Daredevil: the Man without Fear (1993) - written by Frank Miller, art by John Romita Jr.
Another origin story, but it's Daredevil written by Frank Miller, before he went down the rabbit hole.
Matt Murdock lives with his father - a boxer/reluctant enforcer for the mob - in Hell's Kitchen, New York. He has a wild side that he keeps hidden, especially from his father. Jack wants his kid to study and be better, and that boils down to not get into fights.
But Matt wants to be like his father. They clash and Jack hits his son, which he's immediately sorry for. That event tilts Matt's world view: he idolizes his father, but if he can break the rules, what's even the point.
Anyway, Matt decides he's going to be a lawyer to understand how law and rules work. (Yeah, I don't really follow the logic here, but it could be just me.)
Matt does as his father wants - studies and doesn't get into fights, to the point where he gets bullied over it.
And then he saves an old man from being run over, loses his sight due to a radioactive chemical spill and his other senses are augmented to the point he can hear and feel everything.
He keeps this a secret because a nun visits him and tells him to - yes, I know that’s his mom, but how did she know about the new powers?
Matt begins training in secret with Stick - he’s also blind and he’s part of a secret society in need of new members to fight evil.
Meanwhile, Jack has been having a nice streak in his boxing career, but it turns out to be a trap. His mob boss, Fixer, has been fixing matches, so Jack will take a dive in his next one and get a bit payout. When the time comes, Jack refuses and wins the match - he wants to prove himself to Matt, which is admirable, but also gets him killed.
Matt goes on a spree after his father’s murder, putting his training to good use. He uses the dark to his advantage, scares the boss to death with an heart attack and he tracks the last one to a brothel. The workers get involved in the fight and Matt accidentally pushes one out of a window, to her death.
Shaken up, Matt flees in search of his teacher, but Stick is convinced Matt's not good enough to fight in his secret mission.
One year later, Matt's in college, helping his roommate Foggy by dealing with his bullies in secret.
One night, Matt is lured into a parkour chase by a mystery woman. She almost gets him in trouble with the police, but they decide a blind guy couldn't be responsible for anything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mystery woman - it’s Elektra, duh - has also flunked out of Stitch’s School for Gifted Children and Future Members of Still Mysterious Secret Society. She hears voices that tell her to kill, so she lures criminals into back alleys and dispatches them. She thinks her and Matt are the same, living on the edge, but Matt likes to keep that part of himself locked away. They’re on for epic, passionate, maybe a little toxic romance.
Stick shows up to scare Matt away from Elektra, to mo avail. He thinks she's bad to the core and is only going to drag Matt down with her.
Surprisingly, Elektra agrees. After her father's death, that she attributes to her voices (and it's probably fleshed out somewhere else), she breaks up with Matt for his own good. An annoying trope, but, in this instance, she was pretty honest about what's going on, he just didn't believed her.
Years pass. Wilson Fisk becomes the Kingpin of Crime in New York, after getting rid of the old guard, who still had scruples about things like exploiting children and poisoning people with hard drugs.
Matt goes into corporate law. He returns to the city and wanders into Hell's Kitchen, where he runs into some street criminals who tried to rob him and trigger him by using the same old nickname his school bullies used - Daredevil. After he deals with them, Matt runs into his father's old, abandoned gym, trying to calm himself. There he finds a teen girl, Mickey, who likes to hide at the gym, and he starts mentoring her.
He also reconnects with Foggy, who's working in a class action suit against a slumlord, and it helps Matt remember why he studied Law in the first place.
Unfortunately, Mickey is kidnapped when she gets caught in a harebrained scheme concocted by two junkies who are part of Kingpins's organization. Fortunately, Matt realizes something is wrong and manages to track her down, dealing a significant blow to Kingpin's human trafficking operation and inciting a life long obsession.
One thing to note is that this version of Matt is willing to kill. He kills a goon when he's unable to disarm him, but then turns around and offers Kingpins's right hand man a few chances to walk away, which is never not gonna be an annoying trope.
In the end, Matt rescues Mickey and a bunch of other kids, loses his job, but goes into business with Foggy and decides to give the vigilante gig a whirl.
In conclusion, this is a nice origin story for Daredevil. Frank Miller's narration can be a little overwrought at times, but he waves a good plot and good character work. The only thing missing Matt's Catholicism. Romita's art took a bit to get used too, but that's mostly down to personal preference. He gave Electra amazing hair, which elevates the whole thing, imo.
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