Frank Miller: Ranking His Comics From Worst To Best

2. Born Again (1986)

Again, the Miller-Mazzuchelli pairing seems to bring out the best in both. Year One gets most of the credit for offering a coming-of-age story for a Batman of the modern era, but the writer/artist duo did another book around the same time featuring Miller's old buddy Daredevil. If Born Again isn't the single greatest Daredevil story ever told, it's damn close. The plot is unadorned: the Kingpin, reaching his tentacles along his far-reaching sphere of influence, discovers that Daredevil and blind lawyer Matt Murdock are one and the same. Kingpin uses this information to systematically destroy Murdock's life, freezing his accounts, forcing him out of his home and his job, sabotaging his relationships, and destroying his childhood home in Hell's Kitchen. Matt is brought to the point of no return - and he rises from this pit as The Man Without Fear. Unlike Miller's best Batman tales, there isn't much of a "gimmick" at play here: no origin, no costumed villains, no futuristic dystopia. This is a crime story, one of the best Miller has ever spun, and it just so happens to feature a hero who once was just a minor player. Here, Daredevil earns his right to stand with Marvel's finest. Here, Matt Murdock is the man "who fate gave the ability to hear and smell and touch better than anybody in the world can€which is a great way to catch all the misery of being alive."