Monday, October 26, 2020

Marvel Immersion Project: Daredevil #172-177

I feel I should share what Frank Miller Daredevil art I easily can.  Most of the time, for images, I simply grab what's most easily accessible on the wikis.  But Miller's art, like that of Kirby or Ditko, deserves special exhibition.
#158 Cover via Wikipedia

#184 Cover via Wikipedia


My Recent Reads

Daredevil #172
Originally Published July 1, 1981
Writer and Artist: Frank Miller
  • Believing his wife is dead, Kingpin takes control of the city underworld.
  • He hires Bullseye as his hitman.
  • Daredevil shows up.  He and Bullseye brawl.
  • DD wins but the Kingpin remains in power.

Daredevil #173
August 1, 1981
Frank Miller
  • Daredevil stories are frequently dark but this one is particular heavy - and poignant.
  • Melvin Potter, aka Gladiator and a client of Matt Murdock's, is believed to be brutally assaulting women on the street.
  • The actual assailant is Michael Reese, a man essentially identical to Potter.
  • Years before, Reese assaulted Becky Blake, Murdock's secretary.  The attack left her crippled.
  • Becky tells Matt about the attack and admits to him that she never reported it to the police.  Matt's horrified she didn't do so and even expresses a sense of personal betrayal towards her.
  • When DD has his own fight with Reese and experiences the same helplessness Becky had felt, he becomes more sympathetic.
  • Murdock finally convinces Becky to call the police and report that she had been attacked by the same man now attacking others.

Daredevil #174
September 1, 1981
Frank Miller
  • Kingpin hires The Hand to take out Daredevil.
  • The Hand is a ninja order, the very one that trained Elektra.
  • Elektra and Gladiator team up to protect DD.  This is a consistent theme for the series.  DD isn't good at accepting or soliciting the help of others.  People seem inclined to protect him anyway, even when he isn't likely to be aware of it.
  • An important development as the story moves forward: due to an explosion, DD loses his radar sense.

Daredevil #175
October 1, 1981
Frank Miller
  • Daredevil and Elektra battle The Hand.
  • Foggy Nelson defends the Gladiator in court.

Daredevil #176
November 1, 1981
Frank Miller
  • Desperate to get his radar sense back, Daredevil hunts down his old trainer, Stick.

Daredevil #177
December 1, 1981
Frank Miller
  • Stick forces Daredevil to face the demons of his past (in gorgeous black-and-white) in order to regain his radar sense.
  • The Bugle publishes an exposé on Kingpin's puppet mayoral candidate, Randolph Winston Cherryh.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, this is good stuff, here.
    Now I'm wondering where I would rank it as far as story runs in a comic series.

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    Replies
    1. High praise, indeed.

      I like DD a lot and for a lot of the same reasons I like Spidey. I like the earthier tone. I like the interesting dynamic between the Daredevil life and the Matt Murdock life. Apart from this, I've only read the very earliest stories and some of the crossovers. The character himself is not as interesting as some of the others I have encountered but I like his world.

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