WRITER: CHIP ZDARSKY | ARTIST: MARCO CHECCHETTO | PUBLISHER: MARVEL COMICS | FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE

Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, responsible for the death of his beloved uncle, his girlfriend dropped off the Brooklyn Bridge, and he lives in a constant state of poverty and unhappiness. Frank Castle’s entire family were gunned down by mobsters and, as a regular dude living in a world of superheroes, tends to get beaten to a pulp on an almost daily basis. Wolverine is a military experiment, a mutant whose healing factor has led him to endure some of the worst violence ever inflicted upon a comic book character. He’s only just managed to come back from death via molten adamantium. The life of a superhero is not a happy one, and yet no one in the Marvel Universe suffers quite like, or as much as poor Matt Murdock.

The latest trauma to be inflicted upon Daredevil came at the tail-end of Charles Soule’s run on the character, in which Matt Murdock was hit by a truck and nearly killed. Again. Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s Daredevil #1 picks up with Matt fresh out of recovery (see last year’s Man Without Fear miniseries) and struggling to deal with his failing body and physical trauma. After so many years of seeing Daredevil being put through the wringer emotionally, the physical angle feels fresh – a different kind of misery for Matt to suffer through.

Zdarsky is a writer best known for his humour, but the mood and tone of his Daredevil show versatility and an unexpected earnestness – especially in the four-page short story which comes at the end of the book, and makes clever and innovative use of Daredevil’s ‘radar sense’. Checchetto too, is well-suited to the character and story, and his sharp, dynamic artwork works nicely for the grounded, realistic tale at hand. The action is relatively brief, but Checchetto shows himself to be more than capable of handling it, in and out of the costume.

This first issue doesn’t give much away in terms of future storylines or villains (although the Kingpin does make a last-minute cameo), but it sets up Matt and the book well for whatever Zdarsky might ultimately have planned. We can almost guarantee that this means future torment and fresh agonies for Matt Murdock, but on the basis of Daredevil #1, we have faith in Zdarsky and Old Hornhead that Daredevil will prevail.