To be fair, ol' Frank Miller has his dubious political moments, too (chief villain in "Elektra: Assassin," for instance, is a phony liberal named Ken Wind who's depicted as a none-too-subtle symbol of bankrupt sixties idealism), though his broader cartooniness somehow makes all this nonsense more palatable. Smith's take is something else again, though it remains to be seen how seriously we're meant to read it.

As for Bendis & Maleev's most recent run on the prime title, we're still picking up from events in Volume Two. A recent trial storyline, for example, showed lawyer Murdock struggling to separate himself from the "costumed vigilante" label as he defended a hapless, forgotten Marvel superhero from a murder charge, while also in the background is a lawsuit that's been filed by our hero against the newspaper that blew his cover. It's clear this creative team'll be reaping from their plotline for some time to come. As longtime DD readers know, there've been periods in the character's career when his story possibilities looked much more fallow. . .

So which is the best route for a moviegoer who's just been piqued into checking out the character? The Bendis/Maleev hardcover is probably the place to begin (there are also two trade pbs that reprint part of this extended run), while Loeb & Sale's Yellow provides a nice encapsulation of the character's early years. The Daredevil/Elektra collection makes for a decent intro to a version that fans like actor Ben Affleck recall when they remember the character in interviews, though some readers may be taken aback by its writing excesses. And on the basis of its single issue, I'm not sure that the Kevin Smith mini-series is for anyone who wants to experience the current graphic incarnation of the "Man Without Fear."