Daredevil #1.

Baffling billy clubs! In almost nine years of running this site, I still haven't got round to reviewing issue #1 of Daredevil. Bearing in mind he was one of the few super-heroes I could ever see myself being, due to him not being very impressive, this is a dread oversight.

So, here goes.

The denizens of the criminal underworld are having a nice old card game when a costumed hero with no dress sense appears and demands to see their boss The Fixer.

They don't like the sound of it and have a fight with him, which they lose.

We then get this new hero's backstory. He's Matt Murdock, son of habitually down-the-pan boxer Battling Murdock.

Despite having been blinded by a freak radiation accident, after pushing a blind man out of the way of a lorry, Matt sets out to get revenge on The Fixer after the crook has his father killed in the wake of his greatest victory.

Consequently, Matt's created a costume for himself, adopted the name, "Daredevil," and intends to make good use of the heightened senses the radiation has bestowed upon him.

The flashback over and done with, The Fixer dutifully shows up and his men have another fight with Daredevil, which they also lose.

At this point, The Fixer decides discretion is the better part of cowardice and flees somewhat slowly.

Not one to be deterred by someone fleeing slowly, Daredevil pursues him to a subway station where he proceeds to give him a heart attack before tricking a confession out of his man Slade, for the benefit of a couple of handily placed police officers.

And that's it, the end of Daredevil's first, somewhat low-key, adventure.

But, of course, as he stands in his office and contemplates a job well done, Matt Murdock vows that the world has not seen the last of the man without fear.

Why it's not seen the last of the man without fear, I've no idea. He's got his revenge. Wouldn't this be a good time to retire? Now you can see why I'm not a super-hero. I wouldn't carry on fighting once I'd got my revenge.

The first thing I have to say is this tale looks a lot better than I remember.

That's mostly because the version I grew up on was the one in Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, which looked like it'd been reproduced with a 1970s school photocopier and then attacked by a budgerigar that had just spent three days rolling around in ink. Once free of such reproductive failings, the artwork still doesn't look sensational but it does at least look clearer and cleaner and does have a certain retro style to it.

And that retro style is the main thing that strikes me about the tale. It really doesn't look or read like a Silver Age Marvel comic. It feels much more like a Golden Age DC comic.

Perhaps that shouldn't be such a surprise, as its artist Bill Everett was a Golden Age veteran and Stan Lee always claimed DD's creation was partially inspired by the 1940s character of the same name. It does, however, make the tale an interesting curiosity.

Overall, it's a simple, functional story that does its job of introducing both its hero and his alter-ego, while also introducing us smoothly to Matt's sidekicks Foggy Nelson and Karen Page. It doesn't quite have the verve or eccentricity of some of the other Marvel origins but it does its job without fuss and Daredevil's powers are quite appealing.

Other points I feel I should make:

I do seem to be the only person alive who prefers Daredevil's original costume to his later one.

It does seem a strange lapse that the location The Fixer operates from is called Fogwell's Gym and Matt's best friend and business partner is called Foggy, creating the impression that the two are in some way connected. Possibly, the ever-busy Stan was not putting enough thought into naming things in this tale.

Karen Page seems to be permanently randy. In her every appearance in this issue, she never shuts up about her desire for Matt Murdock. Needless to say, the trademark Stan Lee love triangle is already set up by the end of the tale.

It's a source of endless wonder that the bad guy's a dodgy boxing promoter called The Fixer. I'm no expert on the fight game but how on Earth does a man called The Fixer get a promoter's license? Does his name not constitute a slight warning to the authorities? For that matter, who are the sad muppets who actually decide to bet on his fights?

The internet's always informed me that, due to Bill Everett's various problems, the artwork was added to and amended by pretty much anyone who happened to walk into the Marvel office that week, including Steve Ditko. Perusing the pages, I really can't see any sign of anything that looks like the handiwork of Ditko, although the panel that shows Matt's nose, up-close, as his sense of smell is being explained does look like the work of Wally Wood. Whether it really is the work of Wally Wood, I could not say.

Matt Murdock adopts the name, "Daredevil," as his secret identity because that's what everyone who knew him when he was a kid called him. I'm not sure Matt quite gets the idea of a secret identity. Aren't you supposed to choose a name that everyone doesn't know you by?

Presumably the people who gave The Fixer his license are the same people who license trucks packed with loose barrels of radiation to drive around the centre of New York and don't even bother to check their brakes first.