Daredevil Visionaries: Kevin Smith

Hollywood’s most famous comic-book fan, Kevin Smith, the writer-director of Clerks and Dogma, got a crack at writing them in 1998 with this relaunch of Marvel’s blind, billy-club-throwin’ Man Without Fear. Now collected in paperback as Daredevil Visionaries, Smith’s saga (with Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti) has a faith-doubting Daredevil who unravels a bloody conspiracy involving a mysterious child who may be the Second Coming — or the Antichrist. As a mainstream comics scribe, Smith is often self-conscious; his script lacks the crass wit of his R-rated flicks. Yet Visionaries is a gripping and even thoughtful yarn (its forced, far-fetched climax aside). To put it in critical jargon Smith knows well: thumbs up. To be more precise: B

• By Jeff Jensen