GH: DAREDEVIL #193

Goodbye, Hello

For the past couple of years, DAREDEVIL had been one of the best and strongest titles in the industry, mainly under the guiding hand of writer/penciler Frank Miller. Miller completely shifted the emphasis and the tone of the series, making it into much more a crime noir book, and being inventive with his storytelling and page layouts. But the final year of his run had been tapering off. It felt as though he was beginning to repeat himself. He also handed over most of the responsibility for the finished artwork to Klaus Janson. Miller’s final issue was #191. #192 was an excellent story by Alan Brennert, a real favorite of mine thanks to his assorted stories for DC. And in fact, I had thought he was taking over the book. So once #193 came out and that wasn’t the case, I decided that I was done, too. The bar was simply set too high at this point.

BHOC: SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS

I first encountered Daredevil in a library-borrowed copy of SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS at the beginning of when I started to explore the Marvel Universe. And i quite liked his first adventure by Stan Lee and Bill Everett (with some uncredited help from Steve Ditko.) It was enough to make me decide to check out the current issue the next time I had the opportunity to.

BHOC: DAREDEVIL #150

That issue, #150, had a bit of a flavor to it that reminded me of my favorite DC titles of the era, and so I quickly became a regular reader. So that put me into prime position to watch as the series got its act together more and more as time went on. That process had already begun by the time #150 came out, but it was really the advent of Frank Miller and the switch to a more sophisticated approach to the character and his world that made DAREDEVIL a series that everybody was paying attention to.

The departure of Miller seems to have left editor Denny O’Neil with a bit of a problem, and it took a couple of issues for a steady replacement to be found. That replacement turned out to be Denny himself, with his former assistant Linda Grant taking over as editor. I kind of expect that Denny was left mostly to his own devices, having been the writer most associated with shifting Batman back to his dark crime roots after many years as a more colorful and campy character. If I’m honest, i was never a huge fan of Denny’s work, particularly over at Marvel, where his sensibilities seemed to clash with the house approach to super heroes. Denny’s heroes were maybe just a little bit too human for me.

On the artistic front, Klaus Janson did his best to maintain the standards of innovation set during his time working with Miller. He’d do pages like this one with simple, repeated storytelling and a cool graphic design sense. He also employed a lot of duo-shade board in these books to create additional texture to the work. It wasn’t Miller, but it was still very nice and in keeping with how the series had been looking. Klaus also continued to color the series, which gave him a lot more control over teh look of the final product.

The story in this issue is a very nice done-in-one affair written by Larry Hama, who is an underrated writer if ever there was one. This is likely due to Larry having mostly worked on projects around the edges of the Marvel Universe, and licensed properties such as G.I.JOE. But he was a solid storyteller who knew how to put across a yarn. In this adventure, Daredevil gets involved in tracking down some criminals who have robbed a military armory in Manhattan, getting away with some very dangerous missiles. As a part of the pursuit, the Man Without Fear is looking for the person who killed the nameless Sergeant on duty there and stole his heirloom sidearm, which had been given to him by his soldier father.

Daredevil pursues the thieves to a cruise ship as Matt Murdock, where he gets involved with a female magician named Willow. of course, Willow turns out to be the ringleader of the crooks, and after Daredevil has spent a dozen pages putting down her hirelings, she goes to shoot him with the Sarge’s gun–which promptly blows up in her face. See, the story that Sarge begins to tell Daredevil as he dies and which gets finished at the very end is about how, in Vietnam, that gun had saved his life by blocking the shrapnel from a grenade that would have killed him. The weapon hasn’t worked since, and so in a real Will Eisner way, Willow arranges for her own undoing by using it. I clearly didn’t think too much of this story when I first read it back in 1982, but looking at it now, it’s really very nicely done.

I dropped into and out of DAREDEVIL occasionally over the years. To start with, for a couple months after issue #200 came out, my younger brother Ken started buying it, which meant that I would read his copies (and eventually ended up in possession of them.) And of course I came back for Miller’s return, when he produced his masterpiece with David Mazucchelli, “Born Again”. I also sampled the issue that tied into the X-Men’s Mutant Massacre for some reason, though it wasn’t enough to hook me on Ann Nocenti’s approach to the character. And so it was that I didn’t begin to read DAREDEVIL again regularly until I started my Marvel internship and began to get the issues for free in my comp bundle. #271, pictured above, was my first issue back.

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38 thoughts on “GH: DAREDEVIL #193”

  1. With you on O’Neil’s Marvel work, especially his Iron Man run. Never been a fan of Daredevil, or Miller either, if I’m honest. DD seems to lack a certain “Marvelness” to him. No real depth, a bum supporting cast, ordinary powers. Just nothing to grab me. I enjoyed the Nocenti/JRJR (his best work IMHO) but it wasn’t enough to get me to hang around beyond that.

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    1. Don’t forget the terrible rogue’s gallery. As a friend of mine put it when looking at the Emissaries of Evil in DD Annual 1, when Stilt-Man’s not the worst villain on your team …

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      2. Paul O’Brien has been doing an amusing series over on House to Astonish, examining Daredevil villains in depth.

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      3. The Owl is DD’s Vulture, just like the Condor is Nova’s Vulture ( Both the Condor & Vulture appeared in their heroes book’s second issue, while the Owl was in DD#3 ).

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      5. Bullseye, Typhoid Mary, Purple Man, Elektra, Kingpin…DD has had some pretty great villains. But yes everyone will pick Stilt-Man and the Owl to perpetuate a narrative (although I’d say the Owl is actually a good villain when written correctly).

        Granted it took about 15-20 years for DD to get interesting villains or for them to become interesting. Of course Kingpin was originally a Spider-Man villain, Purple Man is now Jessica Jones’ nemesis, and Elektra became a hero but my point stands.

        I’d argue DD’s rogues gallery is better and more interesting than Iron Man’s, which aside from The Mandarin were usually armored copies or evil corporate CEO copies of Tony.

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      6. The Masked Matador. Leapfrog. The Jester. Masked Marauder. It’s not a narrative, his Rogue’s Gallery really was crap for the Silver Age.

        The Plunderer was fun as a modern day pirate in his first appearance but then became dull when Stan turned him into Ka-Zar’s brother.

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      8. I agree that if written correctly, just about any villain can be made interesting. Kingpin, Bullseye, and Gladiator were all pretty laughable before Miller got ahold of them.

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      9. Daredevil for the original Brother Brimstone( Ross Archer ) [ DD#65 ( June 1970 )] is his counterpart to the original Clayface ( Basil Karlo ) and Timely Comics had 2 such counterparts: Mister Stranger [ Blonde Phantom#13 ( Spring 1947 )] and Scarface [ Captain America Comics#54 ( March 1946 )]. Plus Leap-Frog as a Timely Comics prototype named Bullfrog [ Captain America Comics#61 ( March 1947 ) 2nd story ] and since Leap-Frog wasn’t using a costume at the beginning of his first appearance then the Springer [ Blonde Phantom#20 ( November 1948 ) Blonde Phantom 2nd story ] gets added as a prototype too.

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      12. I forgot the Matador’s Timely Comics prototype the Matador [ Captain America Comics#65 ( January 1948 ) 2nd story ] and while the Ox was created in The Amazing Spider-Man he has a Timely Comics prototype too — the Ox [ Blonde Phantom#14 ( Summer 1947 ) Blonde Phantom – 5th story ].

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      13. Then there is the Jester: Jester ( Johnny Pinkham ) [ Captain America Comics#40( July 1944 ) 1st story ] & Jester [ Captain America Comics#65 ( January 1948 ) ].

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  2. I remember liking this issue a lot. If Hama and Janson had become the new regular team, I totally would have kept reading. But I didn’t vibe with O’Neil’s version (which broke my heart, because O’Neil on Daredevil should have been a slam dunk), nor Ann Nocenti’s. “Born Again” is a classic, of course, and I picked up some of the “Marvel Knights” issues that David Mack worked on, but otherwise I haven’t kept up with DD at all.

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  3. I loved the Miller run and I stuck around til issue 200. Janson’s art was up to snuff and even though I remember liking 193 and 194 quite a bit the next 1/2 dozen issues didn’t do it for me…especially once Janson was gone.

    Count me in as also not digging O’Neil’s Marvel work by and large. I don’t recall disliking his work on Spider-man, but on Daredevil and Ironman he had the tendency to write characters with very clipped sounding dialogue…..to my ear anyway. I give the guy some slack because in both cases he was following creators who redefined the title character.

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  4. First one of the best things Frank Miller did on Daredevil was make the Kingpin a DD foe ( A hero he should have been created for in the first place. The only Mobsters Spider-Man should be fighting are the prototype to Jack Kirby’s Intergang — The Maggia ( cause they use advanced technology too ( at least in their first appearance and then only FF appearance ) ). Second, while The Hand are cool ( cause Ninjas are cool ) Frank Miller made them stupid by having them wasting their own people during their resurrection of the dead ( Why not use the life forces of the people you are hired to kill instead? ). Yeah, I found it as stupid and wasteful as DC’s H.I.V.E. killing off their own ( Cause to me that is like destroying the Library of Alexandra super-villains style. Plus they are all scientists they could have found a way to keep their secrets without killing their own ). Plus I thought having all your forgotten criminal scientists banding together was cool and wished Marvel had as many as DC to reveal its versions are A.I.M. scientists. Third, Frank Miller’s return to DD when he had Karen Page sell Daredevil’s secret identity for drugs is another reason why Spider-Man would never have been on the Pro-Registration side during Civil War ( Captain America never would have been on the Anti-Registration side and Captain America#332 ( August 1987 ) is proof ( The un-elected Commission tell Cap he is obligated to return to work directly for the U.S. government due to papers he signed at Project Rebirth and he is given 24 hours to comply or he will be required to give up being Captain America. So he quits at the end of the issue instead of calling a Press Conference and getting them all fired when angry Veterans start calling their members of Congress & Senate ).

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  5. I’ve never liked much O’Neil stories except the more realistic treatment of Tony Stark’s alcoholism (the best I think in comics. Compare it to Carol Danvers’ own blip that really has never colored her character since) but I stuck it out. I liked some Miller stuff, the return as wrier mostly, but I adored Nocenti’s earnest wackiness. What I disliked about the Hand is they’re an army with uniforms so how are they ninjas? I’ve only briefly Googled ninjas but my impression is they’re modeled after kabuki ninjas and not a group that relies on stealth, disguise, and infiltration. I think Chichester is when I left Daredevil for good, with Bendis and then Waid and not the character bringing me back a couple of times. Matt Murdock’s life is just too damn depressing. He’s had more loved ones killed off than Namor!

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  6. The first issue of Daredevil I purchased was #91, in 1972, although I didn’t start getting the mag regularly until a year later, about the time I started collecting several other Marvel comics on a more regular basis. Although I wouldn’t have called it one of my favorite titles, I liked it well enough, particularly Gerber’s run, as bizarro as it tended to be. I missed Miller’s first issue as artist on the title (the concluding part of the on & off Death Stalker saga, begun during Gerber’s run) but got the very next one which actually struck me as very strange in art & story and wasn’t really sure what to think about. But I gradually warmed up to Miller’s artistry and then his writing and it soon became clear that DD was finally experiencing a genuinely classic run, just as the X-Men were with Claremont & Cockrum and then Byrne; and a bit later was the case with Simonson on Thor. O’Neill’s run was certainly a change, but I still liked it and kept on collecting. Miller’s return, solely as writer, with excellent art by Mazzucchelli, was top-notch IMO. I stuck around for the first several issues by Ann Nocenti but by then, while I had been collecting maybe 30 or more titles a month, I found myself increasingly busy with so much else that I found I was getting a lot of comics I was no longer reading and began to seriously downscale my collecting and eventually mostly quit altogether by the late ’80s, although I later got into the Sandman, the last “mainstream” comic I collected regularly while it lasted. Basically, between the time I turned 18 in 1980 and 28 in 1990, my tastes in graphic literature had changed considerably.

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  7. I’ve never been a huge Denny O’Neil fan either, but I just re-read The Question omnibus, and that holds up surprisingly well. Denys Cowan’s artwork was a plus.

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  8. Silver Samurai first appeared in Daredevil#111 ( July 1974 ) but going by the cover he didn’t look very samurai like ( Plus I think he only fought DD once unlike Spider-Men & the X-Men ).

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  9. I don’t really think Stilt-Man, Leap-Frog and some of the others were meant to be terribly dramatic villains. The Lee/Colan run of DD is comedy-drama with the accent on the comedy — it’s almost a superhero farce, as we see Matt pretend to be his own twin brother, thus revealing what he thinks others think a superhero would be like — and Karen, who wants to mother Matt, who isn’t as helpless as she thinks, is weirdly attracted to the brash “Mike,” who doesn’t need mothering at all. It’s goofy stuff, but I love it because it’s goofy and over the top.

    It wouldn’t have been as good with serious villains.

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      1. It’s so good.

        I’d love a nice collection, one volume or two, that ran from Gene’s first issue to The Death of Mike Murdock (or shortly after; whenever their run actually ends). That stuff’s a unit, all to itself. The Everett-Orlando-Wood-Romita issues are a different thing (though the Romita at least starts leaning into the funny), and the Roy-Gerry-Steve stuff afterward is another different thing.

        But than Lee/Colan stuff is its own kind of magic.

        [Oh, and put the Lee/Colan “Scaredevil” story from NOT BRAND ECCH in the collection too; it’s primo, except for that last panel.]

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    2. I’m happy to have most of these stories in Marvel Masterworks editions. Stan seemed to have fun writing these. From what I’ve read he was most comfortable writing humor and these were so entertaining. Now I have to look if I have a copy of that Not Brand Ecch story!

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      1. I have the Masterworks (heck, I have the original comics), but I’d like a dedicated set of those stories, rather than having them broken up across volumes, with the first couple of issues in a volume that’s otherwise Romita, and suchlike.

        Kind of like the Claremont/Leialoha SPIDER-WOMAN. I’ve got it all in Masterworks, but it’s spread across three volumes, and it’s only 13 issues (unless you add in the X-MEN issue she appears in and maybe that AVENGERS ANNUAL). I’d love to have it in a single volume.

        The Lee/Colan DD is closer to 30 issues, so it’d be two volumes (or one omnibus, but I find those too bulky for casual reading), but it’d still make a nice set.

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      2. @Kurt: Yes, I hear you. On the one hand, it’s great to have so many long runs of comics collected in order. But sometimes you wish they could be in somewhat more “organic” groupings.

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    3. And for whatever reason… Colan/Lee seemed to be more into mining and stretching the Murdock/Foggy/Karen triad than the Stark/Happy/Pepper one. Maybe it was a page count thing since DD was not a split book, or maybe they felt one had run its course. The character dynamics in both books were similar in a lot of ways, but they never went for comedy with Stark and Co. like they did with DD…. that aspect left with Heck.

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      1. It is a very similar dynamic, and an oddity of it is that Happy and Pepper were introduced in the September 1963 TALES OF SUSPENSE, and Karen and Foggy were introduced in what was supposed to be another September 1963 book, but since Bill Everett couldn’t get it done it came out months later.

        I guess when Stan had an idea, he wanted to get full mileage out of it.

        It was different, at least, in that Pepper’s love for Tony was supposed to be hopeless, because she was homely (visually inspired by Ann B. Davis, later “Alice” on THE BRADY BUNCH), so that triangle only flowed one way. Until Stan or Martin Goodman directed that Pepper should get a glamorous makeover, along with Happy and Peter Parker and (to a degree) Gwen Stacy, because pretty people sell more comics.

        Although there never really was a Matt-Karen-Foggy triangle in DAREDEVIL. Foggy was attracted to Karen, but Karen wasn’t interested. Her heart was set on Matt, at least until “Mike” showed up to give him some competition…

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      2. I think Heck pulled back from making Pepper homely, otherwise he wouldn’t have given her a tiny nose. She’s not glamorous as originally drawn, but she’s still comic book cute and perky ala Betty Brant….and well out of the league of the ugly mug that was Happy Hogan. Your point still stands though that her love for Stark was supposed to be hopeless though.

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  10. For once, it sounds like you picked a good time to jump off a series! 😉
    I’m not sure what the first Daredevil comic I read was, but I do remember reading a pocketbook where he appeared in Spidey. I immediately liked the character. Year later, my brother would bring home a copy of Daredevil #178. I was a pre-teen and had kind of stopped reading comics. I was intrigued for some reason, and read it. I was blown away. It coincided at just the right time, when I was also becoming interested in the martial arts. Peanut butter and chocolate, so they say. Unfortunately we moved to a remote location where the only real way to get comics was in a city 50 miles away. We had a neighbor whose parents occasionally would take him into the city and he would bring back some comics from the comic store. He would then try to sell them to us for over the price. 😛
    Which was quite a bit, because these comics were already hot and back issues went for crazy prices. Hard to believe nowadays, but we had to wait many years to get on our hands on just a few of them. Eventually I would get to read all of Miller’s run when it was reprinted in trades. I guess part of the fun had always been that hunt. Finding a good deal in a shop, getting that one key issue you missed, etc.
    Anyways, we kept collecting DD. Although we didn’t have most of the Miller drawn issues, we did have DD#181, which blew my mind yet again. We had most of Janson drawn issues and steadily kept with the series afterwards. I think we just kept buying, hoping either Miller would return or someone just as good would hop on. Far from the case, artists/writers changed all the time, and most of it was crap. We stuck around until the Nocenti/JrJr team came on. Nice to have a stable team on the book and I liked JrJr’s art, but Nocenti wasn’t Miller (nor was she trying to be). So ultimately, I left. Once again my brother saved the day, by picking up the first Miller/Mazzucchelli issue. I didn’t really like it at first. The art was different and didn’t have the fluid movement that Miller was so good at. But the gritty, more realistic style grew on me quick and it’s definitely one of my favorite comic runs of all time. After that, I don’t remember reading much DD. I dropped out of comics again for awhile. I came back to check out an issue here and there. I did end up reading Bendis’s run. While people think it’s great, it definitely wouldn’t have existed without Miller. I did like Maleev’s art a lot though. I also checked out Brubaker’s run. I like a lot of Brubaker’s stuff, but I didn’t like DD and in general I prefer his non-superhero stuff. Someday I want to read through the Waid/Samnee run. The art looks great on it, and it seems to have taken the character back to his roots. I think that’s been the biggest challenge for writers for a long time. Miller made such a huge impact on the character (twice!), which made it hard for writers to followup. . They have a choice to either disregard what Miller did, and return DD to being a second rate Spider-Man. Or they ape what Miller did, which ends up feeling like a watered down retread with the same old cast of characters.

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  11. I love Denny O’Neil comics. But I agree that he only became The Denny O’Neil because of his contributions to DC. It felt like someone else writing for Marvel. He was like a very talented player, but who can’t adapt to another team’s tactical scheme.

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  12. I’m a big Klaus Janson fan, so his drawing, inking, & coloring this issue was/is still great to me. I loved his inking Colan’s Batman, too.

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    1. Good story, too. Hama was underrated. Though there were some of his writing that wasn’t for me. “Wolfpack”, for one. Then his few issues of “Batman” for Denny. But DD 193 was one of his I liked. The dialog, especially. But the gun’s defect, as well.

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