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Daredevil Epic Collection
Daredevil Epic Collection, Vol. 20: Purgatory & Paradise
Taken to the edge! The black costume is no more - but who is that running around in the original yellow suit? And the classic red? Is it Matt Murdock? Jack Batlin? Or...someone else?! The Man Without Fear faces an identity crisis - and it won't be easy to put his broken life back together! If he can, it'll be a new dawn for Nelson & Murdock - unless the hotshot lawyer Rosalind Sharpe has other ideas! Faces from Matt's past resurface, including his mother, his former lover Black Widow, and his dead mentor Stick...but there's something different about Spider-Man! Meanwhile, villains line up to take on Daredevil - like Pyro, the Enforcers, the Absorbing Man and Mysterio! Matt faces one of his hardest cases: defending Mr. Hyde! And DD pulls an all-nighter battling Insomnia! COLLECTING: VOL. 20: DAREDEVIL (1964) 345-364
488 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2019
3 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
J.M. DeMatteis
1,914 books236 followersAlso Credited As:
DeMatteis, John Marc
Ellis, Michael
Lombego, Wally
Bio:
J.M. DeMatteis was a professional musician/singer and rock music journalist before entering comics in the late 70's.
Credits include Spider-Man, Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams, Justice League, Abadazad, Hero Squared, the Life and Times of Savior 28.
Created I, Vampire , Creature Commandos, Moonshadow, Hero Squared (co-creator), Abadazad, Stardust Kid, Savior 28 and more.
DeMatteis, John Marc
Ellis, Michael
Lombego, Wally
Bio:
J.M. DeMatteis was a professional musician/singer and rock music journalist before entering comics in the late 70's.
Credits include Spider-Man, Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams, Justice League, Abadazad, Hero Squared, the Life and Times of Savior 28.
Created I, Vampire , Creature Commandos, Moonshadow, Hero Squared (co-creator), Abadazad, Stardust Kid, Savior 28 and more.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 3, 2025
3.5 Stars
This wasn't exactly a classic Daredevil run, but it was okay. The opening arc seemed more fitting for Moon Knight than Daredevil, but then when the arc with Rosalind Sharpe and Karen Paige started it felt more like familiar Daredevil. Slightly better than the previous collection, but still not quite there.
This wasn't exactly a classic Daredevil run, but it was okay. The opening arc seemed more fitting for Moon Knight than Daredevil, but then when the arc with Rosalind Sharpe and Karen Paige started it felt more like familiar Daredevil. Slightly better than the previous collection, but still not quite there.
February 27, 2020
I'm rating this by story arcs/creative teams as I'm finished reading them.
The first 6 issues by DeMatteis are entertaining, yet infuriating. Characters flip their personalities with each scene, Karen Page is just a dumb female love interest, the entire plot is overcomplicated, the narration too pretentious, the villain Sir is a bit of a dated character... but the art is great and the intrigue is interesting. It's also weird that #349 is called "Paradiso, Part One", and #350 is "Paradiso". Seems like no editors bothered with the book at all. 3 stars for the DeMatteis run.
The next two issues are some of the worst Daredevil issues I've read. Foggy is a stubborn asshole, Matt is a selfish asshole, he is suddenly running around making quips in every panel, the art is ugly to look at - Daredevil looks like a human-gorilla hybrid with a psychopaths smile. It feels like the premise of the Waid's run, but this time Matt Murdock is just happy and making suicide jokes two issues after dealing with heavy depression. Also, Turk is white because the artist probably lacked knowledge about the character and no editor bothered fixing it. 2, borderline 1, stars for these two issues.
When Kesel takes over the run, it becomes slightly better. The start is still badly paced, with random, forgettable villains. However, the Ben Reilly team-up is fun, and makes fun of how absurd the previous issues of DD and Clone Saga have been. One hilarious scene of three people knowing DD's identity and then trying to cover up for Matt without knowing everyone else knows his secret is one of the best in this book. The fight with Pyro was great, and it tied in nicely to the legacy virus story going on in the X-Men books. Cary Nord does some nice art in these issues, but I disliked most of the other artists. Karen still sucks as a character, though. The rest of the Kesel issues are slightly better, but there are still some terrible moments, like everything that has to do with the Enforcers and Eel, which looks like straight out of a 60's cartoon. Misty Knight's small appearance is nice. I feel like DD is too jokey and cringey, feels almost like Spider-Man. It doesn't even feel the same way as Waid's later, more relaxed run. It just feels off. Some really annoying typos, repeated words by accident, speech bubbles that are wrongly assigned to other characters, come up sometimes. Not sure what the editors were doing. I'd say the Kessel run until the Joe Kelly issue jumps between 2 and 4 stars.
Kesel's run is then interrupted by one issue by Joe Kelly. It's an aftermath of Onslaught and just doesn't really feel like a Daredevil comic. The art is poor man's anime-ish for the most part, character's reaction are sooo overexaggerated too. The plot outline is ok, but the execution is terrible. Stuff just happens out of nowhere, and things that could be solved with better dialogue evolve into drama. The "big fights" in the two issues are just so short and random and idiotic, not to mention the cover spoils the "plot twist" (you can barely call it that considering it's revealed one page after the thing is introduced) and it's in the end totally insignificant. The humor is meh (weird considering it's Kelly writing) and it's also (accidentially? Idk) transphobic. Didn't age well. There is stuff in here that's crucial for later issues, which I don't know why was written by Kelly and why in this tie-in issue? This feels more like an Avengers or FF comic that just happens to not feature them due to obvious reasons. The scene with Jarvis and some of the general ideas presented save it from getting 1 star. 2 out of 5 stars.
After that, the remaining issues are again by Kesel and Nord, with one issue featuring guest-art by the legendary Gene Colan. Nord's art starts to feel rushed towards the end, and Colan didn't fit the more modern story that much. Otherwise, the remaining issues were some of the more enjoyable ones, with a few cool moments, plot developments and twists. However, there were still plenty of weird and dumb moments that I didn't connect to that much. I'd give them 3 stars.
Total rating would be around 2.5/5 stars. I will round it up to 3, because I'm still interested in what would happen next, despite all the problems. But I'm really reaching...
The first 6 issues by DeMatteis are entertaining, yet infuriating. Characters flip their personalities with each scene, Karen Page is just a dumb female love interest, the entire plot is overcomplicated, the narration too pretentious, the villain Sir is a bit of a dated character... but the art is great and the intrigue is interesting. It's also weird that #349 is called "Paradiso, Part One", and #350 is "Paradiso". Seems like no editors bothered with the book at all. 3 stars for the DeMatteis run.
The next two issues are some of the worst Daredevil issues I've read. Foggy is a stubborn asshole, Matt is a selfish asshole, he is suddenly running around making quips in every panel, the art is ugly to look at - Daredevil looks like a human-gorilla hybrid with a psychopaths smile. It feels like the premise of the Waid's run, but this time Matt Murdock is just happy and making suicide jokes two issues after dealing with heavy depression. Also, Turk is white because the artist probably lacked knowledge about the character and no editor bothered fixing it. 2, borderline 1, stars for these two issues.
When Kesel takes over the run, it becomes slightly better. The start is still badly paced, with random, forgettable villains. However, the Ben Reilly team-up is fun, and makes fun of how absurd the previous issues of DD and Clone Saga have been. One hilarious scene of three people knowing DD's identity and then trying to cover up for Matt without knowing everyone else knows his secret is one of the best in this book. The fight with Pyro was great, and it tied in nicely to the legacy virus story going on in the X-Men books. Cary Nord does some nice art in these issues, but I disliked most of the other artists. Karen still sucks as a character, though. The rest of the Kesel issues are slightly better, but there are still some terrible moments, like everything that has to do with the Enforcers and Eel, which looks like straight out of a 60's cartoon. Misty Knight's small appearance is nice. I feel like DD is too jokey and cringey, feels almost like Spider-Man. It doesn't even feel the same way as Waid's later, more relaxed run. It just feels off. Some really annoying typos, repeated words by accident, speech bubbles that are wrongly assigned to other characters, come up sometimes. Not sure what the editors were doing. I'd say the Kessel run until the Joe Kelly issue jumps between 2 and 4 stars.
Kesel's run is then interrupted by one issue by Joe Kelly. It's an aftermath of Onslaught and just doesn't really feel like a Daredevil comic. The art is poor man's anime-ish for the most part, character's reaction are sooo overexaggerated too. The plot outline is ok, but the execution is terrible. Stuff just happens out of nowhere, and things that could be solved with better dialogue evolve into drama. The "big fights" in the two issues are just so short and random and idiotic, not to mention the cover spoils the "plot twist" (you can barely call it that considering it's revealed one page after the thing is introduced) and it's in the end totally insignificant. The humor is meh (weird considering it's Kelly writing) and it's also (accidentially? Idk) transphobic. Didn't age well. There is stuff in here that's crucial for later issues, which I don't know why was written by Kelly and why in this tie-in issue? This feels more like an Avengers or FF comic that just happens to not feature them due to obvious reasons. The scene with Jarvis and some of the general ideas presented save it from getting 1 star. 2 out of 5 stars.
After that, the remaining issues are again by Kesel and Nord, with one issue featuring guest-art by the legendary Gene Colan. Nord's art starts to feel rushed towards the end, and Colan didn't fit the more modern story that much. Otherwise, the remaining issues were some of the more enjoyable ones, with a few cool moments, plot developments and twists. However, there were still plenty of weird and dumb moments that I didn't connect to that much. I'd give them 3 stars.
Total rating would be around 2.5/5 stars. I will round it up to 3, because I'm still interested in what would happen next, despite all the problems. But I'm really reaching...
January 2, 2024
2,5*
The first part of this book concludes what’s been started earlier a’d Matt finds peace accepting who he is and what he did in the past. The idea is good but J.M. de Matteis overwrites like crazy and delays the conclusion for too long. It is mostly very poorly pencilled by an underperforming Ron Garvey.
After a few fillers doing what they’re supposed to do Karl Kesel takes the reins with Cary Nord as main penciller (with some fill-ins like Rick Leonardi or Master Gene Colan). Nord’s style is a bit too stiff for my taste but there’s some good pages here and there.
The storyline developped by Kesel isn’t very compelling to be honest. Nothing much happens and the main feat would be the introduction of Rozalind Sharpe, a lean, mean and hard case lawyer who is truly... Foggy’s mom! Liz Osborn seems interested in Foggy and Karen Page is a nigt radio jockey... So yes, it gets soap-ish on the side.
I’ll give one one thing to Kesel though: it’s rather fun. After a long line of grim issues he writes much lighter plots with funny dialogues and Spidey-like jokes- a bit like Mark Waid did on his excellent run a few years back. It doesn’t make for the greatest DD stories ever but it’s far from the worst either.
The first part of this book concludes what’s been started earlier a’d Matt finds peace accepting who he is and what he did in the past. The idea is good but J.M. de Matteis overwrites like crazy and delays the conclusion for too long. It is mostly very poorly pencilled by an underperforming Ron Garvey.
After a few fillers doing what they’re supposed to do Karl Kesel takes the reins with Cary Nord as main penciller (with some fill-ins like Rick Leonardi or Master Gene Colan). Nord’s style is a bit too stiff for my taste but there’s some good pages here and there.
The storyline developped by Kesel isn’t very compelling to be honest. Nothing much happens and the main feat would be the introduction of Rozalind Sharpe, a lean, mean and hard case lawyer who is truly... Foggy’s mom! Liz Osborn seems interested in Foggy and Karen Page is a nigt radio jockey... So yes, it gets soap-ish on the side.
I’ll give one one thing to Kesel though: it’s rather fun. After a long line of grim issues he writes much lighter plots with funny dialogues and Spidey-like jokes- a bit like Mark Waid did on his excellent run a few years back. It doesn’t make for the greatest DD stories ever but it’s far from the worst either.
August 2, 2019
A pretty good volume, especially for the 1990's. I enjoyed this and was glad that the story felt like it flowed and wasn't just a series of self contained showcases for the villain of the month.
February 5, 2022
DeMatteis hace un excelente trabajo con una historia que permite darle nueva vida a un Daredevil cuyas historias anteriores eran francamente malas. Por su parte, Kesel hace un buen trabajo.
August 9, 2021
Não dá pra defender o Demolidor de armadura.
Ainda mais com uma etiquetinha "Marvel Edge" na capa.
Aí é foda.
Bom, como ninguém mais entendia picas das histórias da armadura, a Marvel chama o J.M. DeMatteis para resolver o esquema; e ele resolve, joga fora todas as plotlines desnecessárias e ridículas - o clone demoníaco, a pronografia infantil, o rei do crime dos esgotos - transforma todos os Demolidores - armadura, vermelho e amarelo - num Matt Murdock em crise de identidade enquanto ele lida com o Senhor - um dos vilões mais ridículos que eu já vi - e ilusões que podem ou não ser o Stick.
Depois tem mais umas duas ou três edições pra encher morcela e o Karl Kesel assume a bagaça tentando fazer um Demolidor alegre e feliz - logo depois da função do Onslaught matando os Vingadores e o Quarteto.
Não dá muito certo, temos uma história em que o Murdock, agora sócio do Foggy e da Mamãe Foggy, precisa defender o Mr Hyde do único crime que ele não cometeu e mais umas bobagens com o Pyro, os Enforcers, a Insônia e o Homem Absorvente.
É bem meia boca, mas, pelo menos, não é de armadura.
Ainda mais com uma etiquetinha "Marvel Edge" na capa.
Aí é foda.
Bom, como ninguém mais entendia picas das histórias da armadura, a Marvel chama o J.M. DeMatteis para resolver o esquema; e ele resolve, joga fora todas as plotlines desnecessárias e ridículas - o clone demoníaco, a pronografia infantil, o rei do crime dos esgotos - transforma todos os Demolidores - armadura, vermelho e amarelo - num Matt Murdock em crise de identidade enquanto ele lida com o Senhor - um dos vilões mais ridículos que eu já vi - e ilusões que podem ou não ser o Stick.
Depois tem mais umas duas ou três edições pra encher morcela e o Karl Kesel assume a bagaça tentando fazer um Demolidor alegre e feliz - logo depois da função do Onslaught matando os Vingadores e o Quarteto.
Não dá muito certo, temos uma história em que o Murdock, agora sócio do Foggy e da Mamãe Foggy, precisa defender o Mr Hyde do único crime que ele não cometeu e mais umas bobagens com o Pyro, os Enforcers, a Insônia e o Homem Absorvente.
É bem meia boca, mas, pelo menos, não é de armadura.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews