In an era where everything cultural has already been written or done—which is especially true for comic books, where Spiderman, Superman, Batman and friends have already been through hundreds of stories—successfully producing a totally original work is a constant challenge. We found this gem in an interview of Mark Waid:

“I was hesitant at first because it seemed like such a dark way to go. And I also didn’t want to do the 800th ‘Oh he has cancer in a superhero book! What will the superhero do? Surely there’s a way to fix it! Oh wait, you can’t beat cancer.’ I don’t want to do that kind of story. You know, the story where Daredevil walks around the Marvel Universe for an issue trying to get people to cure cancer for him and being told, ‘We can go to the Negative Zone, Daredevil, but we can’t cure cancer.’ So that’s the first trap you have to avoid when doing that kind of story. And second, it’s so dark a circumstance, and I like Foggy.” (“Mark Waid Talks Daredevil, Hulk, Everything,”  March 27, 2013, http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/27/mark-waid-talks-daredevil-hulk-everything)

So there are always new angles to develop.