Daredevil Epic Collection, Vol. 18: Fall From Grace

Daredevil Epic Collection

by D.G. Chichester, Mindy Newell, Gregory Wright

Collects Daredevil (1964) #319-332 and Annual #10.

It's the epic saga that reintroduced Elektra to the Marvel Universe! The Hand ninja clan unleashes a super-virus on New York, and only Daredevil can stop them - but not without some unexpected help from a long-lost love and a new, armored costume! Can the Man Without Fear come to terms with his past with Elektra in time to halt the Hand's terror plot, even if it means the end of his secret identity? And when Baron Strucker assembles a team of cyber-terrorists to plunge the world's computer systems into global anarchy, will even Captain America's aid be enough to defeat them? Guest-starring Nick Fury, Black Widow and more!

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Action, Fantasy, Adventure

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2014

About the author

Dan G. Chichester

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading this, I would say using Kevin Smith’s run on Daredevil as a baseline for “bad” might stand for a little revisiting. The two stars are only for die hard Daredevil fans.



The ‘90’s produced some bad comics, especially at Marvel, but this would be terrible reading at any place or time.

D.G. Chishester came up with unfathomable plots, threw in a sh*t-ton of characters to muddy the continuity water, gave these characters some of the worst dialogue ever, threw in character motivations that are far removed from any version of the character you’ve ever seen, paced the stories like a truck driver shifting a Mack engine on an incline, had this mess illustrated with some of the worst art ever rendered in a comic book (think Frank Miller gets beat up by Todd McFarlane) and you pretty much have as wretchedly unique reading experience as you could imagine.

It’s one of those sad instances where writing and art took a nosedive together to see who could be worse than the other.

The first story, Fall From Grace : a telekinetic woman gets chopped up in the swingin’ ‘60’s and her essence gets reduced to a virus that would allow whoever comes into contact with it to re-make their DNA by mere suggestion. The government also had evil designs on this crap as well and planted it in the NYC subway system around the same time they dumped LSD into the drinking water.

The story involves SHIELD, Nick Fury, John Garrett, some cybernetic dude named Siege, the Hand, Stone of the Chaste; a resurrected Elektra, her evil essence Erynys; some demon version of Daredevil, Hellspawn; Venom, Morbius, Silver Sable…

I need a nap.

Oh and some dude named Eddie that everyone is hunting down.



Yeah. Hi.

Oh, did I mention that Daredevil gets outed here…



…and changes his armored uniform a little prematurely (more on that soon)…



…because the old one kept getting torn up and burned.



So, Hellspawn, the demon version of Daredevil…



takes the Virus and ends up in human form looking like Matt Murdock and in a couple of panels…dead . So Matt Murdock, seeing how getting outed as Daredevil has taken a toll on his friends…



…pretends to be dead, takes the name Jack Batlin (in honor of his daddy, Battling Jack Murdock), becomes a street hustler in Times Square (!?!), and is now a “new” version of Daredevil.



See, if he waited to change his costume at this point, it would make sense, otherwise it looks like some creepy dude, who has all the physical characteristics of Daredevil, talks like Daredevil, looks like Daredevil from the nose down, looted his corpse for the uniform and became the new Daredevil…



I’m with you on that one, Cap and I need a nap.

The Daredevil annual, featuring Shang Chi, has a different artist and writer, is actually decent [read: it’s a story that pays lip service to Chichester’s continuity (ha) and actually makes sense]



Story the second, Tree of Knowledge , has Baron Von Strucker trying to cyber punk the city of New York.





Listen.

Nobody’s laughing.



Hey, it’s an X-Man on the cover of a Daredevil book (and a crappy French/Cajun-accented X-Men to boot)! 90’s X-Men -> $$$$ -> head-scratching two page appearance. I guess Psylocke was shopping or had a waxing appointment.



But then Chichester did some more crappy stuff too. Use last panel of issue to promise a clash between heroes…



…next ish, you expect a major brawl, but they’re spooning or something. GAH!

‘90’s comics weren’t usually kind to women and the depictions here can be insulting. 1) Pornographers from her past try to lure Karen Page into the burgeoning world of cyber-porn. It’s as sleazy as it sounds. 2) Elektra’s characterization is all over the place. Initially her dark essence is trapped in John Garrett’s brain (some sort of ninja Hand sh*t) and The Hand does some sort of hoodoo to get it out, so there’s evil Elektra vs. bald white garbed Elektra.



Once she has her dark essence back, the first thing she does is put the moves on Matt, but not before growing some hair via some sort of ninja-Hand-hair-growing-club-for-lady-ninjas sh*t.



Read: Matt has the feels for Karen Page, even though Karen thinks he’s – well - dead.

Pretzel logic…

To add insult to injury, there’s a couple of cheesecake pin-ups of Elektra in the appendix of the book. Oy vey!

Bottom Line : I applaud Marvel’s new EPIC line. I’ve read a few of the books and liked how they’re put together; however, to use the word “epic” when talking about this volume takes a stretch that hurts my brain and is an insult to the word “epic”. For Daredevil fans only!!



Other readers just say no…



Stop saying that…

[Frédéric · Rating 1 out of 5]

A painful read if ever. "Fall from grace" is an interesting plot going FUBAR; "Tree of knowledge" is worse.

Chichester fails to handle both plots. Confused to start with, they are crammed with dozens of not very interesting characters. If Garrett and Elektra are relatively fun- especially Garrett- what justifies the presence of Morbius, Siege, Iron Fist or Gambit? They add insult to injury, muddling already troubled waters and stretching an already over-extendended page count.

If Chichester had managed to stay on the good side of boring with his dialogues and verbose captions so far he spectacularly fails here. They add confusion at best. At worst they’re cringy, particularly in Tree of knowledge and its outdated take on cyber-terrorism.

As for the art... last volume with Scott McDaniel was one of the worst pile of crap I’ve ever seen. Comparatively speaking this one is better. McDaniel thinks he is Frank Miller in Sin City. He is obviously wrong but it’s still an improvement from before. New inkers probably helped too.
But when all is said and done it’s still plain bad. The storytelling is a perpetual SNAFU in the making and several panels are simply indecipherable.

Daredevil fell from grace and now we all know who pushed him down.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lowest rating I can give this one on here. It’s only because of how much I love Daredevil that this book gets this rating.

[Lono · Rating 3 out of 5]

More cliché than an 80's action movie. Some of the dialog was painful. Not just sort of painful, like nuts in a jeweler's vice painful. Fall From Grace Had elements of things I typically enjoy. Daredevil, ninja clans, shit talking cyborgs with guns, the "real" Nick Fury, and it built upon canon created by Frank Miller when he was maturing into one of the best creators in comics. Unfortunately it never really gels. Kind of a shame because I think the story had ingredients that could have worked on some level in the hands of a different writer. Remember liking it a little more in the early 90's. And this book has aged about as well as meth addicted hooker. However, Scott McDaniel is this edition's only redeeming quality and the one reason I gave it 3 stars. Scott really came into his own when working with Chuck Dixon(writer) and Karl Story(inker) on Nightwing, but you can see where his unique style evolved from in this book. All but 2 issues in the massive collection were drawn by him and I love his technique. His work in this edition can be hard to follow at times, but none the less beautiful. McDaniel has been criticized at times for borrowing from Miller's style in that era. Whatever. I don't really see it. I was only able to finish this story because of his contribution to the collection. The 2 issues that he didn't draw were weak. Really weak. This trade is probably only for hardcore Daredevil completists or fans of McDaniel's art. All others would do best to avoid this dated collection.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of at best, mediocre stories from the Daredevil of the 90s. And you can tell it's from the 90s as it includes most of the clichés of the era.

New armoured costume - Check!
The hero 'going darker' - Check!
Return of a long dead fan favourite - Check!
Guns, lots of guns - Check!
Pointless guest appearances - Check!
Massive world shaking events - Check!

Sadly both the writing and artwork are poor. The writing (particularly in the title story) is incoherent in places and when combined with really messy and dark (as in not enough light) visuals, it makes the story really difficult to follow. The second story in this collection (Tree of Knowledge) is slightly better but suffers from a lot of the same issues as Fall from Grace but has one of the most pointless cameo appearances I've ever seen in a comic book.

For me though the worst elements of this collection are in Fall from Grace where you have 3 massive elements in Daredevil's mythology (new costume, return of Elektra (not a spoiler, she's on the cover!) and *spoiler*) which are not given any time to breath. It feels just moving onto the next big set piece.

The only redeeming features are that I quite like the new costume, the middle stories from a Daredevil annual are not bad and that Epic Collections look very nice on a bookshelf. Worth reading only if you're already a fan of Daredevil or you want to see just how bonkers mainstream superhero comics could be in the 90s.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depois de encerrar A Saga do Demolidor, a PaniniTM resolveu continuar publicando as histórias do personagem em edições da Epic Collection. Começando por Caindo em Desgraça, quando o artista Scott McDaniel muda radicalmente seu estilo de desenho, se aproximando daquilo que Frank Miller passou a fazer no seu Sin City, apenas com a diferença de que existe aqui uma adição de cor. D. G. Chichester continua nos roteiros, rocambolescos e enrolados, para trazer de volta à continuidade normal da Marvel a assassina Elektra. São dos arcos de história: Caindo em Desgraça, que lida com o retorno de Elektra e com um demônio conjurado a partir de Murdock, e Árvore do Conhecimento, que lida com as novidades da época: a rede mundial de computadores e cibercriminosos. Além disso, temos um anual com a presença do Mestre do Kung Fu, mas que tem desenhos horrorosos. Completa o anual uma história da Viúva Negra. O que vale mesmo nessa edição de Epic Collection do Demolidor são os desenhos de McDaniel imitando Miller, porque os roteiros, vou te contar, hein...

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the rating I've seen, I enjoyed this more than most readers. I will say that Fall from Grace is much better than Tree of Knowledge. One thing to note is that this is not for new or casual Daredevil fans. Stories from the past play heavily in these stories, so newer readers would be lost. But for long time fans, it's good to see some continuity with the older stories. Obviously this isn't for everyone, and Tree of Knowledge was mid, but Fall From Grace was pretty good.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fall from Grace (#319-325). This is an arc that's both hard to love and hard to hate. On the one hand, it's got a great conception. it doesn't just revisit many of the elements of Frank Miller's original, pivotal run on Daredevil, but expands on them. So the Chaste get a name for the first time, and we learn about the rotten, Snakeroot, heart of the Hand. Chichester also really tries to make this a pivotal arc, reintroducing Elektra to the Daredevil comic for the first time in a decade, offering a huge turning point for her, and meanwhile outing Matt for the first time. Chichester even adopts a storytelling style reminiscent of Born Again, which its wavering focus between a wide array of characters.

The problem is that "Fall from Grace" is also near fatally flawed.

First, that's because of the murky, choppy storytelling. it's the worst between issues, where we get jumps that are never explained. The introduction of the black costume between 0 and 1 is almost explained, but you have to read carefully; less so the sudden return of the Hellspawn between 5 and 6 and various other discontinuities. But, the comic is generally muddy, not helped by the artwork (which is too bad, because it's awesome, but that should have been compensated for with clearer than usual storytelling, not the converse).

Second, we get a revolving door of guest stars who make little sense. Silver Sable? Venom? Morbius? One can only shrug one's shoulders. They make little sense and detract from the story rather than enhancing it.

I think this is a story that might improve on careful rereading (and perhaps rerereading), but that rereading is required because it has fatal weaknesses, which is a shame given its ambition [3/5].

"Vendettas" (Annual #10). This annual story, not by Chichester, has potential because it follows up on Daredevil, Elektra, and a Snakeroot assassin. The problem is that it's just a horribly long fight with Mr. Snakeroot. Boooooring. [2/5]. (The Widow story in the annual is a bit better, but it's not very conclusive.)

Tree of Knowledge (#326-332). This second arc pretty much continues with the flaws of the first: it's muddy and it's full of totally extraneous guest stars. The worst is certainly Gambit, who shows up for all of four pages, just to make sure things are under control. The actual storyline walks the border between interesting and cringeworthy. It features a bunch of internet-themed foes, but does so from back in 1994, before the internet went commercial makes it nicely prescient. The tech is also pretty good. However, with that said, internet-themed foes are almost always dumb, and that's largely the case here. This arc also sets up the new status quo: Matt Murdock is "dead", so now he's pretending to be a new Daredevil with a new secret identity, and that's all every bit as "meh" as you'd expect. [3/5]

[Jim Kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gloriously mad slice of mid-90s Daredevil; it really shouldn't work, but is pulled off with such energy from the creative team it's easy to forgive the much-maligned resurrection, the glut of (very of-their-time) guest stars and the new armoured design for the title character.

Scott Macdaniel is channelling Frank Miller strongly in places and pulls off some interesting layouts and very dynamic action; there is some nice design on the covers as well.

The writing is a fascinating near-train-wreck; presumably there was a lot of editorial mandate in here given the guest stars and resurrection, but Chichester attacks it with enough verve to give it some merit and some good characterisation, especially for Steve Rogers who winds up at odds with the Avengers over their authoritarian response to the main threat in the second story - in itself an interesting and surprising idea for the time.

The second story, Tree of Knowledge, is hilariously 90s in its treatment of information technology and hackers but does tackle some prescient ideas about the US government installing back doors in computer networks and how a non-free network could drive inequality. Have to admit, I never expected to see the word "teledildonics" in a Marvel comic from two decades ago.

Overall, this is more worth a look than many expect; it's peppered with the kind of 90s Marvel excesses people love to hate, but you couldn't accuse the creators of phoning it in. Though I can see its weaknesses, I really enjoyed it.

[Nicholas Ahlhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

D.G. Chichester's run on Daredevil is criminally under-rated. Fall From Grace was built as the inevitable conclusion to storylines started by Frank Miller over a decade earlier. The long slow spiral of Matt Murdock's life ended with his identity made public (for the first time.) Wrapped in a story that introduces the inner circle of the Hand, the Snakeroot, revives Elektra and features a bevy of guest stars, Fall From Grace revolves around a formula that can recreate someone as whatever they want to be. Daredevil ends up in an endless race as he tries to stop the Snakeroot while also dealing with threats as diverse as Silver Sable, Morbius and Venom.

This book also contains the follow up, Tree of Knowledge, a series made weaker by the massive differences between computer tech in the mid-90s and today. But even with those flaws, these are some great comics too few modern fans have read.

[Marcelo Soares · Rating 1 out of 5]

Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de Armadura.
Não dá.
É horrível.
Começa com uma história em que o Demolidor apanha bastante e resolve fazer uma armadura; enquanto isso um monte de gente aleatória procura um frasco perdido no metrô de Nova Iorque que é o único restante de um vírus telepático feito pela Shield nos anos 60, cada aleatório tem um motivo:
- Traficantes que querem melhorar a heroína que eles vendem;
- Tentáculo para unir a alma da Elektra no corpo de outra mina parecida com a Elektra;
- John Garret, o ciborque da Elektra Vive que pensa que é o presidente e é controlado pelo Tentáculo;
- Morbius, o vampiro vivo, que quer se curar da fome por sangue;
- Hellspawn, um demônio-golem feito com sangue do Matt Murdock (?) por um líder vodu da Lousianna, quer o vírus para virar um demônio de verdade;
- Shang Chi e Silver Sable, não sei porquê;
- Elektra careca;
- Venom porque era o personagem da moda e tinha que aparecer em tudo que é lugar.
No final, com a identidade do Matt Murdock saindo no jornal (o Bendis não é tão original assim), o Murdockão tem uma ideia "genial", ele usa o vírus no corpo do Hellspawn que vira um Murdock com chifres e finge que o Murdock morreu e assume a identidade de Jack Batlin, um picareta social.
E aí? Como tá pra vocês?
Bom, na próxima história - A Árvore do Conhecimento -, Demolidor, Capitão América, Gambit e o Punho de Ferro lutam contra terroristas digitais sob o comando da Nova Hidra do Barão Strucker. O que já não andava bem, fica ainda pior. Os noventa não foram fáceis para ninguém, mas, putaqueopariu, Murdock, putaqueopariu...
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de armadura.
Não dá.

[Adan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never read Fall From Grace before, so was excited to read it. It wasn't bad at all, but the art could occasionally get pretty muddled. Don't think that was McDaniel's fault, as his later Nightwing always made sense to me. My favorite part, however, was the confirmation of Elektra: Assassin being in-continuity, something I had always thought was not the case.

The second story in this, Tree of Knowledge, about Hydra trying to hack into things, is not very good and laughably dated. It's not their fault, but man, they did not know how the Internet worked back in the 90s.

[Mojoswork · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful storytelling all around. While the Chichester/McDaniel run starts with absolutely no visual style at all, Fall from Grace goes so extreme with stylized art that it’s impossible to tell what’s happening panel to panel. A very sloppy, nonsensical mess that is only surpassed i. Its incoherence by the following story, Tree of Knowledge.

[Cweb · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art can be muddied, but in Marvel Unlimited it's fixed up quite a bit. A shame the story is so absurd and a bad attempt at a cyberpunk story in the 90's. And the belief that encryption will bring you a gestapo state? Hahaha..

[Łukasz Kosowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10

[Breiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 ⭐

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to enjoy any of this. It was overstuffed and extremely dated. None of it was clear or cohesive to me.

[Miss Johnsto · Rating 1 out of 5]

Genuinely terrible and is an awful change of pace after Nocentis mostly good run

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good lord, these D.G. Chichester comics are bad. The plots are so muddy I was lost as to motivations of why things were happening. The Fall from Grace storyline is particularly dumb even though it leads to lots of changes. Everyone's after some lost virus that can change the physical abilities of whoever gets it. It's all real murky. Elektra returns for the first time since the Frank Miller days. Matt fakes his death and takes on a new identity as a con man. Karen Page is both fighting and "lost" in the world of porn. I don't really get this subplot at all especially once Matt is "dead". They basically dropped Foggy from the book so why not Karen as well. The second story is a team of cybercriminals working for Hydra called System Crash. I couldn't even tell you what they were up to. Cyber characters never make for interesting stories, especially not ones written in 1994.

I am one of the minority that really likes Scott McDaniel's art. It's the only reason for hard core DD fans to read this.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember enjoying this a lot more when it was first published. Unfortunately, it did not age well. The two stories are kind of a mess, with random guest stars coming and going, and a bunch of colorfully drawn but bland villains. The art, while stylish, is also kind of a mess, lacking clarity and making the story more difficult to follow.

[Ilib4kids · Rating 3 out of 5]

YGN CHICHESTER

[Edward Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best collection I've ever read. It hasn't aged particularly well, considering the story line was in many ways ahead of its time, and bringing back Elektra seemed a little too contrived.