Letter:  

Editor:

Wow.  It's been a *long* time since I enjoyed a Daredevil story this much.  Of course, I foolishly skipped both Karl Kesel and Joe Kelly's runs, so perhaps I missed a lot.  Anyway, I doubt that I've read a DD story this good since Chichester's "Fall From Grace," a storyline, which for all its faults (introducing DD's new costume, which fast became hideous in my eyes, and yet again bringing Elektra back to life) was one that I enjoyed a lot.  It was complex, action-packed, full of wit and different adversaries for DD, and I liked McDaniel's moody art.  

Daredevil faces the Kingpin, Bullseye, Bushwhacker, and the Hand as well as defending a less-than-pure client in the courts in this, the last issue of Daredevil, Volume One.  

"Just One Good Story" is a worthy coda on the first volume of Daredevil.  Of course, the first volume *shouldn't* be ending ... but that's a topic for another day.  From the start, the story sets out to be something a little different, jumping back and forth between two or three time periods and two or three different settings, too.  This story isn't something to be read like one would read an issue of "Danger Girl"; lightly and breezily.  This story requires actual thought and comprehension skills to keep up with the byzantine plot and intercutting between the past and the present.  More than once I was forced to re-read passages to understand what was going on.  In fact, I heartily recommend reading it two or three times to completely understand things.  

I loved the feel to this story.  I'm loathe to use the cliché, "grim 'n gritty" but that's more or less what it *is.*  Daredevil doesn't smile a lot or crack wise like he did under Kesel and Kelly (neither a good or bad thing, in my opinion, as I like him either way) and the "down-to-earth" themes (a poor choice of words, I know, how realistic are men who dress up in tights, have adamantium skeletons, have guns in place of hands and  people who belong to an international cartel of deadly ninjas ?) present here.  For instance, the mobsters on page 10 (the 10th page of story and art, anyway.  Marvel, please put page numbers back in your comics !!!) have a great scene.  

The courtroom scenes, while succumbing to the melodrama so prevalent in fiction, are still entertaining and not a drain on the plot, as they could be.  

Neither jumping back and forth in time in a story or showing different characters views on a situation are exactly new ideas ... but Chichester uses them to great effect here.  In particular, the sequence towards the end, where the criminals are sitting around the table, recounting how the fight with Daredevil "really" went, was a blast.  

Weeks's art was also very strong, far stronger than it was on his first tenure with DD.  The action scenes had a nice flow to them and re-using scenes from the beginning of the story was another nice touch.  He also nailed all the characters, in my opinion.  Daredevil, Bullseye, Bushwhacker and the Kingpin looked dead-on.  For that matter, Chichester's characterizations were dead-on, too.  

All in all, a very nice piece of work.  
  

Score:  A 
 
  

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