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Daredevil Epic Collection
Daredevil Epic Collection: Root Of Evil [New Printing]
Dark times for Daredevil - and Elektra! When DD heads underground, he gets drawn into an ordeal involving Bushwacker, the Devourer and...Deathlok? But as things get explosive, is the biggest menace the underground King - or the rising Kingpin? Out of costume, it's Matt Murdock no more - now he's Jack Batlin, street hustler! But when a Kruel menace targets Matt's friends, "Jack's" old life quickly comes back to haunt him! It's time for the 'Devil to do a little soul-searching, before his identity crisis pushes him over the edge! Will Nick Fury and the Punisher play a part in the return of the "real" Daredevil? Plus: DD's former flame, the assassin Elektra, stars in her own epic tale of darkness and deception - taking on the Hand and the sinister Snakeroot! COLLECTING: DAREDEVIL (1964) #333-344 AND ELEKTRA: ROOT OF EVIL #1-4
440 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 28, 2023
After Chichester-whose run ended far less well than it started- everything goes downhill. It’s all collected here ya lucky devils!
Gregory Wright starts with an absurd story set in NY’s sewers, reusing characters from the worst part of Frank Miller’s period. He throws every dumb idea that came to mind into the plot-a Mayan Deity, a former supe nobody ever heard of before, Bushwacker and...Deathlok (!?)- stirs it and throws it in your face.
Tom Grindberg mediocre art doesn’t sweeten the pill.
D.G. Chichester fares a bit better with the Elektra: Root of evil mini-series. He obviously writes better than Wright but in the end I can’t help but wonder: so what? No real point here and I had to endure Scott McDaniel on the artboard to boot.
The last arc could have been slightly interesting. It revolves around an event taking place years ago involving several characters directly related to Daredevil. But whatever potentially interesting development is shot to death with miserable writing and major incoherences. First it boldly spits in the face of continuity when reuniting these people in impossible circumstances/time frames. Then the way Kingpin deals with them simply makes no sense. It also brings back a character to sordidly get her killed two pages later for nothing more than (pseudo) shock value.
The so-called writer even signed it under the name of Alan Smithee; I reckon that says it all.
Artwise: several artists and as many shades of mediocre again.
Conclusion: Run, you fools! And stay away from this collection.
Gregory Wright starts with an absurd story set in NY’s sewers, reusing characters from the worst part of Frank Miller’s period. He throws every dumb idea that came to mind into the plot-a Mayan Deity, a former supe nobody ever heard of before, Bushwacker and...Deathlok (!?)- stirs it and throws it in your face.
Tom Grindberg mediocre art doesn’t sweeten the pill.
D.G. Chichester fares a bit better with the Elektra: Root of evil mini-series. He obviously writes better than Wright but in the end I can’t help but wonder: so what? No real point here and I had to endure Scott McDaniel on the artboard to boot.
The last arc could have been slightly interesting. It revolves around an event taking place years ago involving several characters directly related to Daredevil. But whatever potentially interesting development is shot to death with miserable writing and major incoherences. First it boldly spits in the face of continuity when reuniting these people in impossible circumstances/time frames. Then the way Kingpin deals with them simply makes no sense. It also brings back a character to sordidly get her killed two pages later for nothing more than (pseudo) shock value.
The so-called writer even signed it under the name of Alan Smithee; I reckon that says it all.
Artwise: several artists and as many shades of mediocre again.
Conclusion: Run, you fools! And stay away from this collection.
January 12, 2025
2.5 stars.
March 31, 2025
3.5 Stars
I seemed to enjoy this more than most readers, but I suppose I'm not a very harsh critic. This isn't a classic Daredevil run by any means, but I found it to be at least average. It starts out with a story set in the sewers of New York City which ties into some older Daredevil stories, then we get a story that deals with an untold story of the past. I think most Daredevil readers look at the whole "armor costume" era as bad, and while I don't entirely agree with that, I'm also not going to argue the era's greatness. Not bad, but not that good either.
I seemed to enjoy this more than most readers, but I suppose I'm not a very harsh critic. This isn't a classic Daredevil run by any means, but I found it to be at least average. It starts out with a story set in the sewers of New York City which ties into some older Daredevil stories, then we get a story that deals with an untold story of the past. I think most Daredevil readers look at the whole "armor costume" era as bad, and while I don't entirely agree with that, I'm also not going to argue the era's greatness. Not bad, but not that good either.
July 26, 2021
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura.
Nem quando ele vai investigar crimes nos esgotos, enfrenta o Bushwacker - cara que transforma o dedo num três oitão -, um lobisomem - o Destruidor -, o Rei do Esgoto - gordo, careca, fedido.
Nem quando, do nada, aparece o Deathlok morando nos esgotos - vai saber, né?
Nem quando a Marvel inventa um retcon com um antigo capanga do Wilson Fisk que quer vingança.
Nem quando é revelado que o nome do capanga é Victor Krueller. Muito menos quando descobrimos que o nome de guerra que ele usava nas ruas era "Kruel".
Sério, Kruel.
Acho que ele fazia casacos de pele com animais de estimação també.
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura, quando o Kruel tem uma espécie de amnésia muito louca, ele só se lembra do Wilson Fisk quando baixa a porra em alguma testemunha de algo traumatizante do passado. Claro, todas as testemunhas são ligadas ao Murdock, e uma ex-namorada aletória morre, afinal é um gibi do Demolidor.
Também não dá pra defender a mini da Elektra.
Essa é tão ruim que eu me pergunto se alguém lia os gibis da Marvel antes de serem publicados.
Um irmão perdido.
Sério, a Elektra tem um irmão mais velho que nem ela conhecia.
O nome do cara é Orestes.
Orestes, filho bastardo do pai da Elektra - a mãe da Elektra era adepta do poliamor, o pai, não - manda matar a mãe da Elektra, enquanto grávida.
E essa é só a plotline do retcon ou de um episódio qualquer de Elektra del Bairro.
A história ainda é mais absurda, porque envolve os "Snakeroot", uma galera do mal do Tentáculo que precisa banhar uma espada em sangue inocente, e a Elektra cabe não deixar que a espada fique mágica enquanto ela se lembra, nas primeiras páginas de cada edição, de todas as violências que ela sofreu na infância.
Sério. Orestes.
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura.
Nem quando ele vai investigar crimes nos esgotos, enfrenta o Bushwacker - cara que transforma o dedo num três oitão -, um lobisomem - o Destruidor -, o Rei do Esgoto - gordo, careca, fedido.
Nem quando, do nada, aparece o Deathlok morando nos esgotos - vai saber, né?
Nem quando a Marvel inventa um retcon com um antigo capanga do Wilson Fisk que quer vingança.
Nem quando é revelado que o nome do capanga é Victor Krueller. Muito menos quando descobrimos que o nome de guerra que ele usava nas ruas era "Kruel".
Sério, Kruel.
Acho que ele fazia casacos de pele com animais de estimação també.
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura, quando o Kruel tem uma espécie de amnésia muito louca, ele só se lembra do Wilson Fisk quando baixa a porra em alguma testemunha de algo traumatizante do passado. Claro, todas as testemunhas são ligadas ao Murdock, e uma ex-namorada aletória morre, afinal é um gibi do Demolidor.
Também não dá pra defender a mini da Elektra.
Essa é tão ruim que eu me pergunto se alguém lia os gibis da Marvel antes de serem publicados.
Um irmão perdido.
Sério, a Elektra tem um irmão mais velho que nem ela conhecia.
O nome do cara é Orestes.
Orestes, filho bastardo do pai da Elektra - a mãe da Elektra era adepta do poliamor, o pai, não - manda matar a mãe da Elektra, enquanto grávida.
E essa é só a plotline do retcon ou de um episódio qualquer de Elektra del Bairro.
A história ainda é mais absurda, porque envolve os "Snakeroot", uma galera do mal do Tentáculo que precisa banhar uma espada em sangue inocente, e a Elektra cabe não deixar que a espada fique mágica enquanto ela se lembra, nas primeiras páginas de cada edição, de todas as violências que ela sofreu na infância.
Sério. Orestes.
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura.
March 27, 2026
This is both not the worst thing I've ever read, but also it's messy.
First arc is Daredevil in a sewer helping homeless people. It's kind of cool start that eventually just turns Daredevil fighting monsters from previous runs. It's cool, it's not horrible, but also it's...just a bit bland. Second arc is better, having a victim of Kingpin return to kill everyone who was there the day he almost died. It's pretty dark, some great moments with Daredevil and his supporting cast.
Overall this is just okay, a 3 out of 5 at best.
First arc is Daredevil in a sewer helping homeless people. It's kind of cool start that eventually just turns Daredevil fighting monsters from previous runs. It's cool, it's not horrible, but also it's...just a bit bland. Second arc is better, having a victim of Kingpin return to kill everyone who was there the day he almost died. It's pretty dark, some great moments with Daredevil and his supporting cast.
Overall this is just okay, a 3 out of 5 at best.
March 17, 2026
A merciful end to Chichester's run
I desperately wanted to like this book, I really did. I saw some promise after Tree of Knowledge at the end of last volume, and yet it still let me down big time. And it’s telling when the book immediately gets better the moment another writer like DeMatteis takes over for the final issue collected here.
This book can be split in 4 major bits: The Fathoms of Humanity arc (Issues #333-337), The Elektra 4-issue miniseries, the final arc from Chichester (Under the pen name Alan Smithee, kind of a clever nod to that name also being used in films where directors and writers didn’t wanna be associated with the work, from Issues #338-342) and the final two Issues not by him. Let’s start from the top and work our way down.
The Fathoms of Humanity arc is actually not written by Chichester, it’s written by Gregory Wright, who’s served as a fill-in writer from time to time for DD during both Nocenti's and Chichester's runs, mainly in the Annuals, and much like his stories in those Annuals this is… inoffensive. It’s not terrible and it’s not great, it does do some important setup work for the rest of Chichester's run like setting up Wilson Fisk's stage to return as the Kingpin of New York and you can kinda make the argument that it starts setting up Matt realizing what a big mistake it was to take up the "Jack Batlin" persona. It follows DD trying to clear up the names of two homeless guys who got framed for a murder by a guy who was trying to take over Kingpin's territory (his name isn’t important, he literally only gets revealed at the end and then immediately gets sent to prison to help setup Wilson's return to power anyway); it’s a fine enough story, the fight with Bushwhacker is at least fun and dynamic, but the writing is bland and even suffers from the cluttering Chichester's did, with Deathlok also getting involved and a whole subplot that goes nowhere in this book, along with a reveal of another character's identity that has no weight behind it.
After that you get the Elektra: Root of Evil miniseries, Chichester's and McDaniel's pseudo-sequel to Fall From Grace. It’s pretty bad, the writing is just as meandering and Noir-wannabe as ever, endless narration captions, over and over. The plot is simple: Elektra wants to set up her own Ninja protection clan thing and the Snakeroot (returning from Fall From Grace) wanna kill a bunch of innocent people with a sword that feeds itself on souls or whatever and Elektra has to stop them. It’s a straightforward plot that feels both incredibly rushed but also bloated, which sucks cause this was the first Elektra series post-Frank Miller and it just doesn’t live up to it. The art is also so inconsistent, if there was one thing I liked from Fall From Grace and Tree of Knowledge was McDaniel's artwork and it’s great use of negative space and colors, here it’s muddy and looks incredibly weird. There’s a sequence in either Issue #2 or #3 where it flashes back to Elektra taking a bath in a river and she looks like a freaking alien. She has the face of Paul the alien, it’s bizarre and a sad departure from how cool (if a little confusing) McDaniel's art could look in his previous work with DD and Elektra.
Right after that we dovetail into the final arc written by Chichester, under the pseudonym Alan Smithee, and it’s another disappointment. Honestly, the behind the scenes story as to Chichester's frustration with Marvel's then leadership problems is more interesting than the story itself. I recommend checking out manwithoutfear.com's interview as to why this story feels so bad, incomplete and chopped up and why he preferred to be disassociated from it.
It’s not like Fall From Grace or Tree of Knowledge where I could see small nuggets of good stuff or ideas that didn’t come through in the best of ways, it’s just a plain bad story and I would argue that’s worse than spectacularly sucking. The plot follows this guy named Victor Krueller who betrayed Kingpin a few years ago, got caught, beat up and burned by ol’ Willy and now he’s going around murdering people who were at that scene as witnesses to recover his memory. The thing is? Every single person that was present there is part of Matt Murdock's supporting cast. Foggy, Karen, Ben Urich and Gloriana O'Breen. They were all there. At the same time. In the same night. And they explain they don’t remember it cause of some magical serum that made them forget everything. Wut?
I get that comics, and fiction in general, are meant to have a degree of suspension of disbelief, but c’mon, this is just too convenient and dumb and it’s a plot device that’s there purely to justify Krueller attacking members of DD's supporting cast. My biggest complaint here is that Karen and Foggy don’t get their subplots advanced forward, Karen is still dealing with trying to find the girl victim of the CP she found in that floppy disk from Tree of Knowledge and Foggy is… doing nothing. He had a potentially interesting subplot setup dealing with that television network wanting to blackmail him but nothing came of it. Also Krueller jut magically finds his victims and beats them up, there’s also no explanation or at least some kind of magic mumbo jumbo as to why killing these people helps him recover his memories.
I think the biggest issue with Chichester's writing is that he wants to desperately be like Frank Miller. His focus on the Hand and Elektra are the biggest giveaway of this, not to mention his constant narration that is very clearly trying so hard to ape how Miller's run is written, but with none of the pacing or interesting stuff happening, it’s just endless noir detective narration for the sake of seeming "cool" without understanding what made Miller's writing good.
The saving grace here are the last two issues. #343 and #344. #343 is written by Warren Ellis and it’s clearly him complaining about the direction of the book up to that point, he has Matt explicitly call out how stupid the whole Jack Batlin and Black Armor idea was, in a very Ellis style of being angry against everything all the time. Or was that Garth Ennis? Either way, it’s an alright issue that’s just there for Ellis to complain about the direction of the book and not much else but at least it’s fun.
Issue #344 is an interesting one, it’s part of a crossover storyline called "Over the Edge" as part of DD's then transition to a very short-lived imprint called "Marvel Edge" (another sign of Marvel's failing leadership at the time), which was kind of a proto-Marvel Knights. Point is that while it is part of a crossover, it is written by one of the most goated writers of all time: J.M. DeMatteis, and the book’s quality shoots up tenfold, as DeMatteis fills it with his signature character-driven, pensive but hopeful writing. It’s just a quintessential DeMatteis book that isn’t Spider-Man.
Aside from McDaniel's art taking a nosedive during the Elektra mini, the art throughout the rest of the book is fine. Nothing terrible, nothing outstanding, just passable, with maybe a few weird layouts that don’t flow too well.
But overall? Definitely the worst era of the character, unmatched until the recent Saladin Ahmed run in terms of how bad it is. The final issue does give me hope to check out DeMatteis' work on the book whenever Marvel decide to reprint it.
I desperately wanted to like this book, I really did. I saw some promise after Tree of Knowledge at the end of last volume, and yet it still let me down big time. And it’s telling when the book immediately gets better the moment another writer like DeMatteis takes over for the final issue collected here.
This book can be split in 4 major bits: The Fathoms of Humanity arc (Issues #333-337), The Elektra 4-issue miniseries, the final arc from Chichester (Under the pen name Alan Smithee, kind of a clever nod to that name also being used in films where directors and writers didn’t wanna be associated with the work, from Issues #338-342) and the final two Issues not by him. Let’s start from the top and work our way down.
The Fathoms of Humanity arc is actually not written by Chichester, it’s written by Gregory Wright, who’s served as a fill-in writer from time to time for DD during both Nocenti's and Chichester's runs, mainly in the Annuals, and much like his stories in those Annuals this is… inoffensive. It’s not terrible and it’s not great, it does do some important setup work for the rest of Chichester's run like setting up Wilson Fisk's stage to return as the Kingpin of New York and you can kinda make the argument that it starts setting up Matt realizing what a big mistake it was to take up the "Jack Batlin" persona. It follows DD trying to clear up the names of two homeless guys who got framed for a murder by a guy who was trying to take over Kingpin's territory (his name isn’t important, he literally only gets revealed at the end and then immediately gets sent to prison to help setup Wilson's return to power anyway); it’s a fine enough story, the fight with Bushwhacker is at least fun and dynamic, but the writing is bland and even suffers from the cluttering Chichester's did, with Deathlok also getting involved and a whole subplot that goes nowhere in this book, along with a reveal of another character's identity that has no weight behind it.
After that you get the Elektra: Root of Evil miniseries, Chichester's and McDaniel's pseudo-sequel to Fall From Grace. It’s pretty bad, the writing is just as meandering and Noir-wannabe as ever, endless narration captions, over and over. The plot is simple: Elektra wants to set up her own Ninja protection clan thing and the Snakeroot (returning from Fall From Grace) wanna kill a bunch of innocent people with a sword that feeds itself on souls or whatever and Elektra has to stop them. It’s a straightforward plot that feels both incredibly rushed but also bloated, which sucks cause this was the first Elektra series post-Frank Miller and it just doesn’t live up to it. The art is also so inconsistent, if there was one thing I liked from Fall From Grace and Tree of Knowledge was McDaniel's artwork and it’s great use of negative space and colors, here it’s muddy and looks incredibly weird. There’s a sequence in either Issue #2 or #3 where it flashes back to Elektra taking a bath in a river and she looks like a freaking alien. She has the face of Paul the alien, it’s bizarre and a sad departure from how cool (if a little confusing) McDaniel's art could look in his previous work with DD and Elektra.
Right after that we dovetail into the final arc written by Chichester, under the pseudonym Alan Smithee, and it’s another disappointment. Honestly, the behind the scenes story as to Chichester's frustration with Marvel's then leadership problems is more interesting than the story itself. I recommend checking out manwithoutfear.com's interview as to why this story feels so bad, incomplete and chopped up and why he preferred to be disassociated from it.
It’s not like Fall From Grace or Tree of Knowledge where I could see small nuggets of good stuff or ideas that didn’t come through in the best of ways, it’s just a plain bad story and I would argue that’s worse than spectacularly sucking. The plot follows this guy named Victor Krueller who betrayed Kingpin a few years ago, got caught, beat up and burned by ol’ Willy and now he’s going around murdering people who were at that scene as witnesses to recover his memory. The thing is? Every single person that was present there is part of Matt Murdock's supporting cast. Foggy, Karen, Ben Urich and Gloriana O'Breen. They were all there. At the same time. In the same night. And they explain they don’t remember it cause of some magical serum that made them forget everything. Wut?
I get that comics, and fiction in general, are meant to have a degree of suspension of disbelief, but c’mon, this is just too convenient and dumb and it’s a plot device that’s there purely to justify Krueller attacking members of DD's supporting cast. My biggest complaint here is that Karen and Foggy don’t get their subplots advanced forward, Karen is still dealing with trying to find the girl victim of the CP she found in that floppy disk from Tree of Knowledge and Foggy is… doing nothing. He had a potentially interesting subplot setup dealing with that television network wanting to blackmail him but nothing came of it. Also Krueller jut magically finds his victims and beats them up, there’s also no explanation or at least some kind of magic mumbo jumbo as to why killing these people helps him recover his memories.
I think the biggest issue with Chichester's writing is that he wants to desperately be like Frank Miller. His focus on the Hand and Elektra are the biggest giveaway of this, not to mention his constant narration that is very clearly trying so hard to ape how Miller's run is written, but with none of the pacing or interesting stuff happening, it’s just endless noir detective narration for the sake of seeming "cool" without understanding what made Miller's writing good.
The saving grace here are the last two issues. #343 and #344. #343 is written by Warren Ellis and it’s clearly him complaining about the direction of the book up to that point, he has Matt explicitly call out how stupid the whole Jack Batlin and Black Armor idea was, in a very Ellis style of being angry against everything all the time. Or was that Garth Ennis? Either way, it’s an alright issue that’s just there for Ellis to complain about the direction of the book and not much else but at least it’s fun.
Issue #344 is an interesting one, it’s part of a crossover storyline called "Over the Edge" as part of DD's then transition to a very short-lived imprint called "Marvel Edge" (another sign of Marvel's failing leadership at the time), which was kind of a proto-Marvel Knights. Point is that while it is part of a crossover, it is written by one of the most goated writers of all time: J.M. DeMatteis, and the book’s quality shoots up tenfold, as DeMatteis fills it with his signature character-driven, pensive but hopeful writing. It’s just a quintessential DeMatteis book that isn’t Spider-Man.
Aside from McDaniel's art taking a nosedive during the Elektra mini, the art throughout the rest of the book is fine. Nothing terrible, nothing outstanding, just passable, with maybe a few weird layouts that don’t flow too well.
But overall? Definitely the worst era of the character, unmatched until the recent Saladin Ahmed run in terms of how bad it is. The final issue does give me hope to check out DeMatteis' work on the book whenever Marvel decide to reprint it.
December 25, 2017
This shows what one great author can do to right the course of a sinking ship, as Warren Ellis picks up the shards of the themes Wright and "Smithee" were fumbling with and brings them together into a cohesive narrative within one 30 page conclusion with issue 343.
Worth a read twice, as Ellis' cap makes the rest of the issues make more sense thematically for having been there.
Worth a read twice, as Ellis' cap makes the rest of the issues make more sense thematically for having been there.
April 7, 2019
Art not really good, and stories not great either... not satisfying!
March 5, 2022
The 90s were a tough time for comics. Aside from Murdock faking his death and coming back as a con man - whut - this, like much of 90s pop culture, has some very weird ideas about homelessness.
March 25, 2025
OMG, this was awful. This was in the era when Matt Murdock faked his death and was running around in an armored costume and living as con man, Jack Battlin. The first arc by the colorist Gregory Wright was some weird thing with Daredevil in the sewers helping homeless people with some cannibals. It's beyond dumb. Then D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel do the Elektra: Root of Evil miniseries and whatever good ideas Chichester had in the past were clearly gone by this point. The story with the Snakeroot is pretty terrible. Then we return to the main Daredevil book with a story so bad the writer took his name off the book using the old pseudonym, Alan Smithee, that directors used to use in Hollywood when they were embarrassed about a movie they'd directed because of interference from the studio. I'd love to know who actually wrote it and how Marvel twisted it. This is an era of Daredevil you can safely ignore.
October 5, 2018
This wasn't too bad. I'm not a big Elektra fan but the mini-series was okay, but I was really disappointed that the final issue didn't have the Punisher issues it related to. Plus there were many misprints, from claiming one issue was 378 (an issue number that doesn't even exist), then the change in paper quality at one point, to the spine that was cut wrong! But I can't blame the writers for that! :D
February 19, 2026
This started pretty low and only got worse
May 13, 2026
With the exception of the final two issues, this mainly reads like a parody of DD
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews