DAREDEVIL: YELLOW

"THE CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON" | "THE MEASURE OF A MAN" | "STEPPING INTO THE RING"
"NEVER LEAD WITH YOUR LEFT" | "AGAINST THE ROPES" | "THE FINAL BELL"
Storytellers: Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale | Colors: Matt Hollingsworth
Lettering: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Wes Abbott
Editors: Bronwyn Taggart & Stuart Moore | Man Without Fear: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Dedicated to Stan Lee & Bill Everett & Wally Wood, prizefighters all!

The term "bittersweet, timeless classic" gets thrown around a lot these days, but in the case of DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, no description is more apt. This is a wonderful story from Loeb and Sale, told via a framing sequence set in then-modern continuity, as Matt "Daredevil" Murdock struggles to cope with the recent death of his longtime girlfriend, Karen Page. At the urging of his friend, Foggy Nelson, Matt writes a series of letters to Karen in which he describes the earliest days of their relationship.

Unlike HULK: GRAY, which structured (or, in terms of publication chronology, will structure) its entire six-part story to fit within the first issue of the Hulk's original series, covering less than 24 hours' time and therefore making up a great deal of material, DAREDEVIL: YELLOW threads its tale through the first four issues of the classic DAREDEVIL series, covering what seem to be the first few months of Daredevil's career and drawing heavily upon the original stories by Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Joe Orlando, resulting in a much more satisfying read.

The story begins as Matt and Foggy near the end of law school. Matt's father, "Battlin'" Jack Murdock, a boxer, is killed by an agent named the Fixer when he refuses to throw a fight. Matt, blinded at an early age by exposure to a radioactive isotope which exponentially heightened all his remaining senses, dons a yellow-and-brown costume crafted from his father's gear and, calling himself Daredevil, goes for revenge upon the Fixer. The agent dies of a heart attack, however, robbing Daredevil of the chance to see justice done.