What do you think?
Rate this book
Daredevil (1964) #319-325
Daredevil: Fall from Grace
The great change begins with underground murmurs of a super-weapon - a virus of unimaginable power, conceived by the Pentagon - and then lost! Others, hidden in shadow, learn of the virus and seek it as the Holy Grail in their fevered dreams of conquest.
But one figure will stand in their path... one figure whose existence is devoted to the preservation of life and order in an increasingly dark and chaotic world - Daredevil, The Man Without Fear! Witness now, this tale of intensely personal triumph and loss we could only title: "Fall From Grace."
For the first time, this acclaimed storyline is collected into a single stylish volume you cannot afford to miss! Completists: you have been warned!
Collects Daredevil (1964) #319-325
But one figure will stand in their path... one figure whose existence is devoted to the preservation of life and order in an increasingly dark and chaotic world - Daredevil, The Man Without Fear! Witness now, this tale of intensely personal triumph and loss we could only title: "Fall From Grace."
For the first time, this acclaimed storyline is collected into a single stylish volume you cannot afford to miss! Completists: you have been warned!
Collects Daredevil (1964) #319-325
206 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
1 person is currently reading
53 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 7, 2021
Questo Fall From Grace, storia che diede uno scossone alla serie di Devil negli anni '90 con il controverso ritorno di una certa ninja greca rossovestita, è un pasticciato pretesto per far cambiare costume all'eroe rendendolo piú dark, moda tanto in auge nei fumetti all'epoca pubblicati dalla Casa delle Idee, con la trama che sembra quasi un pretesto per fare pubblicità a personaggi Marvel che in quel periodo avevano appena ottenuto ciascuno una propria serie a fumetti come protagonisti: ecco quindi che vengono introdotti un po' a casaccio Silver Sable, Venom e Morbius, con tanto di splendide copertine dedicate.
Nonostante siano ancora grezzi, i disegni di McDaniel sono a mio parere davvero niente male, ma la storia, nonostante attinga a piene mani da quasi tutte le grandi saghe passate del Daredevil di Frank Miller, è purtroppo un vero pasticcio.
Lo scempio perpetrato ai danni dello splendido finale di Elektra assassin ha influito molto sul voto finale.
April 27, 2014
WOOOOOOF. It's all I can do to keep from horking up my lunch after finishing this horrendous bullshit. This volume just made me very glad I missed the vast majority of Daredevil between Ann Nocenti and Kevin Smith's respective runs. It must've been a real wasteland, if this is considered to be one of the few stories good enough to collect into a trade paperback (and also apparently to give the Deluxe treatment).
Where do I start? This is a question I'm asking that apparently D.G. Chichester did not think was a necessary one. There is no start to this book. Things are just happening and then continue to happen without logic, reason, or consequence, and then it's mercifully over after what feels like 2000 pages.
The concept is this: a supervirus with the ability to let people... um... do anything they want (I guess? It's essentially a wish-granting virus that is never really explained) was lost deep within the New York City subway system (sure?) many years ago. Without explanation, suddenly dozens of baddies become aware of the lost virus and decide to go after it all at once.
So, what does Daredevil do? Well, he goes and puts on a new suit of armor. Again, no explanation for why, he just kind of decides this will be a cool thing to do, so he does it. Now he's much harder to kill. Great. Cool waste of time.
Then Chichester digs up every Daredevil character Frank Miller ever even mentioned and completely ruins them, one after the other, all the while mixing in 12 million other useless Marvel characters just to keep things confusing and pointless. Hellspawn? Remember him? Of course you don't. He's some kind of demon that has Daredevil's powers. He's there for no reason. Also the Hand show up, impossible to tell apart. Venom? Hey, whatever, why not, that'll increase sales. Morbius, the Living Vampire? Yes of course! He is a person whose presence in this book is maddeningly unexplained, as well! Great, the gang's all here.
"So now what?" I could almost hear Chichester ask himself. "Guess I'll just have 'em all fight." And so he does. Everyone fights each other and it is SO boring.
The art is terrible. Half the time it's unclear which panel you're even supposed to read next, and when it IS clear which order this sputum is meant to be read in, it is still often impossible to tell what is actually happening in a given action frame. It's like constantly trying to decode a magic eye puzzle.
Top all this off with the fact that Chichester is for some reason allowed to brink Elektra back to life in this book. When this was printed, she'd been dead for some 10 years, following the events of one of the most incredible story arcs in Daredevil history. So, how is this monumental, clearly earth-shattering shift accomplished? She just shows up. She just kind of appears and is like "I've been alive this whole time BTW." NO EXPLANATION. AGAIN. I nearly threw the book into the nearest dumpster.
I've read bad Daredevil stories before. Ann Nocenti's stuff. Andy Diggle's horrific Shadowland run. But this is it. This is the #1 worst Daredevil story I've ever read. There is nothing redeeming about it. It's cloying and desperate and rushed and offensive to fans. It's money-grubby at best, insulting at worst. I cannot believe Marvel Editor-in-Chief Ralph Macchio managed to write such a glowing introduction to this puddle of melted excrement. He must be a GREAT liar, or the most deluded person in comics.
Anyway, enough of this. I feel like I need to purge.
Where do I start? This is a question I'm asking that apparently D.G. Chichester did not think was a necessary one. There is no start to this book. Things are just happening and then continue to happen without logic, reason, or consequence, and then it's mercifully over after what feels like 2000 pages.
The concept is this: a supervirus with the ability to let people... um... do anything they want (I guess? It's essentially a wish-granting virus that is never really explained) was lost deep within the New York City subway system (sure?) many years ago. Without explanation, suddenly dozens of baddies become aware of the lost virus and decide to go after it all at once.
So, what does Daredevil do? Well, he goes and puts on a new suit of armor. Again, no explanation for why, he just kind of decides this will be a cool thing to do, so he does it. Now he's much harder to kill. Great. Cool waste of time.
Then Chichester digs up every Daredevil character Frank Miller ever even mentioned and completely ruins them, one after the other, all the while mixing in 12 million other useless Marvel characters just to keep things confusing and pointless. Hellspawn? Remember him? Of course you don't. He's some kind of demon that has Daredevil's powers. He's there for no reason. Also the Hand show up, impossible to tell apart. Venom? Hey, whatever, why not, that'll increase sales. Morbius, the Living Vampire? Yes of course! He is a person whose presence in this book is maddeningly unexplained, as well! Great, the gang's all here.
"So now what?" I could almost hear Chichester ask himself. "Guess I'll just have 'em all fight." And so he does. Everyone fights each other and it is SO boring.
The art is terrible. Half the time it's unclear which panel you're even supposed to read next, and when it IS clear which order this sputum is meant to be read in, it is still often impossible to tell what is actually happening in a given action frame. It's like constantly trying to decode a magic eye puzzle.
Top all this off with the fact that Chichester is for some reason allowed to brink Elektra back to life in this book. When this was printed, she'd been dead for some 10 years, following the events of one of the most incredible story arcs in Daredevil history. So, how is this monumental, clearly earth-shattering shift accomplished? She just shows up. She just kind of appears and is like "I've been alive this whole time BTW." NO EXPLANATION. AGAIN. I nearly threw the book into the nearest dumpster.
I've read bad Daredevil stories before. Ann Nocenti's stuff. Andy Diggle's horrific Shadowland run. But this is it. This is the #1 worst Daredevil story I've ever read. There is nothing redeeming about it. It's cloying and desperate and rushed and offensive to fans. It's money-grubby at best, insulting at worst. I cannot believe Marvel Editor-in-Chief Ralph Macchio managed to write such a glowing introduction to this puddle of melted excrement. He must be a GREAT liar, or the most deluded person in comics.
Anyway, enough of this. I feel like I need to purge.
August 9, 2016
A lackluster 90s storyline that shows just how long Frank Miller's shadow fell on the character.
In 1993, Marvel decided to shake up the sleepy Daredevil title. Fall from Grace brought a new costume, tons of guest stars, and the controversial return of Elektra, a Frank Miller character which for nearly ten years had been left alone. Writer D. G. Chichester calls back to a lot of Miller's storylines, bringing in elements from Elektra Assassin and Born Again, but without those stories' economy and verve. Purple prose weighs down so much of Fall from Grace. A typical caption: "Moments etched in time, fragile like glass. Glass breaks so easily. And the jagged pieces cut deep." The dialogue throughout the numerous battle scenes is painful, although the quieter moments of interplay between characters aren't bad.
Scott McDaniel, now a stalwart comic artist, was here very much still finding his voice. Drawing in a shadowy, evocative--but sometimes murky--style, McDaniel is at an early stage of his career, working out his panel to panel storytelling while trying valiantly to impress with unconventional jagged page layouts that sometimes serve to jumble the flow of the page. Combined with Chichester's wordy scripts, this can make for a maze of word balloons across the page. Sometimes McDaniel has to literally move panels out of the way as Chichester's captions or balloons take on page space entirely on their own--a bad sign.
Reading this book twenty years later, the density of the material is astounding. A new guest star appears in almost every issue and at least three separate villains with different agendas all chase after a virus that can remake a person from the ground up. All the while, Chichester adds on a subplot of the revelation of Daredevil's secret identity. Ten years later, Brian Michael Bendis would make a similar reveal the centerpiece of his Daredevil run for the better part of a year, but in Fall from Grace it takes up a few subplot pages throughout, a testament to the huge shift in sensibilities in mainstream comics that happened in the space of a decade. The compression that Chichester has to do to accomodate so much plot causes the storytelling to jump in between chapters, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. At the end of chapter 3, Daredevil faces off against the cyborg Siege, but in the beginning of chapter 4, they are working side by side. Siege then disappears altogether between chapters 4 and 5, an elision that necessitates an awkwardly inserted page that wasn't in the original comic.
While Chichester and McDaniel attempt to bring something new to the title as they expand on Frank Miller's seminal work on the character, they mostly mine his stories for ideas without adding much to make it worthwhile. They rip open the tidy conclusion that Miller left for Elektra to use her in a wholly inessential sequel. It's a fun nostalgia trip for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't reading comics in the 90s.
In 1993, Marvel decided to shake up the sleepy Daredevil title. Fall from Grace brought a new costume, tons of guest stars, and the controversial return of Elektra, a Frank Miller character which for nearly ten years had been left alone. Writer D. G. Chichester calls back to a lot of Miller's storylines, bringing in elements from Elektra Assassin and Born Again, but without those stories' economy and verve. Purple prose weighs down so much of Fall from Grace. A typical caption: "Moments etched in time, fragile like glass. Glass breaks so easily. And the jagged pieces cut deep." The dialogue throughout the numerous battle scenes is painful, although the quieter moments of interplay between characters aren't bad.
Scott McDaniel, now a stalwart comic artist, was here very much still finding his voice. Drawing in a shadowy, evocative--but sometimes murky--style, McDaniel is at an early stage of his career, working out his panel to panel storytelling while trying valiantly to impress with unconventional jagged page layouts that sometimes serve to jumble the flow of the page. Combined with Chichester's wordy scripts, this can make for a maze of word balloons across the page. Sometimes McDaniel has to literally move panels out of the way as Chichester's captions or balloons take on page space entirely on their own--a bad sign.
Reading this book twenty years later, the density of the material is astounding. A new guest star appears in almost every issue and at least three separate villains with different agendas all chase after a virus that can remake a person from the ground up. All the while, Chichester adds on a subplot of the revelation of Daredevil's secret identity. Ten years later, Brian Michael Bendis would make a similar reveal the centerpiece of his Daredevil run for the better part of a year, but in Fall from Grace it takes up a few subplot pages throughout, a testament to the huge shift in sensibilities in mainstream comics that happened in the space of a decade. The compression that Chichester has to do to accomodate so much plot causes the storytelling to jump in between chapters, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. At the end of chapter 3, Daredevil faces off against the cyborg Siege, but in the beginning of chapter 4, they are working side by side. Siege then disappears altogether between chapters 4 and 5, an elision that necessitates an awkwardly inserted page that wasn't in the original comic.
While Chichester and McDaniel attempt to bring something new to the title as they expand on Frank Miller's seminal work on the character, they mostly mine his stories for ideas without adding much to make it worthwhile. They rip open the tidy conclusion that Miller left for Elektra to use her in a wholly inessential sequel. It's a fun nostalgia trip for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't reading comics in the 90s.
December 24, 2018
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].
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].
March 4, 2009
starts off good but looses momentum bigtime. for a daredevil comic from the 90's it holds up better than you'd think... its almost a 3.
February 22, 2025
This should have worked much better than it did. It features the return of Elektra for the first time since the Frank Miller days. But the storytelling is really obtuse, especially between issues. Every time a new issue starts it felt like I was missing pages because it didn't align at all to where the last issue ended. This also contains the infamous armored costume that Daredevil sports for awhile. He just kind of gets it out of nowhere. Plus you'd think a blind guy wouldn't care about giving himself a new look for the first time in 30 years. There are some odd guest stars in this. The Silver Sable one makes sense, but Venom and Morbius are just out of nowhere. It also contains the first time Matt Murdock is outed as Daredevil and it's interesting to me in how that's resolved.
I know Scott McDaniel has his detractors as an artist but I think this book looks great. I've always dug his art. His paneling at times here could use some work though.
I know Scott McDaniel has his detractors as an artist but I think this book looks great. I've always dug his art. His paneling at times here could use some work though.
October 23, 2021
This was the first series of superhero comics I read as a kid. It was interesting to read it again as an adult.
August 12, 2022
Messy crappy art (or as it probably is described: "Experimental and challenging"), uninteresting story and some sort of conclusion.
Bad comic, bad.
Bad comic, bad.
November 27, 2025
90’s Armored Daredevil needs a big comeback! I know I’m one of the few who like this pivot for the character, but I make no apologies for it.
January 16, 2011
Ugh. Typical '90s dreck. Of course Venom shows up for no good reason! Of course Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire, shows up for no good reason! Of course a character is inexplicably resurrected from the dead for no good reason! Of course our main character gets a new costume! I also found it strange that the chapters had little flow to them. I kind of expect the next issue to pick up where the last one left off, especially if you are going for a little cliff-hanger ending... but no. Instead, we are often in the middle of a completely new scene (sometimes a fight scene with no explanation as to how those characters converged), left to puzzle out what happened between issues.
December 10, 2023
Not a bad series but not as timeless as I had hoped it would be. The art was well done but strangely enough the best part of this series was the coloring! The color artist did a masterful job of setting and consistently maintaining the mood. Out of everything about this I find I like the work of the colorist the most.
December 15, 2014
The kind of comics you are not sure why you are reading.
I give it 2 stars instead of one, because the art looks kind of cool (compared to other 90s comics at least) and the first issue (and prologue) is readable, before it starts to be incoherent
I give it 2 stars instead of one, because the art looks kind of cool (compared to other 90s comics at least) and the first issue (and prologue) is readable, before it starts to be incoherent
February 14, 2012
The interesting artistic style with very strong use of shadow and contrast was what I really enjoyed about this graphic novel.
October 14, 2013
I disegni sono belli.. ma la storia pasticciata, e soprattutto lo scempio ai danni del finale di "Elektra Assassin", influiscono molto sul giudizio finale.
September 17, 2016
The story itself could be more interesting if it was better written. The art sucked so much though.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews