THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR
If you're looking for an accessible account of Daredevil's origin, this is your best bet. This has young Matt Murdock being blinded, his training under Stick, the tragedy of Battlin' Jack Murdock, the early doomed romance with Elektra, all the components that would see the making of Daredevil... all with lovely John Romita Jr artwork.
DAREDEVIL: YELLOW
You could go back to the very early Stan Lee/Bill Everett stuff to read Daredevil's earliest adventures, or you could read this retelling of some of Daredevil's earliest battles with the likes of Electro, Purple Man and The Owl as done by the Long Halloween team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.
DAREDEVIL BY FRANK MILLER & KLAUS JANSON
This is the run that really gave birth to the modern Daredevil as he's widely known today. The Kingpin, Bullseye and Elektra are all enduring parts of the Daredevil canon thanks to this run. A bit dated in places? Maybe. But it's comics history, and much of it holds up very well.
BORN AGAIN
In my opinion, the greatest Daredevil story ever, if not the greatest Marvel comic ever. Created by the Batman: Year One team of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, it tells the story of The Kingpin discovering Daredevil's secret identity and systematically destroying Matt Murdock's life. The Kingpin has never been more terrifying or evil, and Daredevil has never been more heroic in how he rises up from the very depths of despair.
GUARDIAN DEVIL
It's been a long time since I've read this, so I don't know how it holds up, but Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada's franchise-reviving relaunch got a lot of buzz at the time. Plus, it features some major developments that have gone on to inform Matt Murdock's character development for years to come.
DAREDEVIL BY BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS & ALEX MALEEV
If you're looking for something that will most closely capture the tone of the Netflix show, this run could be your best port of call, since the whole thing reads like a gritty HBO crime drama. The whole run deals with Daredevil's identity being publicly exposed in a tabloid newspaper, and the ramifications of that. Bendis has never been better, and Maleev oozes style. This has been specifically cited by the producers of the show as a stylistic influence, and Charlie Cox calls the White Tiger storyline contained within it his favourite single Daredevil story.
DAREDEVIL BY ED BRUBAKER & MICHAEL LARK
It very much follows in a similar vein to the crime drama stylings of the Bendis/Maleev run, perhaps with a heavier focus on The Hand and the ninja aspects of the character. But the series continued to be really good under Brubaker's pen, with Matt Murdock arguably being put even more mercilessly through the wringer.
PUNISHERMAX
It's not a Daredevil story, but Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon's take on the MAX version of the Punisher introduces various Daredevil characters - Kingpin, Bullseye, Elektra - into the MAX universe, in the process giving us even darker, more twisted versions of their 616 counterparts. It's arguably the best Kingpin story - and the best Bullseye story - of the past decade.
DAREDEVIL BY MARK WAID & CHRIS SAMNEE
The current run on the book. Stylistically, it's a departure from much of the darker, grittier content that has grown synonymous with Daredevil, but it works. It feels refreshing, fun. And that doesn't come at the expense of depth and characterisation, quite the opposite. This, more than any other run, made me LIKE Matt Murdock, and really care about him as a character. Plus, his powers have never looked cooler than when Chris Samnee, Paulo Rivera, Marcos Martin and co are visualising them. Highly recommended.
