Boxing's been good to me, Howard: Graeme jabs quickly.

DAREDEVIL: BATTLIN' JACK MURDOCK #1: Kate doesn't really pay that much attention to what I review, unless it's something that she wants to read herself (See: almost everything that Brian K. Vaughan writes, or Jeff Smith's Shazam!) or something completely objectionable - The last page of Justice League #7, with the Black Canary/Power Girl splash page had her asking me "Why do you read these dumb booby superhero comics anyway?" - but upon seeing the cover of this pointless-flashback-book, she got very concerned at what was apparently going on. "There's a lot of blood there. Why is everyone bleeding so much?" she asked.

Because they're boxing, and in this book, boxing is pain is a metaphor for life. Which is painful and miserable, apparently.

The problem with this book isn't that it's bad, because it isn't, really - There's nothing that you can point to and say definitively that it doesn't work - but because it's a vacuum of pointlessness. Not only was no-one asking for a book based around the history of Daredevil's dad, but there's nothing in the execution of the idea that makes you think that maybe you were wrong and this book should exist after all. It's the comic book equivalent of eating your greens when you're a kid, in a way: Something that you know you should enjoy more, but can't quite bring yourself to do nonetheless. Entirely Eh.