#i only linked the runs i mentioned that aren't in the main daredevil title i had originally linked

[archivedjuice]

stumbled on your blog as having been a netflix show watcher only (the horrors), but been interested in seeing how the Comics handle Murdock as clearly there's a huge divide. Any comic recs to start off?

As someone who would fight tooth and nail for one particular comics guy that got a movie interpretation recently (that got more interest in him, yippee! also looking back completely misinterpreted him. noir peter why did you get Nicolas Cage as your VA what are they doing to you), I sympathize with The Sufferings

honestly my only, or rather, top daredevil comic recommendation is to open readallcomics.com, scroll to the bottom of the daredevil title, start from v1 #1 and read from there, all the way into whatever you think satisfies what you believe to be a foundation for his character. <- this can be many things for many different people; personally, frank miller, (the man without fear #1-#5, v1 #165-166, #168-191, #219, and #226-233), ann nocenti (v1 #236, #238-245, #247-257, and #259-291), dg chichester (v1 #297-300), brian michael bendis (v2 #16-19, #26-50, and #56-81), and mark waid (v3 and 4) form the main foundation for how i perceive the daredevil title/most of its characters and an amalgamation of these interpretations pretty much spectate my own interpretations of both other canon/non-canon/fanon as well as my own meta interpretations.

a few stand out runs include: jeph loeb's yellow and david mack's parts of a hole (as well as the previously mentioned run he did with bendis, end of days). it's also important that you don't mix up frank miller's the man without fear 1993 with jed mackay's man without fear 2019.

this will also help: it's a very detailed daredevil reading list, with notes that i usually agree with and i recommend to everyone that wants a daredevil reading/rec list. the daredevil subreddit's reading list largely caters specifically towards fans of the mcu that are getting into the comics for the first time; this list gives you comparisons and inspirations for specific seasons of marvel's daredevil and provides fans who are only looking for the essentials with their own recommended reading order.

i didn't read daredevil chronologically—i started with what was most recent when i got into the comics in january 2022, meaning i started with zdarsky (v6 and devil's reign (or what was out for it at the time)), hopped all the way to waid's, read through soule's v5 and his renumbered run, jumped all the way back to miller and read my way up to waid (reading spin offs, events, annuals and other essentials in no particular order at the same time, after which i reread waid, soule and zdarsky), then i hyperfixated on sam chung -> mike murdock, read only the parts of v1 i had left to read that had to do with mike, read daredevil 1964 #1 - #16, and finally fixated on mike murdock for all of 2023 until basically now lol. so basically, don't worry if you don't get everything to slot into place perfectly, going back and forth won't ruin anything.

i have a mike murdock reading list if you're interested and other essential, non-daredevil and daredevil adjacent runs i recommend are jessica jones' alias, written by briam michael bendis and daredevil: noir.

personally, i think daredevil and his story is/is intended to be, by most writers before the nmcu show, culturally christian in the same way that northeastern and southwestern usamerican pop culture is—that is, that you simply cannot escape it and a lot of media either knowingly or unknowingly leans into the aesthetics of it to get their story (themes, metaphors, symbolism) across better (largely because of the sheer amount of people who exist that are culturally christian).

either way, good luck and feel free to send more questions if you need anything to be clarified, no matter how small or insignificant the detail may seem :)