Daredevil Moving to San Francisco in All-New Marvel NOW!

Given that Mark Waid's Daredevil series has been one of my favorite books of the past year, I was a little (okay, a lot) disappointed when the announcement came last month that the series would come to an end in February with issue #36.  The book has sold well for Marvel and the creative team of Waid and artist Chris Samnee have consistently produced awesome work.  Fortunately, Marvel appears to know a good thing when the see it (see what I did there?...you know, because Daredevil is blind?) as they announced, via an exclusive interview at The Nerdist, that the team of Waid and Samnee will be working on a renumbered book that takes Matt Murdock to The Golden Gate City, San Francisco, beginning in March.


I know Marvel's trend of renumbering their series is upsetting to some, this time especially since they are also raising the price of the series, but their sales numbers seem to be driving the trend. Samnee told The Nerdist why the team chose to renumber the series at this point:

"With the end of #36 a chapter in Matt Murdock's life has ended. We're moving forward now in a new direction with a new cast and new stakes. The new #1 just makes sense. We're restarting the series just as Matt is trying to jump start his life and career."

Waid adds that they were given the option to renumber last year when Marvel launced Marvel NOW! but declined because it didn't fit their needs, however, "When the opportunity arose to relaunch again this year, it made a lot more sense given the way we're about to change literally every aspect of Matt Murdock's life. Every aspect." Now that that is out of the way, we can focus on the book which will see Murdock leave Hell's Kitchen for the Left Coast following some life-changing events in the two part finale (issues #35 and 36) to the current series.

Longtime fans of the character may recognize that this won't be Murdock's first time in San Francisco as he spent some time there with Black Widow in the 70's series written by Gerry Conway.  Waid explains the decision to have Murdock make the move:

 "Without spoiling too much of the final issue of the previous series, we can tell you that Matt has to leave New York and, in many ways, has no choice but to return to California-specifically, California, no where else to go. But that's where he and his cast will hang their collective hat from now on."

While it goes without saying that life is going to change for Murdock, one thing Waid points out is that the hero is, "going to quickly find out he's not the only crimefighter in town-and that he's fooling himself to assume there's room for more than one." So it seem Hornhead is about to come into conflict with another hero in his time in San Francisco. Who will that be? We know that Frank Castle will be moving to L.A. in his All-New Marvel NOW! title, who else do you guys think The Man Without Fear will be running into in The City by the Bay?