‘Daredevil Epic Collection: Into the Fire’ hides both masterpiece and oddity behind an exhausting slog

Laughably lopsided, but the great outweighs the mediocre.

August 9, 2023

Let’s not pretend that Daredevil Epic Collection: Into the Fire is a great collection. Of the 14 issues collected within, eight are exhausting slogs from a somewhat maligned run by D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel (whose most famous contribution to the character, Fall From Grace, wouldn’t begin until two issues after those collected here). DD plays detective, tracking down an arsonist by way of a shaky Roshômon framing. We spend two issues watching a handful of D-Listers look for drums of restaurant waste (for profit).

With apologies to Chichester-apologists (even the most dubious of ’90s missteps have their stalwart defenders), the front half of Into the Fire isn’t likely to sell many copies of the book, and beyond their important contribution to a complete collection of the first volume of Daredevil, their inclusion will most likely serve best as a prelude to the recently-announced Black Armor miniseries.

It’s the back half of the book – a brief graphic novel and a miniseries – that might drive up the sales. They are, by turn, a forgotten gem and a beloved masterpiece.

Written by the great Jim Starlin and lushly illustrated in Joe Chiodo’s over-the-top pin-up style, Daredevil/Black Widow: Abattoir is a quick, harrowing jaunt under the Marvel Graphic Novel line of books – an early experiment in the format that was quickly overshadowed by more robust efforts over at DC.

The issue focuses more on Black Widow, who goes after a psychic-hunting serial killer that has recently killed Widow’s cold-war BFF. It’s a book less interested in action than it is in overt BDSM suggestion and… *checks notes* strange death-fetish lesbian kisses. A celebration of the cheesecake and the macabre, it’s a gorgeous outing even in its shallow narrative. Daredevil’s purpose, throughout, is to be a ceaselessly driven, eventual Deus Ex.

The book concludes with nearly two hundred pages of Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr, Daredevil masters returning to the character after extended absences. Eventually intended for one of those larger graphic novel outings (a medium Miller had been pioneering with Ronin and The Dark Knight Returns), The Man Without Fear was released instead as a four-issue miniseries.

Self-celebratory but definitive, Man Without Fear reshaped Matt Murdock’s origins to align more with the Daredevil stories Miller had been writing a decade earlier. Relying heavily on both Stick and Elektra, the book follows Matt from pre-accident hijinks to the founding of Nelson and Murdock.

Perhaps not as formative for the character as either Miller or John Romita, Jr’s original runs on the character – Miller with Klaus Janson and JRJR with Anne Nocenti – Man Without Fear is nonetheless the definitive origin for Daredevil; it’s the version which has been interpreted or influenced Matt Murdock’s big- and small-screen adaptations and has cemented Stick and Elektra’s early influences on the character moving forward.

Daredevil Epic Collection: Into the Fire is a laughably lopsided volume, but one where the good most definitely outweighs the mediocre by providing a genuine masterpiece and beautiful oddity right alongside the yawn-worthy.