Daredevil: Yellow

Comic Info

Daredevil: Yellow #1

Reprints Daredevil:  Yellow #1-6 (August 2001-January 2002).  Karen Page is dead.  As Matt Murdock tries to cope with his loss, he remembers his early days as Daredevil and his first meeting with Karen.  From his father’s murder at the orders of the Fixer to his battle with the Purple Man, Daredevil remembers Karen and their relationship…but all things end.

Written by Jeph Loeb, Daredevil:  Yellow is a six issue limited series under Marvel Comics’ “Marvel Knights” imprint.  The series features illustrations by Tim Sale and has been collected multiple times including Daredevil Legends Volume 1:  Daredevil: Yellow and Yellow, Blue, and Gray.

Batman:  The Long Halloween was a fun title.  The holiday based series by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale featured fun art, an interesting story, and a mystery.  Daredevil was booming when Daredevil:  Yellow was released with the series relaunch under Kevin Smith and Brian Michael Bendis’ reimagining of the character.  The idea of bringing the Batman:  The Long Halloween team to Daredevil was interesting

Daredevil was always a Marvel second tier character.  Even by collectors, his early issues sold far cheaper than many other Marvel series.  Despite this, the first six issues of the series where he sported a primarily yellow and red costume always seemed like surreal, different character who became so attached to his red costume.  The series exploration of these early Daredevil days is worth delving into.

Daredevil: Yellow #5

The comic reads very fast.  The script isn’t very wordy and a lot of the comic is the flowery musing of Matt Murdock in mourning.  The comic (intentionally) skates over a lot of the fighting and comic book action in exchange for Matt’s interaction with Foggy and Karen.  It once again goes to show that Matt’s a pretty terrible friend to Foggy and kind of behaves like a jerk a lot of the time.

This is combined with Tim Sale’s art which is both amazing but also sometimes…odd.  It is almost like some parts of the comic don’t interest Sale and that he doesn’t care about the non-costume illustrations.  While he nails Daredevil in costume and the costume’s design, I feel his illustration of Matt Murdock is just kind of creepy looking.  It doesn’t hold the same power as some of his other work.

Daredevil:  Yellow hasn’t entirely aged well.  Daredevil’s story has now been told a lot of time and his origin has been told better than this (like in Miller’s Daredevil:  The Man without Fear series).  Unfortunately, the origin stories often just skips the “yellow” phase of Daredevil and that is a shame.  I wish that the Daredevil Netflix series had taken some of the visual aspects of this story and in turn, I wish that Daredevil:  Yellow was a bit deeper in its writing which masks itself in mourning.

Related Links:

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 1

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 2

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 3

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 4

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 5

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 6

Daredevil by Mark Waid—Volume 7

Daredevil—Season 1 Review and Complete Episode Guide

Daredevil—Season 2 Review and Complete Episode Guide