Daredevil: The Man Without Fear

AUTHOR: Miller, Frank

ARTIST: John Romita, Jr. (penciller and cover artist); Al Williamson (inker and cover artist); Christie Scheele (colorist); Joe Rosen (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993-1994

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1994

Publication History

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was published monthly as a five-part series from October, 1993, to February, 1994. The series began as a hardcover project (and possible film idea) but was recast as a limited series. The series was subsequently published as several prints of trade paperback and hardback editions, as well as being included in the larger Daredevil Omnibus: Frank Miller Companion (2007), which includes numerous related materials connected with Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, such as original scripts, alternate covers and pages, and reproduced covers with publication information.

Plot

Frank Miller recasts the origin of Daredevil (Matt Murdock), first introduced to Marvel in April, 1964. Issue 1 opens with Murdock as a child in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan. Murdock’s dual life as a good boy who is “sneaky” is presented with him stealing a cop’s nightstick and slipping away to the boxing gym. His father, Jack, struggles with depression, sighing about the mysterious “Maggie,” and finds himself trapped as an aging boxer at night and a mob enforcer for the Fixer by day. After his father hits him, Murdock commits himself to learning, specifically the law; he also dedicates himself to working out at the gym. Murdock’s fate is sealed when he pushes a blind man from an oncoming truck carrying toxic chemicals, which blind Murdock but also give him supersenses. After being visited in the hospital by an unnamed nun, Murdock is mentored by the Stick to harness his new powers. Issue 1 ends with Jack Murdock failing to throw a fight and being killed by the mob.

Murdock visits the morgue to identify his father in issue 2, and then he sets out to avenge his father’s death by attacking the henchmen of the Fixer, leading to the Fixer dying of a heart attack when chased by Murdock. During the attacks, Murdock throws a prostitute out a window and to her death, forcing him to face his acts as a vigilante. Stick discusses Murdock’s rash behavior with Stone and mentions Elektra.

The narrative jumps a year to Columbia University, where Murdock attends college and has befriended Franklin “Foggy” Nelson. Murdock is pulled back to his secret fight for justice because Foggy is harassed by classmates as Murdock had been as a child. The issue ends with Murdock lured into a chase through a snow-covered park and a reckless car ride with Elektra, exposing that he is haunted by the innocent prostitute he killed.

In issue 3, Murdock dives into an icy lake to look for Elektra but returns to his dorm alone. Foggy tells Murdock about Elektra, including where she lives with her Greek diplomat father. Murdock slips into the compound, creates a scene, and then runs away, shot in the arm. While he is tending to his wound in his bathroom, he discovers Elektra in the shower. Foggy sits outside the locked door to their dorm room and learns that Murdock and Elektra are together when she leaves.

Next, Elektra lures five thugs down an alleyway, where she drops her fur coat and taunts them into attacking her. She kills them all, leaving behind a gruesome scene for the police. Murdock and Elektra become lovers despite a late-night warning from Stick. Issue 3 ends with Elektra leaving Murdock after the murder of her father and a brief scene introducing the Kingpin in Hell’s Kitchen.

Jumping years ahead, issue 4 shows the rise of the Kingpin and that Murdock has graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law School and is working in Boston at a corporate law firm. Praising Murdock for his work, the firm sends him to New York for a case, where he revisits Hell’s Kitchen and beats up a group of thugs. He finds the old gym and meets a young girl, Mickey, who hides there. An old poster of Jack Murdock leads Murdock to tell Mickey about his nickname as a child, Daredevil. Murdock and Mickey begin to work out together, and Murdock is reunited with Foggy, who does class-action work for struggling clients. Murdock helps Foggy with his cases and feels renewed. The Kingpin feeds off the children in Hell’s Kitchen, where his thugs push some addicts to find a twelve-year-old girl, which imperils Mickey. Just as Murdock is about to return to Boston, he learns Mickey has been kidnapped, leading him to don a crude, ninjalike outfit and steal into the Kingpin’s compound to save Mickey.

In issue 5, the superhero Daredevil comes into focus, with the panels and artwork announcing the dramatic end to the limited series with an opening full-page panel of Murdock in his makeshift costume. Murdock fights and defeats the thugs, attempting to keep track of Mickey, who is being dragged away during the fights. When Murdock is close to saving her, the police capture and handcuff him and hold him inside a police cruiser. Murdock frees himself and tracks down Mickey’s captor, telling him to release the girl, since Murdock does not want to kill him. Murdock displays his unique talents, swatting away bullets with his baton, striking the captor, and killing him with his own bullet. The issue ends with the Kingpin fretting over this new adversary and with Murdock losing his Boston job, soon joining Foggy to form a practice in New York.

While Foggy and Murdock are making plans, Stick returns to warn Murdock. The final scenes show the costumed Daredevil in silhouette crossing rooftops before the final two-page panel, expanding the opening full-page panel of the last issue, showing a series of leaping Daredevils in full costume, the first three in the classic yellow and red and the final two in the most well known, fully red Daredevil costume.

Characters

•Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil, is the protagonist and a superhero. As a boy, he is blinded by radioactive chemicals and subsequently acquires superpowers (radar and heightened senses); he also develops abilities of an elite gymnast and martial artist. Obsessed by law and justice, he struggles with, but eventually commits to, assuming the role of the superhero Daredevil.

•Jack Murdock is Murdock’s father. He is a small-time boxer who has lost his love and works as a mob enforcer. When Jack is faced with throwing a fight, he chooses to honor his promise to Murdock and not quit, resulting in his murder.

•The Fixer is a mob boss who runs Hell’s Kitchen in Murdock’s childhood. He and his thugs kill Murdock’s father.

•Stick, a sensei, is the blind stranger who follows and befriends young Murdock, teaching him the skills needed to harness his superpowers and develop into the crime fighter Daredevil.

•Elektra, a.k.a. Natchios, the daughter of a Greek diplomat, circles in and out of Murdock’s life while creating a great deal of mystery concerning her connection with Stick and apparent fated connection with Murdock/Daredevil. A ninja assassin, she reveals a dark vigilante streak that parallels Murdock’s.

•Stone, a student of Stick, appears in silhouette, arguing for Murdock with Stick after Murdock inadvertently throws a prostitute to her death.

•Franklin “Foggy” Nelson is Murdock’s college roommate who becomes his best friend and law partner. Foggy provides motivation for Murdock to reexamine his own experiences of being bullied (and called “Daredevil” as a child).

•The Kingpin is introduced as a sinister crime lord who takes over Hell’s Kitchen while Murdock is attending college and becoming a lawyer. The Kingpin is shown as a particularly cruel villain who preys on drug addicts and children.

•Mickey is a homeless girl of fourteen, stowing away in the abandoned gym of Murdock’s childhood. She and Murdock become friends, and her kidnapping leads Murdock to embrace fully his role as Daredevil.

Artistic Style

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear is driven by narrative panels, not dialogue, that capture the mystery and noir style of the character. The panels are more traditional and linear in the opening issues, but change, becoming more dynamic as the character Murdock moves toward being fully realized as a superhero. For example, in issue 5, the panels vary among full-page, double-spread, and horizontal, instead of vertical, double-page. The action scenes also have panels overlaying and overlapping with larger background panels highlighting the action. The artwork suggests the darker artwork and coloring that followed years later in the work of Alexander Maleev, for example.

John Romita, Jr.’s pencils and Al Williamson’s inks capture a realistic and stark style that reminds readers of classic work by John Buscema and Jack Kirby, while echoing Miller’s bold and distinct form of superheroes and villains juxtaposed with children and normal characters. The characters are often rough and heavily shaded, although Elektra is drawn with simple lines that reveal both femininity and a dark anger. Murdock is often portrayed slumping, fighting the weight of his burdens, and the many thugs and villains of the issues are distinct but massive and imposing against the children and decaying buildings and ominous alleyways. The city landscapes and buildings almost make Hell’s Kitchen an additional “character” in the story. Setting, not only the city but also the snow-covered scenes and icy waters with Elektra, for example, carries the stark and powerful characters of the narrative.

The full- and double-page panels accentuate the grand scale of the themes of the Daredevil myth—themes of justice and violence portrayed in the larger-than-life superhero Daredevil, the contradictory Elektra, and the giant villain the Kingpin.

The coloring from Christie Scheele emphasizes basic and dark colors, reinforcing black and red (with yellow and orange hues) throughout to parallel the motifs of violence and darkness that drive the Daredevil narrative.

Themes

The driving motif of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear is duality, identified immediately in issue 1 with the dual life of young Murdock as “good son” and “sneaky boy.” Murdock as a boy is also confronted with his father’s duality as a masked boxer and a mob enforcer. Later, when Murdock assumes the dual roles of lawyer and superhero, he is haunted by his accidental murder of a prostitute and the dual nature of Elektra, who represents the blurring of good and evil.

Within the duality motif, justice and law are contrasted with crime and violence. Miller accentuates the blurring of right and wrong through Murdock’s own actions (which echo the tensions in the Batman/Bruce Wayne mythos) as well as through the alluring character Elektra.

Blindness also adds complexity to Miller’s consideration of justice (as justice is blind), with the accidental blinding of Murdock and the blind sensei Stick mentoring Murdock to embrace and enhance his heightened senses once he loses normal sight. Throughout the narrative, Murdock is highly perceptive about the law but struggles with his own violent outbursts and history with breaking the law (as a child and with the accidental killing of the prostitute).

Present throughout the Daredevil narrative are themes addressing innocence and experience—from Murdock’s childhood to Mickey and the many nameless children and innocent bystanders overwhelmed by the violence, crime, and ominous cityscape of Hell’s Kitchen.

Impact

Originally created to be a graphic novel or movie idea, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, released as a monthly five-issue run from October, 1993, through February, 1994, helped solidify Miller’s reenvisioning of Daredevil and Elektra in the Marvel Universe. This origin story stands as the definitive Miller view of the character and informs the Marvel Universe version of Daredevil in the late Modern Age after the 1980’s.

Miller also perpetuated the complicated portrayal of Elektra, a character that presents many problems for a unified Marvel Universe because her origin and existence have been refashioned often despite her minor status. The series and eventual graphic novel also represent and perpetuate Miller’s own influence as a writer on the comic book/graphic novel industry; his collaboration with Romita as a penciller revealed the growing influence of manga on Western comic book art. Miller recreated Daredevil in much the same way he did Batman, expanding the rise in superstar creators (such as Miller) who began to drive the comic book/graphic novel industry regardless of the publisher. The transition between comic book single issues/series and repackaged graphic novels is also reflected in the continued success of this graphic novel.

Further Reading

Bendis, Brian Michael. Daredevil: Underboss (2002).

Miller, Frank. Batman: Year One (1988).

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Volume 2 (2001).

Bibliography

Gravett, Paul. Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know. New York: Collins Design, 2005.

Miller, Frank, et al. Daredevil Omnibus Companion. New York: Marvel Comics, 2007.

Thomas, P. L. Challenging Genres: Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense, 2010.