Daredevil - Born Again [Hardcover] [2009] (Random Comics Theatre)

 Random Comics Theatre

Daredevil - Born Again [Hardcover] [2009]

This is a collection of the 7-part "Born Again" story by artist David Mazzucchelli and writer Frank Miller that ran in DAREDEVIL #227-233 in 1986. Mazzucchelli had been the artist on the book for the previous two years, with writer Dennis O'Neil, getting steadily better as he went from just pencils to full art. Miller had been the artist then writer/artist on the book from 1979 to 1982, returning for a fill-in the previous year and then scripting the issue before this run.

It's a pretty famous story, so I won't get into the details much. Suffice to say that frequent Daredevil foe the Kingpin finds out, through a plot contrivance, that DD is really lawyer Matt Murdock. He then proceeds to ruin Murdock's life in a multi-faceted attack before almost killing him, only for Daredevil to rise from the ashes.

I'm not a huge fan of Miller, but this is probably my favourite of his works, certainly the one I come back to the most. The lion's share of the credit for that has to go to Mazzucchelli's artwork, of course, but Miller manages more than a few clever bits. Also a few absurd bits, of course. The ending falls apart a bit, definitely the weakest part of the story, with a few other super-heroes popping in and a convoluted storyline involving Captain America that seems to drop in from another series before getting an abrupt end to the story we've actually been reading. Really does feel like Miller thought he'd be on the book at least a little longer.

This was one of the first reprint books Marvel did when that became a regular part of their publishing line in 1987, with a barebones edition which they kept in print intermittently for the next two decades. This version was a significant upgrade, adding in a reprint of #226 after the main story (which has Dennis O'Neil co-writing and Dennis Janke inking), copies of Mazzucchelli's layouts for various issues and a copy of Miller's script for the finale.  A softcover version of the book came out shortly after, which I think they've done a slightly better job of keeping in print. IDW has also done a book reproducing Mazzucchelli's original artwork in a few different formats.