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.