Set Description:
Synopsis: This is a complete set of all 162 books with a minimum grade of 9.6, with none of our books restored or qualified. As such, it is one of two Marvel sets we own with more than 100 books with a minimum grade of 9.6 and no restored issues-the other being our Avengers. The set consists of 155 9.8s and 7 9.6s. Of the 162 books,156 of our books are highest graded examples with seven of those books, down from a high of 11 a couple of years ago, single highest graded copies.
Highlights of the set are our #1 9.6 and our #7 9.6, which comes from the Pacific Coast Collection.
Background: Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett, with an unspecified amount of input from Jack Kirby. He first appeared April 1964 in Daredevil #1 after the 1963 Marvel entrants of Avengers and X-Men. Writer/artist Frank Miller's influential tenure on the title in the early 1980s cemented the character as a popular and influential part of the Marvel Universe.
Daredevil is the alias of Matthew Michael "Matt" Murdock, a blind lawyer. While growing up in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, Matt is blinded by a radioactive substance that falls from an out-of-control truck after he pushes a man out of the path of the oncoming vehicle. While he loses his sight in the accident, his exposure to the radioactive material heightens his remaining senses beyond normal human ability, and gives him a "radar sense." His father, a boxer named Jack Murdock, is a single man raising his now blind son, who despite his rough upbringing, unconditionally loves his son and tries to teach him to form a better life for himself. Jack is later killed by gangsters after refusing to throw a fight, leaving Matt an orphan. To protect himself, Matt began training to hone his physical abilities and superhuman senses under the tutelage of a mysterious blind stranger named Stick, eventually becoming a highly skilled and expert martial artist.
Some years later, after graduating from law school with high grades, Matt seeks out the criminal element in Hell's Kitchen and starts his crime-fighting activities. Matt targets the local gangsters who murdered his father and succeeds in bringing them to justice. Eventually, donning a costumed attire modeled after a devil, Matt took up a dual life of fighting against the criminal underworld in New York City as the masked vigilante Daredevil, which put him in conflict with many super-villains, including his arch-enemies Bullseye and the Kingpin. He also becomes a skilled and respected lawyer after graduating from Columbia Law School with his best friend and roommate, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, with whom he becomes law partners, forming the law firm Nelson & Murdock.
Daredevil has appeared in various forms of media, including several animated series, video games and merchandise. The character was first portrayed in live action by Rex Smith in the 1989 television film The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and then by Ben Affleck in the 2003 film Daredevil. Charlie Cox portrays the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, appearing thus far in the Marvel Television series Daredevil (2015–2018), the miniseries The Defenders (2017), the Marvel Studios film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and the Disney Plus television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, while being set to appear in the upcoming series Echo (2023), and Daredevil: Born Again (2024).
Our Collection: I can remember buying a copy of Daredevil #1 at the local drugstore in Oxford, MS. I still own a number of raw copies from those days and Daredevil was one of the 12 titles I started collecting again in the early 2000s. It is without doubt the easiest 60s Marvel title to collect, although a couple of issues, #1 and #7, have doubled in value or more over the past couple of years. It’s also somewhat of a strange set, as most 9.6s are relatively inexpensive, while 9.8s can be ridiculously pricey, which I guess signifies a thin market comprised of high-end collectors.
While our set has topped the registry for five years, I really don’t know if it’s the best DD set out there or not? Contrary to the case with many DC titles where we top the census, the books are out there to blow this set away registry points-wise, as we would lose about 70,000 points to anyone owning 9.8 copies of Issues #1 and #2. But at least unlike the situation with Flash where the Showcase #4 9.6 alone is accorded more points than our entire 251 book set, a DD #1 9.8 alone does not assure anyone of topping the registry. And while there are now three 9.8 copies of both Issues #1 and #2, I am not sure if any of them are in the hands of collectors. My guess is that the people who own them probably just buy keys. That being said, we did consider making a run at the #1 9.8, which was auctioned off in Heritage in April, and actually bid it up to $200k before dropping out, but if we had got it at that, which was never a real possibility, there would have been a lot of high-grade X-Men on the market LOL. To me, that book was not worth the $360,000 that it sold for, but to each his own. I am sure many would say the same about a number of books we own.
While we did recently upgrade our 9.6 Suscha News copy of Issue #124 to a 9.8, our set is basically done, we are not out there scouring the internet for upgrades. For now at least, we are satisfied with our 9.8/9.6 set and have moved on to other collecting goals.
All 162 books are pictured and described below.
Current Stats:
162/162 Books
155 9.8s-All Highest Graded
7 9.6s-1 Highest Graded
113 WP
44 OW/W
5 OW
7 Single Highest Graded
156 Highest Graded
7 Second Highest Graded
49 Pedigrees
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