Daredevil, Volume 4: The Autobiography of Matt Murdock

 You would think that life is going quite well for Matt Murdock. Foggy Nelson's cancer seems to be getting under control. Matt's got a great new girlfriend and law firm in San Francisco. Plus, he's got a multi-million dollar book deal in the works and a new Daredevil persona.

   But Matt Murdock is the Charlie Brown of Marvel Universe! With his new persona comes the fact that everyone and their brother knows that the blind lawyer and the Man Without Fear are one in the same. Thus Foggy, his new girl, even his clients are all targets thanks in no small part to a multi-media surveillance system run by the Shroud.

   So in order to protect his friends, Murdock decides to make a deal with the devil himself- the Kingpin! But what can the lawyer offer the man who seemingly has everything? Why, the death of Matt Murdock, of course!

   The Autobiography of Matt Murdock signals the end of the epic run of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, whose art is exceptional and his vintage style, I think, makes him the next Darwyn Cooke. Waid, whose been the driving force behind the Man Without Fear for about 4 years now, made a very depressing character fun again. Waid added heart and humor to the character. But there was more than enough zaniness in the Waid run like run ins with zombies, stuntmen, and even Stilt-Man! Plus, Waid's Daredevil was full of awesome courtroom drama. It was like a comic book version of Law & Order with the Order part being represented by a costumed vigilante.

   The first couple of chapters fit this formula quite real and they were great reads with one bothersome fly in the ointment: the Shroud. I hate the Shroud. I've thought him to be a D-list character since he first popped up in the pages of Spider-Woman all the way back in the late 70s. He's a total Batman AND Daredevil copycat if there ever was one. But, the Shroud's place in this story, while an annoyance, still carried a whimsical theme to the book.

   Once the Kingpin rears his big fat ugly head, the tone of the book got much more serious and to me, a lot less enjoyable. I long to read a collected version of Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Yet, I have a feeling based on how I like a more light-hearted Hero of Hell's Kitchen, I probably will not enjoy it as much as I think I would.

   A good read that could've been better but still Worth Consuming in the end.

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.