Once again I must question why Marvel is still continuing this .1 mission. The original purpose of grabbing new readers didn’t work. But if they are using it for us, regular readers now then I must ask: Why? We know who these characters are and recapping their life story really doesn’t make much sense. So why did I pick up a Daredevil 10.1 issue? Even though a recap of Daredevil can only take a page?

Well luckily we have Mark Waid as writer because it makes this issue that much more tolerable to read. Although I question why we needed him to recap Murdock’s origins when they show a RECAP page RECAPPING Daredevil’s origins from Fred Van Lente….So again, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS!!??….Sorry no more ranting from here on out. Anyways, again Mark Waid shows himself to be the best writer for Daredevil with this issue. While the origin stuff didn’t intrigue me the continuing push of Megacrime and his interactions at the prison did. I like how inventive Waid has gotten with the villains or just how to incapacitate Daredevil in general. The idea that a villain needs to be distracted to not use his powers, but in turn make Murdock’s hearing all wonky, is a great touch. Also, I just like how Daredevil is pissed at Megacrime for not going after him and he goes to their meeting unannounced. It makes this series all the more unpredictable to figure out what will happen next.

While we don’t have Paolo Rivera or Marcos Martin (who did a wonderful cover by the way) do the interiors we get another great artist with Khoi Pham. This series has been lucky with the fill in artists because every one has been pretty good at best. Pham definitely tries to ape Martin’s style in this issue, cause it’s much more clean then his usual work. I think that’s a good thing since his sketchy, John Romita Jr style wouldn’t have worked for this issue. Sometimes this aping of Martin works like in the flashback scenes, but other times it’s a bit awkward like in the interrogation scenes. I don’t think his character models in this style as their faces are very wonky at points. But again, when Daredevil is in costume interacting with other costumed villains it’s much better. At least Javier Rodriguez is still colorist so he keeps the issue consistent with the ten previous issues.

So while the justification of this .1 doesn’t make much sense, I still enjoyed this. It’s not the best issue of Mark Waid’s Daredevil run but even a ‘middle of the road’ issue is better then what you normally get in comics. It’s a testament to why Mark Waid and this series deserves the Eisner award nominations. Cause if a mediocre, pointless issue of Daredevil is still great; then you know you have a great series on your hand.