We know a lot about Daredevil. We know that he was blinded by radioactive chemicals which gave him his powers. We know he grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, bullied and teased. We also know about his Dad, Battlin’ Jack Murdock. We know he was a boxer, and a drunk, but beyond that, what do we really know? With this series, they attempt to help us fill that in. Daredevil grew up to be a great man, and an equally great superhero, but behind that are the values that his father instilled in him. This series isn’t so much about the Man without Fear as it is about the man who gave his son those traits. This is about Battlin’ Jack Murdock. Here we go with Round 1.
Each of the four issues in this series is a round in the boxing ring. Murdock already knows, as he narrates the story for us, that he must throw this fight by the end of round 4. He knows he can win, he knows he is strong, but for his son who is weak, he too must be. As the first punches get thrown, we shift back in time to before Matt Murdock, as Jack is the strong arm for a local mobster called The Fixer. You can tell right away that Jack is ashamed of what he’s doing, but he really doesn’t have a choice. He’s an alcoholic after all, and he needs any money he can get to feed his habit. Jack isn’t proud of this by any means, but sometimes you have to do what needs to be done, even if it means hurting some of the folks you know.
Let’s go ahead and dive right into the writing process for this series. The story itself was crafted by both Zeb Wells, who did the finished script, and Carmine Di Giandomenico, who did the artwork. It’s a great story idea. I mean, how much better can you get when you actually try and dive into just what traits and values were instilled into someone who eventually becomes one of the New York’s most well known heroes, or even further, try and go into the man behind Daredevil, because after all, aren’t all men an image of their father’s? Whatever your answer to that, Matt Murdock really had nobody else. With Zeb’s words on the page, though Jack could be down right mean to his son, Matt still held that love for his father. He never let it go, and that really shines through in this series. Zeb Well’s words take us on a journey as we watch the end of Jack’s life, and quite literally the beginning of Matt’s. It was a very well crafted story.
As for the art, Carmine Di Giandomenico’s, at least for me, was something to be desired. Some scenes were done really well, like the boxing matches. Those had me on the edge of my seat with his art, but at other points, at the end of issue one, with baby Matt Murdock, that just really took me out of the element of the story. At some points, it seems he took painstaking care to make it look fantastic, but on others, it seemed rushed and sloppy.
With a story like this, it cannot be told simply, it has to be told with some sort of heart and soul. Though the artwork isn’t for everyone, the story is. It’s not so much about the Man Without Fear as it is about the father that helped set Matt Murdock on that path. With Jack’s actions, both directly and indirectly, the framework for Daredevil is set. As a man, he may not have been the greatest, and even as a father, he may not have been the best either, but in the eyes of his son, he was the toughest man alive. To Jack, that was all that mattered.
Script: 8/10
Artwork: 6/10
Parental Concern: Yellow to Orange for some violence.
