Daredevil is coming off a fantastic decade of top notch work, kicked off by Kevin Smith’s fantastic Guardian Devil arc and followed up by the career defining run of Brian Michael Bendis. The series continued on after Bendis, offering stories that took the character to places darker and darker before finally breaking him in the Shadowland event last year. 

 In my mind, there have always been two different ways to write Daredevil stories. All of the classic stories that we think of when we think of Daredevil are the darker kinds, the ones with Daredevil loosing his grip on sanity while his life crumbles around him. These are the stories that define the character, and have provided all the important Daredevil stories. The lesser-known stories are lighter in tone, featuring Daredevil the swashbuckler, carefree and having fun being a superhero. They are lesser known because most of them simply aren’t that good. I feel like Mark Waid’s run is going to end up giving us the first great swashbuckling Daredevil stories. 

 The first page is a stroke of genius provided by Fred Van Lente and Marcos Martin. New readers are given all the important parts of Daredevil’s origin in a single page. I for one would love to see Marvel employ this method when relaunching series from now on. 

 On to the actual story, it can be summarized quite easily, as super heroics, legal drama and than some more super heroics setting up the action for next issue. Throughout the story we get a hint that while this is a new tone for Daredevil, the rest of the world clearly remembers the trouble he found himself in for most of the past decade of stories, and the end gives us a nice tease of Daredevil being held accountable for his past actions by the rest of the superhero community. 

 As much as one could knock the story as being boilerplate, Pablo Rivera’s art really brings the title to life and adds a new narrative layer to the story that I appreciate. Finally we get put into the skintight body suit of Daredevil and are given the chance to see and hear the world the way he does. 

 There is also a backup story that again puts the reader into Matt Murdoch’s shoes as he takes a walk through the streets of Harlem. Mark Waid again provides the script while Marcos Martin provides art. Here we get a different take on Daredevil’s power that is every bit as effective as what we are offered in the main story. The back up story serves as a bridge between the last decade of Daredevil stories and the new series. We get an explanation as to why Daredevil is able to return and be so much fun. 

 While this latest new beginning leaves much to be desired, I’m going to blame the current practice of writing for the trade rather than the writing ability of Waid. I know I’ll be keeping my eyes on the title, excited to see what kind of fun Daredevil stories Waid is going to be offering up.