This guy ain't skerred'a no pants

Finished reading Frank Miller's "The Man Without Fear" run on Daredevil from the 80s. Gotta say, not totally impressed. Just reminds me of Voltaire's excellent line about how the man who thinks that every work by a particular author is great is a fool. Don't get me wrong, it's not horrible or anything, but for me it's definitely one of Miller's less excellent works. The first thing that I didn't care for was the whole mystical, clandestine group that Stick and Stone are a part of that supposedly influence people and events in the world in an attempt to keep things from going to some obscure dark side. They seem to be outside of the world and are connected to some fundamental truth that the rest of us are unaware of but where do they focus their efforts? New York city and some rich guy's daughter and her love interest. This doesn't make too much sense to me and isn't explained at all. Consequently, the whole 'secret group who controls the world' thing feels very lame to me not only here but most anywhere I encounter it. It's the only part of Brubaker's excellent Sleeper that I didn't care at all for. The next thing that bugs me is the whole theme involving Matt Murdock's inability to break rules. When Matt is pursuing Elektra through the park the narration explains this idea succinctly:

He could flatten the cops/It would be easy/But that would be breaking the rules/that would be breaking the law.

Not only is vigilantism against the law but so is murder, of which Murdock commits plenty of in this book. Where was that ideal at the end of the story where he's taking out large numbers of goons at the dock? I agree that they all deserve to die for trafficking children, but the character doesn't even act within the confines of the system that the author has constructed for him. Although it's still better than most of the superhero crap out there it didn't convert me into more of a Daredevil fan as much as Bendis' recent run on the otherwise silly character has done.