Daredevil: Marked for Murder (Marvel Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection) by Roger McKenzie

Daredevil: Marked for Murder (Marvel Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection) Reviews

• 
  Roxana Chirilă

  I can't say I've really enjoyed this - this volume contains issues from back in 1980 (as far as I can tell), when characters tended to speak in sentences with exclamation marks at the end and have cheesy dialogue lines.
  
  "Keep back, all of you! This is the Black Widow's fight now!" the Black Widow herself cries, coming in through the window in her green dress and red pigtails, looking for all the world like a lost schoolgirl with superpowers - no subtle and confident Natasha, this one, either. She despairs over people suffering all around her and refers to herself in third person.
  
  The stories are full of action, but unfortunately they don't have much depth, so my interest kept going down and I trudged through the volume, eventually getting to such a low point that I put the book down and figured I'd read the last pages later, only I never did.
  
  There's also a Daredevil origin story, complete with some of the details Frank Miller would later reuse to write far superior stories, which move out of the pow!-wow!-behold the "red-garbed foe of evil"! zone.
• 
  Jon Arnold

  Marvel were never shy about hyping up their books, a trait derived from the carny hucksterism of Stan Lee himself. The first issue reprinted in this collection announces a newcomer who will ‘explode upon the Marvel scene like a bombshell’. It’s fair to say that, if anything, that undersells Miller’s eventual impact.
  
  Miller’s most significant works lie a long way off at this point, and this run has him almost exclusively on artistic duties – he gets one just credit as co-writer across the nine issues collected here. That’s not to say that this isn’t a pointer to the future though – main writer Roger McKenzie is very much in tune with the darker fare Miller’s more at home with and Miller, in conjunction with inker Klaus Janson, enhances the darker mood. Miller’s use of shadow to enhance scenes is exceptional as are the visual tricks he uses to represent Daredevil’s hypersense. It’s of a piece with the likes of The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City.
  
  It’s clearly Miller’s presence that lends these issues their significance. McKenzie’s a decent but not exceptional writer and most of the tales here are standard superheroics. Only David Micheline’s single issue really breaks that pattern, caustically commenting on big business, corruption and the onset of the computer era. Overall though it’s hard to shake the suspicion that the artwork provides both style and substance to this collection.
  
• 
  Ian Williamson

  This was a very enjoyable book, Roger Mckenzie is a forgotten master at Marvel. He created the building blocks on which Frank Miller built the dark and gritty Daredevil. He even managed to tackle a damsel in distress storyline involving the black widow which works, he presented a believable scenario where it was possible that she would be captured and potentially helpless. Furthermore there are two amazing examples of story telling, Matt Murdoch squaring up to the Hulk, and a story which I've heard about previously but only read here, Ben Ulrich finds out the truth and confronts Matt about his secret identity, it was a great retelling of his origins and a nice moment between these long standing characters and friends. Also to note I enjoyed Millers artwork, I've never been a big fan of his and do think his work is overrated, but this is a different style than I've seen from him, when he draws in the Marvel way his talent really shows. A very good read.
• 
  Johnny Andrews

  A nice lead up before Frank came and really turned DD to the darker hero he is today.
• 
  Al Capwned

  I enjoyed half of this book and that's mostly the first four issues contained in here. A pretty generic comic for the most part.
• 
  Phillip Berrie

  Not much to say here.
  
  I'm an old fan of Daredevil and it was good to read some of his older stories where they concentrated more on his hyper senses and skills rather than his passion; they are after all the point of differentiation for the character.
  
  So, if you like Daredevil as a character, do yourself a favour and read this collection.
• 
  Dwayne Keller

  Classic Daredevil stories with Black Widow, Mr. Fear, The Unholy Three, Bullseye, Hulk, Gladiator, Dr. Octopus and more.
• 
  David Pain

  Solid old Marvel stuff. Dated but fun.