’s spies dogging his heels. The Kingpin revels in each report of comatose depressive bouts or incidence of petty violence perpetrated on innocent bystanders. However, as Fisk revels in sending his enemy into a living hell, a woman already there breaks out…

Between moments of drugged oblivion, Karen Page is tortured by guilt. Finally, unable to contact Matt, she throws in with a most dangerous man who promises to bring her to New York for a few small considerations…

She won’t make it in time. Insanely galvanised to seek retribution, Murdock confronts Fisk in his palatial Manhattan skyscraper and is beaten almost to death. The brutalised Daredevil regains consciousness in a car rapidly filling with water at the bottom of the East River…

Kingpin’s euphoria turns to paranoia as the vehicle is recovered but no body is found…

Utterly beyond rationality, the thing that was once Matt Murdock roams the back alleys in ‘Pariah!’ His friends, however, have not forgotten him, and Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich has been quietly digging. When he discovers why Manolis fabricated charges against Matt, Ben is forced to witness the cop’s fate as a warning…

Lost on the streets as Christmas dawns, Matt endures another brutal beating from petty thugs and crawls off to die. Is it destiny or something else that leads him to a church and a woman he thinks he knows?

…And time passes and Wilson Fisk knows no peace of mind. There is still no corpse…

‘Born Again’ finds the strands coalescing. In a church hospital ward, Matt Murdock emerges from the recuperating husk of his broken mind. The nun called Maggie is infuriatingly familiar but fierce in her determination to make him whole in both body and soul. Elsewhere, although the Kingpin’s ubiquitous tentacles keep Urich quiet and Matt’s friends fully occupied, the big man is not content.

His victory is incomplete and perhaps the vanished foe will return. Thus, Wilson Fisk makes an ill-judged decision and begins calling in carefully-hoarded favours from the high and mighty of the establishment…

As Matt slowly recovers, he has no idea Karen Page is about to re-enter his life, nor that Urich, fed up with being terrorised, is speaking both to the police and on record in the Bugle…

‘Saved’ begins with Murdock battling his way back to fighting fitness in time to save Ben Urich from Fisk’s grotesque assassin. He then reaches out to Melvin Potter. Soon, the resurrected Man Without Fear is ready to make his first move against Fisk…

All subtlety abandoned and gripped by mania, the Kingpin co-opts a military top secret to strike back. Through his illicit connections Fisk forces an Army General to unleash the military’s latest super-soldier in the heart of Murdock’s beloved Hell’s Kitchen, even as his usually impeccable attempts to ensure silence go spectacularly awry when a hit team fails to kill Urich and a vital witness…

Nuke is a Vietnam-obsessed, drug-fuelled, black ops killing machine spouting deranged mantras of ‘God and Country’ and his savage assault on the district certainly draws out Daredevil. Sadly, he also comes to the attention of the nation’s first patriotic guardian and ‘Armageddon’ finds the out-of-control human weapon also confronting his idol Captain America as well as the rest of the mighty Avengers.

From that point on, Fisk’s fate is sealed…

Epic, devious and still shocking, this is a blockbusting tour de force which ranks amongst the very best Fights ‘n’ Tights clashes ever crafted and remains one of the most accessible and entertaining.
© 1985, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.