Frank Miller's run on DAREDEVIL not only redefined the character, but established the writer/artist as a major creative force and helped influence comics for years. Check out five issues, currently available through Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.
DAREDEVIL #158
Frank Miller makes his
Daredevil debut! No, he wasn't writing yet, just producing powerful pictures to the tune of writer Roger McKenzie's words. Revel in Miller's style as Matt Murdock gets swooped up by the Unholy Three and DD's compatriots – including the beautiful
Black Widow – devise a plan to rescue him. Delivered to the waiting and vengeful hands of the time-shifting Death-Stalker what's a blind attorney to do? How does Daredevil get a bead on a man's heartbeat if his opponent keeps shifting through dimensional planes? DD evens the playing field, of course – witness Miller's action-packed panels for yourself!
DAREDEVIL #181
The Death of
Elektra. Every Marvel fan worth his or her Atlantean sea-salt knows this book by a single word: "Landmark." The heart wrenching narrative culminating with this issue may very well be Frank Miller's best storytelling in the comics genre as he both writes and draws this historic issue. Much like the cover blurb – "
Bullseye; Elektra; One Wins. One Dies." –Miller conceived the story as simple, elegant and powerful. Bullseye, the revenge-plotting assassin, opens DAREDEVIL #181 in prison – fantasizing about Daredevil's demise. After making an escape during a live television appearance, Bullseye eventually battles Elektra, wounding her mortally with a single, penetrating thrust from her own trademark sai. Consider it the drawing that shook comicdom, and Daredevil, to their core.
DAREDEVIL #219
It was a "nasty, rotten little town" in New Jersey that the criminals who ran it planned to keep that way…that is, until the Man Without Fear sauntered in. Never actually named in the comic or even donning his Daredevil duds, Matt Murdock (looking a little like the incredibly badass Marlon Brando in one of the all-time great rebel tough-guy flicks "The Wild One") takes it upon himself to make the place a little less nasty and rotten. Frank Miller writes. John Buscema draws. And a better single-issue, self-contained story may be a difficult thing to come by in all of comics history.
DAREDEVIL #227
The first in the seven-issue "Born Again" storyline, Daredevil's dreaded enemy, The
Kingpin, finds out DD's secret identity. And what's the Kingpin of crime to do when he comes into possession of such extraordinary information? He immediately goes about destroying Matt Murdock's life. From the imposing cover of Kingpin's visage overpowering the New York City skyline to the last panels of destruction and DD clutching his tattered scarlet togs, Frank Miller's words and David Mazzuchelli's pictures announced to the world that this would be no ordinary tale of the blind attorney who doubles as a super hero.
DAREDEVIL #233
The conclusion of the "Born Again" storyline brings
Nuke and the
Avengers to Hell's Kitchen. With Frank Miller doing the writing and David Mazzuchelli penciling, even the Man Without Fear knows to stand down to the likes of
Iron Man, Captain America and
Thor. But exactly who is Nuke and why does Captain America have such a keen interest in him? Plus, how is the evil stench of the Kingpin permeating throughout this entire seven-issue tale – just who is Wilson Fisk in cahoots with? Delight in Miller's masterful weaving of one of the great tales in Marvel history.
