Daredevil: Season One

Marvel Season One

by Antony Johnston, Wellington Alves (Illustrator)

Meet Matt Murdock, one of New York's finest attorneys by day and swashbuckling crime-fighter Daredevil by night! Discover the dark secrets behind his first days in the costume, as the man without sight became the man without fear-and one of the greatest heroes in comic history. Daredevil faces off against the Owl, Purple Man and Mr. Fear for the first time...but it's not what you remember! You only think you know the story!

An original graphic novel.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Crime, Comic Book

136 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2012

About the author

** Sign up for Antony's newsletter at http://ajwriter.substack.com **

Antony Johnston is one of the most versatile writers of the modern era.

The Charlize Theron movie Atomic Blonde was based on his graphic novel. His murder mystery series The Dog Sitter Detective won the Barker Book Award. His crime puzzle novel Can You Solve the Murder? reinvented choose-your-own-story books for a mainstream audience and was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. The Brigitte Sharp spy thrillers are in development for TV. And his productivity guide The Organised Writer has helped authors all over the world take control of their workload.

Antony is a celebrated videogames writer, with genre-defining titles including Dead Space, Shadow of Mordor, and Resident Evil Village to his credit. His work on Silent Hill Ascension made him the only writer in the world to have contributed to all of gaming’s ‘big three’ horror franchises.

His immense body of work also includes Marvel superheroes such as Daredevil and Shang-Chi, the award-winning Alex Rider graphic novels, the post-apocalypse epic Wasteland, and more. He wrote and directed the film Crossover Point, made entirely in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic.

An experienced podcaster and public speaker, he also frequently writes articles on the life of an author, and is a prolific musician.

Antony is a former vice chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, a member of International Thriller Writers and the Society of Authors, a Shore Scripts screenwriting judge, and sits on the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s videogames committee. He lives and works in England.

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I was getting an origin story. A re-imagining. Something along those lines...
One freakin' page. Four panels.
Panel 1: I had a nice Dad.
Panel 2: I got hit by a truck. Crrrrunch!
Panel 3: I'm blind, but now I have super-senses.
Panel 4: Dad was murdered.
WHAT?!

Ok, in it's defense, it seems to be telling the story of a younger less experienced Daredevil.
But in no way did this inspire me to like this character. At All. He seemed like a fairly inept crime fighter most of the time. And I guess that was the point, but it wasn't done right. I didn't feel bad for him or want to cheer for him, because he seemed so overly concerned with his 'image'.
Oh no! The Matador publicly spanked my ass! Gotta do something big so that everyone will know I'm cool!
Or
As least the media was here to see me catch the bad guy. Hope everyone knows I'm a force to be reckoned with now!

The main story with the priest and the politician kept me interested, but the ending totally blew.
Ok. So the priest is the brother of the crooked politician. The politician guy killed their father years ago, and his priest went into hiding from his brother. Ooooooh! Cool, right?
No. 'Cause their father used to beat their mother and the priest...who was evidently in a wheelchair when he was younger?
In my book, the politician gets a pass for killing his old man.
But not in Daredevil's world. He starts beating the hell out of him with his ninja walking stick and yelling, HE WAS STILL YOUR FATHER!, like some moron.
Yeah, he's a bad guy now, but I actually felt sorry for him when DD was kicking the shit out of him. If you're gonna beat him up, at least beat him for something he's done recently. Not for offing an abusive parent.
The whole thing was stupid. Why did the priest go into hiding? Why did the politician come up with an elaborate scheme to take his church building? Why did they kidnap Foggy, for that matter? It would have been easier (and smarter) to just kill him.

The Foggy/Karen/Matt love triangle was dumb. How are they both in love with her after two weeks?! And what kind of an idiot buys a girl a ring when (apparently) they aren't even really dating? Oh, and speaking of Foggy? No way is a girl like Karen going on a date with him. He's a dork! Sure, they'll be great friends, but no way in hell is that happening.

I didn't like it very much, but maybe hardcore DD fans will get more out of it than I did.

[TraceyL · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, modern origin story for Daredevil. I'll check out the other Season One books for the other Marvel characters.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think Marvels Season One graphic Novel plan ever really caught on that well. Long time readers aren't interested because they've read these stories before (since they're mainly set in the early years of the character), and I don't think they're good enough to really pull new fans in and keep them reading more. The only reason I've read this (and I'll be reading the Ant-Man one next) is because they're on Marvel Unlimited, so why not?

The Daredevil volume has Daredevil still starting out, people mistaking him for Spider-man, and him still wearing the red and yellow costume. It's as if the writer had a darker tone in mind, but the artwork doesn't match up to that. There are caption boxes of Matt talking about putting more fear into his enemies, trying to get that darker tone, but then the art is like something from an all ages comic.

There's some of his older villains here, that you don't see much of anymore, and that's kinda cool. It's sad when old villains are forgotten about because modern writers don't know what to do with them. But then again, the Matador is hardly a menacing villain.

I wouldn't recommend this. Not even to new readers. It's just bland and boring.

[Klinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had no prior knowledge of Daredevil before reading this book and all my current knowledge comes from reading this book.

I felt like I am missing some big pieces since the beginning and couldn't really properly follow the story, because it was so disjointed and jumped from one spot to other, trying to introduce more and more villains and heroes, touching everything and everyone if not in text, at least in the graphics (yep, the Tussauds of superheroes and villains, really?)...

Even if somehow I would glue all the parts together, the story really wasn't interesting at all. To be honest, the short bit after the main story was a lot cooler. So yeah. At least it read quickly and wasn't a torture like some other Season One books.

[bri 🧸 · Rating 3 out of 5]

daredevil supremacy !

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first discovered the joys of Marvel comics, my reading preferences were for the titles featuring teams of heroes with a variety of superpowers, such as the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men. Because of this, I gave Daredevil a pass, and encountered his character only through the crossover events or cameos in which he or his alter-ego Matt Murdoch popped up. This likely contributed to my enjoyment of Antony Johnston’s updating of the origin of the “Man Without Fear” for the Season One series, as I read it with fresh eyes and an open mind. In it, Johnston takes the single-issue battles with various supervillains from the very beginning of the series’ original run and recounts them as episodes woven into a story about Murdoch’s efforts to save a church from being shuttered by an ambitious city councilman. It’s an approach that nicely recounts Daredevil’ growth while offering an excellent balance between the classic superheroism of the 1960s and the grittier street-level approach which subsequently made the character so popular. As an introduction to the character it’s difficult to imagine a better one, especially as it succeeded in getting me interested in reading more of his classic adventures. And isn’t that the point of the series?

[Kirkirvarpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yra komiksų serija, kuri vadinasi Season One. Nedidelės apimties knygos apie pagrindinius Marvel herojus. Jei nieko nežinote apie herojų, labai lengvas būdas su juo susipažinti. Nes komiksuose paminimi pagrindiniai dalykai apie tai, kas jis, kaip atsirado, įvedami keli dalykai, vėliau tampantys/tapę kanonu. Ir visa tai atskleidžiama per vieną nedidelę istoriją.
Daredevil/Drąsiaširdis - aklas veikėjas, kuris dienomis dirba teisininkų kontoroje, o naktimis kovoja su blogiu. Nieko pernelyg originalaus, bet viskas organiškai. Tikrieji komiksų skaitytojai šią seriją keikia. Kadangi aš nesu rimtas geekas, man istorija apie Drąsiaširdį tiko.

[Bárbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm biased when it come to Matt Murdock. This story kept my interest, unlike the previous Season One books. Just reminded me why I like Daredevil so much.

[Amanja · Rating 1 out of 5]

So back in my review of daredevil yellow I made vow to give an automatic one star review to any book (comics or otherwise) that had a love triangle between two men fighting over a girl who doesn't even know either of them is interested. Well I stand by my word and here we are with the EXACT same plot with the EXACT same characters doing the EXACT same bullshit. Murdock falls in love with the secretary cause she's pretty and helpless and he gets to save her. Foggy falls in love with her and plans to PROPOSE MARRIAGE even though he never even asked her on a date. Poor poor karen. She deserves to be a real character. But she is instead handed this steaming pile of sexism over and over again. Zero stars.

Now if that wasn't enough this book also has a nonsensical plot that jumps between rehashing old dd volumes and trying to make dd quippy. It shoehorns in a lot of dd being jealous of spiderman and wanting to display himself as ny's greatest hero while also trying to maintain his cover which is blown... somehow... and then not addressed again. Basically this reads as if you gave a bot a box of dd comics and a couple old spidermans and forced it to write an annual.

In addition to being poorly written there are a few instances of the art being bad or confusing. Handfuls of panels have perspective issues in which dd looks like 3 times the size of a normal human. And the beginning of the book has dd in his old school yellow uniform, to I guess place him in the early years of his career, but then abruptly puts him in his modern uniform without ever addressing a passage of time.

Avoid this one at all costs. I love daredevil and hate to think that this would be anyone's introduction to the character. Burn this and daredevil yellow together.

[Kevin Pilgrim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan.
Didn't really like it.

[Italian sauce ;) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I disliked this as much as I disliked the cover.

[Nico D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The retelling of Matt Murdock’s early experiences as Daredevil somehow reads like a cliff notes version of itself. Things happen at a breakneck speed which makes the story feel like it really wants to get to the ending and be done with things instead of taking time to explore the characters or world. It's especially noticeable in that Matt's actual origin-- i.e the loss of his eyesight, his relationship with his dad, and his dad's death-- happens in a single page. One page! That's a totally new record.

Character motivations feel really murky. The story doesn't do much to introduce us to the supporting cast, as if it expects the reader to already know who everyone else. It's sloppy, especially for being an origin story. It's not unrealistic to think someone could seek this out as their first Daredevil story, only to be unnecessarily lost. Karen Page, the secretary at Nelson & Murdock, comes across especially poor. She spends 95% of her page time spouting insane, uninspired dialogue and simping for Daredevil like she’s Silver Age-era Lois Lane. Except with way less personality.

It's hard to get invested in the main plot when it seems so uninterested in itself. The word that best describes the entire book is "serviceable." Nothing is terrible, but nothing is particularly good either. The most interesting character is Foggy Nelson. Though his relationship with Karen is incredibly underdeveloped (Matt asks Foggy if he proposed to Karen, which I interrupted as a joke, but then he pushes it and with Foggy’s response it sounds like he’s being wholly serious, but their relationship is totally underbaked. Though to be fair, so it Matt and Foggy's friendship. And basically every interpersonal relationship in the story. Jeeze) he gets some good scenes with Matt, and his interaction with the main plot towards the third act was the only time I felt even slightly invested with what was happening. And that's mostly because I like Foggy from other stories.

One of the antagonists—Mr. Fear— is the epitome of that one meme.

“Mom, can I have Batman’s Scarecrow?”
“No, we have Batman’s Scarecrow at home.”

Discount Scarecrow is hard to take seriously, especially when I interrupted Matt’s response to being doused with his fear gas as him being incredibly sarcastic, only to realize his "fear" was played totally straight. I think that’s my problem with the dialogue throughout the whole book. There were a lot of times I thought Matt should have a bit more bite to him, but instead he seemed just kind of generic. This is unfortunately the case with practically everyone. No one felt wildly out of character, so much as they didn’t have much character to begin with.

The art was fine, and the dialogue—outside of Karen— wasn’t terrible, but the whole book felt like it was written to meet a required quota for retellings of popular origin stories instead of anything particularly passionate. Totally serviceable, but not particularly memorable.

To the story’s detriment, a tease of Chip Zdarsky’s run at the end of the book is one hundred percent more interesting than the main story. There’s also a very short story called “Sense of Self” at the tail end of the book with was A++ and honestly knocks the book up from a 2-star to a three on it’s own. A super cool idea, and I loved the staging of the panels.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

A hodgepodge of storylines are packed so tightly into this graphic novel that the actual "origin" was two panels (aren't these origin stories?). Overall, it has a pretty thin plot and I thought the artwork was subpar compared to the other Season Ones (is Alves obsessed with close ups of smiling faces??).

Maybe I'm more critical of this one because I have always liked Daredevil as a character, since his edginess stands apart from other Marvel heroes, but this adaptation was almost as horrible as the Ben Affleck film...almost. However, they did include the first issue of the Waid/Rivera series, so skip everything and just read that.

[Sean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Marvel has decided to retell iconic characters origins in books called “Season One”. They swear they have nothing to do with DC’s successful Earth One graphic novels. Sadly, this Daredevil entry is pointless, unimaginative, and not pretty to look at. The creative team of Anthony Johnston and Wellinton Alves has done very good work in the past but here they have nothing to add to story and the changes made are without meaning. Alves’ art is so inconsistent that each panel looks like it was drawn by a different person. Overall there’s no reason to check this out.

[C.E. Case · Rating 2 out of 5]

How was this written in 2012? It was old-fashioned to the point of being offensive. Where was Karen? Besides being rescued TWICE. And Foggy, once. And the whole love triangle, woe woe woe. Not to mention, the bank robbers and government corruption plots. If this was a throwback, I think it didn't succeed. It may have captured the style of the past, but not its heart.

Two stars for including a couple of solid issues by Mark Waid in the back. Good stuff. Now THAT'S everything to love about Daredevil front and center.

[erica kruse · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was good, but I think for a "modern retelling" it doesn't really do that for me. The Matt/Foggy/Karen love triangle was odd and underdeveloped as well as Karen as a whole character. It's good for a fun read though.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, fast-paced action and good art. A great introduction to Daredevil. It did it's job and made me want to read more from this character.

[Shazza Maddog · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of Daredevil, specifically, an introduction to three (or four!) of the main characters: Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, and Karen (who does not appear to get a last name in this collection), as well as Daredevil.

Karen, a newcomer to New York, is the subject of fascination between both men, with Foggy deciding to propose and Matt urging him on while secretly (or not so secretly) in love with her himself and very nearly outing himself when he rescues Karen from a super villain, Owlsey.

While there are no run ins with the Kingpin or Elektra, there are some decent stories here but each one is completed "in a comic" except for the story involving the priest with the church that land development is taking away, despite the remaining twenty years on the lease. It turns out a lot of corruption hangs out in Hell's Kitchen, and Daredevil might not be enough to take it all on.

In one of the final stand-alone stories, the reader is dumped into the knowledge that Matt has been outed as Daredevil and is having a difficult time practicing law because of it. There is little info on how that happened and how he's been coping but it does mess up some of his cases.

The art is good throughout, the writing seems solid, but I kind of miss Frank Miller...

[Rocío · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo terminé hace unos días y me olvidé de marcarlo.

Es meh, ya había leído algunas historias de origen de Matt así que empecé este cómic lista para hacer comparaciones, pero no es una historia de origen per se, sino los primeros ¿meses? de Daredevil como vigilante y los problemas que tuvo para hacerse un nombre por si mismo.

Odio el traje amarillo y rojo, me hace mal a la vida y me alegré mucho cuando lo cambió al rojo, así que el trailer que salió hace poco de She-Hulk, con Matt usando lo que parece el traje clásico de los comics me tiene mal.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems like the reviews have been mostly describing this as mediocre or so-so.

I respectfully have a different opinion. (Call it 3.5 stars.) I've read some of the other Season One books (Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, X-Men) in the last month and 'DD' might be the one I enjoyed the most so far. True, the origin section is condensed to only a few early pages but I liked the main plot and action.

[Avery Iveson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. I love Matt’s “ketchup and mustard” suit as I like to call it 🤣. I also love seeing him and Foggy do the lawyering side of Matt’s life in all of these stories. I caught myself laughing multiple times (which is one of the reasons I love DD so much), and the way he shielded the girl’s eyes from Spot was touching. Will definitely be reading again

[Roberto Diaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seems to not know what audience is aiming for. Too generic and unentusiasthic retelling of a story for readers that know daredevil, and too thin for new readers to understand the core of the Man Without Fear.

[Glyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, it was ok? The art was ugly; writing was ok. I didn’t appreciate Karen getting damsel’d but the “he’s no Spider-Man” thing was pretty funny. Either way I got this for $5 from a local comic book store so I can’t be too fussed about how mediocre this was.

[Michael Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid and enjoyable story about the early days of Marvel’s Daredevil. The core origin only gets a brief explanation and the core plot doesn’t necessarily have the same drama or thrills of Matt Murdock’s best adventures, but it’s still a nice enough story to warrant a read.

[den · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pacing was a mess that's all I really have to say about it. Some of the art was really nice but since the story itself felt incredibly rushed I'd recommend anyone trying to get into Daredevil to go back and read the original comic for a proper introduction to the characters.

[Skum Back · Rating 3 out of 5]

yeah it was fun. it was good, but not amazing. some of the art is kinda bad, lets humans become uncanny valley type creatures but some of the art is also cool and the last picture is very cool. i liked it!

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun look back. His doubts are shown.

[Sarospice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cheap art. Cheaper retelling of Daredevil's start. No wonder the SEASON ONE series never took off.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great summary of his early years and how he adapted to his powers.

[Emanuele Malpezzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un buon reboot, anche se alcuni vecchi antagonisti sono davvero troppo datati nella loro caratterizzazione. Non ho capito tutti i riferimenti a Spider-Man.