My journey to getting into Daredevil came in a roundabout way. I was on an Ed Brubaker kick, reading through his Captain America run I jumped over and read his first arc on Daredevil. I figured I should probably go back a bit further and get the story from the start, or a start at any rate. So Guardian Devil is it.

I sometimes feel like Kevin Smith's characters sound a bit too much like him. It's not always a bad thing, but it sometimes distracts me from the story.

That wasn't the case in this book. I feel like he's got a good handle on Daredevil and the supporting Marvel characters. Well, I did feel like Daredevil acted entirely out of character for some of the story but it was eventually explained sufficently.

The story itself focused heavily on religion, specifically Catholicism, something both Matt Murdock and Kevin Smith share. It's always interesting when traditional religion is brought up in a world filled with literal Gods, and I'm not sure if Smith is taking a dig at organised religion or praising it... so all credit to him for allowing the reader to walk away with their own interpretation.

Some of the story elements feel a little dated now, particularly the implication that being a drug user isn't enough to catch AIDS, there's also the insistence that someone has to sleep around to catch it.

It's difficult to go from Ed Brubaker to Kevin Smith... there's such a creative gear-change, but I liked this book and I'd be interested to see how a more mature Kevin Smith would take on the character.

Interesting and Fun. Not brilliant.

Great story, but a bit heavy on the captioning. The villain also did an awful lot of "let me explain my nefarious plot to you"
It did make me want more Daredevil, though!

A little slow to start and VERY different stylistically from the Bendis issues that would come later (and be my own starting point), but by the end it really won me over.

This is a fun comic for new readers but I think it lacks a consistent tone which makes any events within the story feel hollow.

Hard to know where to fall on this one... I think it's trying just a bit too hard to shock. Smith also appears to be trying very hard to be Frank Miller, also borrowing one of Miller's most famous Daredevil moments to close out the volume. I'm just not convinced by it and while the resolution was surprisingly satisfactory I just don't consider "Having the villain monologue his methods and motives" school of denouement to be acceptable in this day and age.