When Mark Waid and Paolo Rivera took over Daredevil in 2011, the character had been drenched in darkness for so long that the those bright, buoyant stories felt like an utter paradigm shift, a rewriting of the character’s base DNA. That revision became all the more apparent in the following volume, with Chris Samnee. It wasn’t a long stretch—All-New, All-Different fully outfitted DD in black, as if to signal that all that colorful malarkey was over—but it nonetheless felt so wildly different that it was hard to remember that it was actually harkening back to the Daredevil of old.
In Daredevil Epic Collection: Watch Out for Bullseye, readers can catch a glimpse of a Matt Murdock who has not yet been broken or besieged by ninjas, a Matt Murdock whose relationship to his alter ego has not yet become a curse, an identity crisis, a crutch. In the mid-1970s, Daredevil is in its pre-gloom era and, while not divorced from pathos, Matt is nearly jubilant, effervescent, filled with Spider-Man-like quips.
Marvel Comics
To be fair, none of his vast plethora of lovers have been murdered, yet; Bullseye, his most gruesome foe (and girlfriend murderer), only introduces himself in the final two issues here, and Elektra is but a glimmer in ol’ Frank Miller’s eye. Social justice has not yet been made implicit. Kingpin hasn’t become DD’s concern, keeping himself to the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.
Rather than the street-level crime that has become synonymous with the character, the antagonists of the book are not all that different from those you’d see in Amazing or any other contemporary book—we’ve got Man-Bull, and a pre-tragedy Gladiator. This is Circus of Crime territory, and the hijinks run decidedly along those lines: quick punch-em-ups, fully four-color tights ‘n capes.
Marvel Comics
The book might as well be divided into thirds by writer, and by how seriously that writer takes their narrative. The book opens with Steve Gerber, invested in a good story but clearly more concerned with developing his weirder side over in Man-Thing than he was in exploring a deeper DD mythology. The middle section of the book is the most patently by-the-numbers, as Tony Isabella steeps the story in Hydra and Nick Fury territory, all high-octane fireworks with no discernible development. Finally, in the book’s final third, Marv Wolfman (and, perhaps more importantly, the soon-to-be definitive inker of the series, Klaus Janson) begins to dive into Matt’s life, adding depth to the character.
Throughout, Daredevil himself feels relatively generic, his character and personality bled of the hallmarks that make him truly unique as both a hero and a person. His civilian concerns are relegated almost completely to Foggy Nelson, whose term as New York’s district attorney becomes the lone dangling thread of the book’s central themes of justice. Black Widow, a driving force in Matt’s emotional concerns, bounces from the narrative after deciding that he isn’t worth the angst as he constantly overshadows her.
Marvel Comics
It sometimes feels as if Watch Out For Bullseye wonders why it isn’t simply a Spider-Man book to begin with—for all his ‘grown up’ problems, Matt barely exists in a space distinguishable from that sad teenager from Queens. Still, small hallmarks telegraph the character he will become in a few short years, someone irreplaceable and wholly unique.
As the Waid years taught us, Daredevil doesn’t have to exist in a world drenched in shadow and strife, but a glimpse into the book as it was just before that darkness shows that it is necessary for the character to become himself. Watch Out for Bullseye is a high-flying volume, but it is an illustration of a character who hasn’t yet found his defining qualities.
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