Daredevil #12 – Review

By: Mark Waid (writer), Chris Samnee (art), Javier Rodriguez (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: Matt and Kirsten go on a date which leads to Matt telling a tale from he and Foggy’s days at Columbia Law.

The Review:  This issue is really yet another effort by Mark Waid to expand the variety of tales that can be told about Daredevil; again, with Matt only appearing in costume on one page, Waid pushes the limit as to what constitutes a “Daredevil story.”  This has really become a theme of Waid’s run thus far and a key part of it’s success, so once again what we get this month feels fresh and very different.  Indeed, with Waid giving us a tale of a college-aged Murdock and Foggy with a nefarious, crochety law professor serving as a villain and a conflict centered around an alleged plagiarism, we get something that is less a superhero story and  more a university comedy.  With all the theatricality, buddy comedy (there’s a great scene of Matt trying to sleep over Foggy’s snoring), and a big final scene, it feels like a “college experience” type movie; in fact, what with the excessively nasty professor, I was reminded a bit of The Paper Chase.