Happy Daredevil!

Dear Wal,

What a relief. The poor guy. He finally gets a break. Let me give you the run down of his life since Frank Miller (Isn't there always a life after Frank Miller?). First of all let me tell you that Daredevil came before TDKReturns in the Miller timeline. The reason I got into Daredevil is because of Miller. I was like: "Hey. This is the Batman dude. I bet this is good." And it was. Anyway.

Elektra 'dies'

First of all, in his origin he was blinded by radioactive waste trying to save a blind man from being hit by a truck (the irony). Then his dad, who is this wrestler, gets killed because he won't throw a fight when Matt was in the audience. So then Matt became Daredevil to hunt down the guy who killed his father, the Fixer, and the poor guy died of a heart attack while Daredevil was chasing him. One of the few moments of justice in Matt's life. Daredevil fell in love with a deadly assassin, Elektra. I haven't read any of those books, because I'm not a big fan of Elektra, but anyway. Bullseye killed her. And then she came back (or wasn't dead at all) and tried to kill Daredevil. Then, after that, Daredevil's next girlfriend Karen Page got hooked on drugs and gave away his secret identity to the Kingpin (sort of indirectly. She told a guy that told a guy that told the Kingpin) for drugs. Which wrecks Matt's life to no end. And then Bullseye kills her. His next girlfriend is this girl who is deaf, but she has the ability to mimic anything she sees perfectly. They really clicked. There was this hysterical scene where they went to see a movie, and she explained all the scenes without sound and he explained the scenes where she couldn't lip-read what the characters were saying. Anyway. The Kingpin turns her against Daredevil, saying that he was the one who killed her father (when really it was the Kingpin who killed her father) and she tries to kill him. Then of course she finds out Matt Murdock and Daredevil are one and the same and ends up leaving him.
The Kingpin knows who Daredevil is, and knows for this entire scope of time until this detective figures out who Daredevil is as well, and this info passes on to someone else in the Kingpin's organization. This guy deposes  (there really is no other way to put it-the scene where he was 'murdered' forever sticks in my mind. Bendis-read it, it's good.) the Kingpin. The new guy is all like: "WHY DIDN'T THE KINGPIN USE THIS? RARARARA!" And the guy passes it on to the press. So Matt's life get's turns up-side-down again. He's harassed by the press, attacked by all manner of super villains, and loses his practice as a lawyer. In the midst of all this, he falls in love with a blind woman named Milla (he saves her from getting hit with a truck. The irony.) and they eventually get married. Then one of his enemies Mr. Fear drives her insane, and because of legal issues he isn't allowed to see her. Then he gets possessed by a demon and nearly looses it. (Well, he nearly looses it a lot.) All of his girlfriends either die or try to kill him or both. It's depressing. Daredevil comics post-Miller are depressing. He never wins. He always survives, but he never wins. Good doesn't prevail. The poor guy. His life started out sucking anyway, but it just didn't get any better.
Waid changed all that.
Mark Waid is one of my favorite writers in comics, and-as far as I'm concerned-one of the greatest. His run on JLA includes some of my favorite books, and of course there's Kingdom Come (Must read, people). His style is to take a character or group of characters and take them in a completely different direction from anything that's been done before with those characters (Batman pwning the League in Tower of Babel). He did just that with Daredevil. Matt is actually cheerful, more the "grinnin' in the face of hell" attitude of the pre-Miller comics. He actually wins a few fights. There's humor but not too much humor-it's very well balanced. He keeps a positive attitude while still being cautious. Who knows how long this will last, but I'm happy. His life is looking up. I say this, and then something horrible will happen to him.

Not only is Daredevil actually cheerful, these comics by far show the best representation of Matt's senses I have ever seen. Usually, it's just a panel or two of Matt's radar sense and a ton of captions. In this book, Rivera and Martin actually make a visual representation of his senses. It's brilliant. It would be confusing to someone new to comics-but for me it's just brilliant. I'm re-hooked on Daredevil comics now.

/endrant

P.S. My reviews suck. I know.

P.P.S. I realize I don't know the complete Daredevil cannon. Forgive me. I believe I've covered the main horrible things that have happened to him. Woop, continuity!