I pretty much ignored the "Marvel Knights" version of Daredevil, which lasted 119 issues. Honestly, I had been "pretty much ignoring" Daredevil since Frank Miller left (the second time). The longer I stay away from a series the less likely it is for me to get back into it once I quit, and the constant flow of "new number ones" make it even less likely that I will pick it up again. But if there's one person who can overcome all those obstacles, it's Mark Waid. I have had a long-standing resolution to read all the archives and omnibuses I have bought over the years, and when I started reading and posting about Daredevil comics from the beginning (back in 2019), it was with the express intention of "reading my way up to" the first volume of the Mark Waid Daredevil omnibus. It may have taken me five years to get here, but I'm ready to go now.
Starting tomorrow.
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ISSUE #16:
Page one: Montage: Matt Murdock is experiencing Hank Pym's thoughts. Or maybe Hank Pym is experiencing Matt Murdock's thoughts.
In any case, Giant-Man is physically inside Daredevil's brain, blasting nanobots, guided by Dr. Strange. Once the procedure is complete and Matt learns it's been nine days since he was abducted, he heads straight back to the office. He is greeted with stony silence. Foggy finally asks him to step into Matt's own office and confronts him with what he discovered there in #13: human remains. Matt had promised Foggy that there was nothing left of his father to be retrieved from the Mole Man, but Foggy had the bones tested. Also, Jack Murdock was buried with his boxing gloves and they are there, too. For his part, Matt seems totally surprised by this discovery. Afraid that his partner is slipping off the deep end again, Foggy forces Matt out of the firm. As Matt leaves, a painter is scraping his name from the door.
Okay, that's enough for one day.
ISSUE #12:
(There are a few funny flashback panels showing her attempts to trip him up, including one in which she lifts up her shirt revealing the words "YOU ARE DAREDEVIL" on her bra.)
Kirsten is not only sexy, she is smart and funny. Mark Waid really brings out the humanity in his characters.
Most of the issue deals with an unethical professor who tried to have Foggy expelled from Columbia Law School and how they turned the tables on him.
How they (actually Foggy) did this is well done.
It also explains Foggy's nickname: he snores like a foghorn.
I never understood why he was called that. He never seemed anything but sharp.
ISSUE #13:
Surprising developments! Nothing to add.
ISSUE #14:
This is the cover they used for TPB #3. I didn’t think that all the plot threads about Latveria would go by without seeing Doctor Doom. Or will we?
He thinks he has made it, but his sense of feeling is now completely gone and he doesn't realize he's being dragged by his ankles behind two soldiers on horseback in the issue's final, full-page panel.
Wow!
ISSUE #15:
Chancellor Betrane orders a doctor to "take any and all necessary measures to understand Daredevil's unique brain... specifically his 'radar sense'... so we may learn how to replicate that power. Quickly and without fail, doctor."
This reminds me of Superman oversharing his weaknesses, etc. When did the world learn about his radar sense, or even the fact that he’s blind? I don’t remember this information being common knowledge pre-Frank Miller.* Was all this info pried out of Karen Page when she was turned into a junkie?
*I just rewatched High Noon (1952) for the umpteenth time. Frank Miller is the big bad in that movie, a fiend in human form.
He's on a time limit because the Latverian scientists plan to vivisect him. I think Daredevil is an active Avenger at this point. In any case, he carries an Avengers ID and activated it last issue when he escaped, but I didn't mention it because of Dr. Doom's jamming field.
He knows they are going to do something very bad from the reactions of the nurse who has sympathized with him. I overlooked his previous activation of the Avengers ID.
As soon as the jamming field has been turned off, Iron Man arrives.
I liked that he repulser-rays Chancellor Beltane and tells him he doesn’t need a stinking extradition treaty. When the two soldiers are about to use small arms against him, he says “Really?” and they take off.
ISSUE #16:
Page one: Montage: Matt Murdock is experiencing Hank Pym's thoughts. Or maybe Hank Pym is experiencing Matt Murdock's thoughts.
Interestingly, Hank’s and Matt’s memories are mashed together, confusing Janet and Karen.
Foggy finally asks him to step into Matt's own office and confronts him with what he discovered there in #13: human remains.
Even though it’s been years since his father was killed at the beginning of Matt’s career as Daredevil, I think that the remains would be noticeable by smell before Foggy opened the box, initially and in front of Matt..
Matt had promised Foggy that there was nothing left of his father to be retrieved from the Mole Man, but Foggy had the bones tested. Also, Jack Murdock was buried with his boxing gloves and they are there, too. For his part, Matt seems totally surprised by this discovery.
Most likely we will find out that one of Matt’s enemies has placed them there.
Five more today.
ISSUE #17:
This is the cover Marvel used for the dustjacket of the omnibus.
The art this issue is by Mike Allred. A flasback circa v1 #67 is thematically linked to the framing sequnce set during the present day. Matt Murdock "regains" his eyesight briefly. I hate those kind of stories.
ISSUE #18:
With Matt Murdock no longer part of the firm, Foggy has gone back to practicing traditional law. (The wig stand with "Mike Murdock's" hat and shades, last seen in issue #1, is shown in the trashcan.) That doesn't stop potential clients from seeking legal consultants, however. A young man stops by the offices of Nelson and Murdock to seek help defending his sister, Adele Santiago, a private nurse who has been accussed of murder in a "closed door" mystery. Her patient, the victim, was Victor Hierra, a known mobster. She was on the phone with her brother when Hierra collapsed, a victim of spontaneous exsanguination (in other words, his body had been drained of every ounce of blood). Hierra's men tried to beat a confession out of her, but when that didn't work they are having her prosecuted. Foggy agrees to take the case.
Meanwhile, Matt and Kirsten are returning to his place after a date. He hears something unusual inside and sends her home instead of inviting her in. In his bed he finds Milla, his ex-wife. I didn't read any of those stories, but this issue explains why she is so completely out of his life. I knew she had been committed, but I didn't know that her parents a) sued for custody, b) had their marriage annulled, and c) slapped Matt with a restraining order. Matt is so upset he sees no other choice than to call Foggy for help. Foggy believes he is delusional, but nevertheless agrees to check in with the asylum and find out how she escaped. He reluctantly agrees and, in return, asks Daredevil to investigate the circumstances surrounding Adele Santiago's arrest.
Daredevil suspects that Jardiem Salazar, Hierra's boss, may have had something to do with his murder. He confronts Salazar in his penthouse, but Salazar escapes to the elevator while Daredevil is busy dealing with his bodyguards. From the other room, Daredevil hears the sound of someone falling down the elevator shaft but, by the time he gets to the elevator and forces open the door, the car is still there, empty. He calls Foggy to check in only to find that Milla is at the asylum, wearing a straightjacket and in a padded cell.
ISSUE #19:
Daredevil dives from the building only to discover that his billy club is missing from its holster. But he is never that careless about his club. Checking again, he finds it in place and manages to save his life. But instead of landing on the street, he lands in his own apartment! What's more, his bed is made, unslept in, and the scent of Milla is gone. Now he's starting to have doubts himself. He decides to consult Henry Pym, but takes a cab. Through conversation with Pym, Daredevil suddenly realizes what has been going on and who is responsible.
Meanwhile, Foggy has asked Kirsten to meet him in a bar. By the time she arrives, he is already three sheets to the wind. He thinks she should know what he suspects about Matt's mental state, and spills everything he suspects. He was thinking only of Kirsten's good but, as assistant D.A., she has no choice but to initiate a citywide manhunt for Daredevil on suspicion that he has gone insane and is a danger to the city. He immediately realizes he has told her too much (possibly because he was drunk), but he has Matt's best interests in mind as well, and when she gives him the opportunity to walk his statements back he doesn't take it.
With Hierra and Salazar dead, the remaining families meet in a sanitation plant in Jersey to determine how to fill the power vaccuum. But Daredevil is not there to catch the mobsters, but rather the "c-list teleporter who finally found his 'A' game": the Spot (see issue #1). The Spot has drastically upped his power level, changed his look (see cover), and he now calls himself "Coyote." He overcomes Daredevil and, when he awakens, finds that his head has been removed from his body!
ISSUE #20:
There is some sort of electronic collar around Daredevil's neck, and he can still feel his body, so the illusion is some sort of manifestation of Coyote's power. Coyote spends a few pages explaining his new "business model": smuggling drugs and human trafficking. To keep his "human chattel" docile, he has "separated" their heads from their bodies, same as he has done with Daredevil. There are dozens of them in the next room. Daredevil's head keeps Coyote occupied while his body frees itself and sets about finding a way to reverse the process and free the hostages and himself.
Meanwhile, Kirsten McDuffie stops by the office of District Attorney Cyrus Barger. Barger is in a meeting with the police chief, a senator and someone else. He bids her to speak her piece, otherwise he won't be able to see her until Thursday. When she expresses her concerns about Daredevil, they don't believe her. the tabloids have picked up the story of her romance with Matt Murdock, and the four menn assume that the two of them are having a lover's spat.
Back underground, Daredevil's bady has made it to Coyote's central control room. what he doesn't see, is that the Spot, the real Spot, is hooked up to a maching powering all the equipment. In the other room, Daredevil's head has stopped dividing its attention between what his body's doing and his conversation with Coyote. When Daredevil falls silent, Coyote becomes suspicious and goes to investigate. Finding Daredevil's body gone, Coyote rushes to the control room, bit not in time to prevent Daredevil from turning it off. Suddenly, Daredevil's head as well as the heads of all the hostages are returned to their proper bodies. Daredevil slaps a collar around Coyote, which incapacitates him. With his radar sense fully restored, Daredevil realizes that Caoyote is not the Spot after all, that the Spot is another victim. Suddenly, in a panic, the prisoners attack!
ISSUE #21:
First, Daredevil frees the Spot. Then the Spot tries to take revenge on Coyote, but his own arms and hands and fingers are sprout out of every hole in his body (and there's a lot of them). While Daredevil is trying to save the Coyote from Spot (and all his other vitims), Coyote relates his origin. Essentially, the people who gave the Spot his powers wanted an agent who was smarter and more creative. They enlisted a smuggler in their employ, and used the original Spot as a power source. Once he became empowered, he turned on his employers and went into business for himself. Daredevil forces a confession out of him in front of his victims, which helps to calm them down, but Daredevil cant save Coyote from the revenge of the Spot, though.
Later, Matt tells Foggy the whole story. It was the Coyote who was responsible for Matt's seeming madness... his father's remains, Milla, all of it. But when Foggy tells Matt about what he told Kirsten, Matt loses his temper. Matt is hurt and angry, plus he knows Foggy is holding something else back. Matt writes a letter in Braille to Milla, explaining what she went through, but is intercepted by Milla's doctor and thrown into a file with dozens of other letters, presumably from Matt as well.
Kirsten does not yet know the whole story, so she contacts Spider-Man for help. she explains the situation and asks if he understand.
"I will find Daredevil," Spider-Man resonds, "...and I will crush him."
"Thank-- wait. What?"
That's a good place to stop for the day.
Jeff of Earth-J February 10, 2024 at 5:34pm
Five more today.
A lot going on. I'll most likely be playing catch-up.
That's okay. But I've got to maintain a pace of more than one issue per day or I'll never reach my goal of reading all the collections I have bought before I die.
That's okay. Just wanted to let you know.
This thread is realllly making me regret my decision not to buy the Mark Waid omnibuses. I didn't because I knew I could read the issues on Marvel Universe, and I don't have any room anyway. But just the recaps read so well, I should have made room.
ISSUE #22:
Although I know I read this issue when it was originally released I suspect that I repressed it in my memory. That's because it features Doc Ock as the Superior Spider-Man. There is no "Superior Spider-Man" on Earth-J. Here's how it plays out on Earth-J: Kirsten McDuffie asks for Spider-Man's help and he agrees (with no "I will crush him" dialogue); page 18 plays pretty much as presented (except with the real Spider-Man); pages 19-21 happened. Mark Waid as well as can be expected with this truly misguided concept. At the end, foggy reveals he has cancer. Is this another case of a "hotshot" writer coming in and killing off a beloved cast member (Kevin Smith/Karen Page)? Let's wait and see how it plays out.
ISSUE #23:
This cover illustrates a gimmcik from the Daredevil movie, one of the few Marvel movies I have seen.
Somewhere, someone is trying to recreate the accident which gave Matt Murdock his hypersenses. The test subjects are all wearing orange jumpsuits.
Daredevil takes foggy on patrol, swing across the city. He confides in Foggy that he learned from Coyote that the same person who backed Coyote also backed Klaw and probably Black Spectre and possibly others as well. In a very funny sequence, Foggy suggests that its Stiltman: "Nice Work, Stiltman," says Foggy between giggles. "You shouldn't have signed it," finishes Daredevil. Sudenly, Daredevil's hypersenses pick up a disturbance at a fundraiser in Romonico Tower. He arrives to find a group of orange-jupsuited thugs running amok. They are all blind and have been driven insane by mewly-aquired hypersenses. After he deals with the threat, he accompanys Foggy to his an appointment with his oncologist. At first, Matt mistakes Foggy's heartbeat for the doctor's and thinks the doctor has good news. He doesn't.
ISSUE #24:
We get our first glimpse of the man behind Daredevil's problems. He resides in a clock tower and is himself inside a "sarcophagus" shaped like a cocktail shaker. Also in the clocktowe r is a woman in silhouette. Matt is at Foggy's bedside in the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Foggy suggests that he go clear the air with Kirsten. He agrees, but only so that he can break up with her. He finds her at a rock climbing facility... on a date. He doesn't even get to break up with her because she has already decided that they are broken up. It's a really fun and touching scene, and my poor description doesn't do it justice.
Next, Daredevil consults Hank Pym about last issue's attack at Romonico Tower. He recognized the scent of the radioactive chemical that blinded him coming from the men. He also describes Foggy's symptoms, and Hank suggests a possible diagnosis. Here's a way to tell a good comic book writer from a mediocre one. A good writer will portray Hank Pym as a competent, confident Avenger; a mediocre one will perpetuate the unstable wifebeater stereotype. It turns out that Pym's diagnosis was correct, Ewing's sarcoma, which has about a 70% survival rate if it hasn't metastacized, 10% if it has.
Matt returns to the offices of Nelson & Murdock to discover that someone has delivered a crate. He catches a scent, but is unable to prevent one of his staff from opening the crate with a crowbar. Inside are a pack of dogs, blind and driven mad by newly-acquired hypersenses. He is able to take them out by triggering te fire alarm and overloading their super-sensitive ears. Then he calls Giant-Man who shriks them and takes them back to his lab for study. Later, while sitting at Foggy bedside, in walks a visitor wearing an orange jumpsuit. He says, "Relax. You don't Jknow me. But I need your help. I know who's been after you. they tried to blind me, too. And I can take you right to them."
ISSUE #25:
The man leads Daredevil to a warehouse in Brooklyn. As soon as they arrive, Matt directs the man to an emergency medical center nearby and advises him to check himself in and tell them to operate fast. This whole thing has been a set-up and daredevil knows it because the man has been outfitted with a pacemaker. He is correct that the pacemaker is sabotaged because the man immediately dies of an artificially-induced heart attack. There was a story back during Frank Miller's run in which Nelson & Murdock successfully defended a man who was actually guilty, but Matt didn't know it because the man had a pacemaker and he didn't recognize it. Rather than calling "continuity error," I like the fact that, by now, he had learned to distinguish the sound of a pacemaker.
Inside the warehoure, Daredevil is greetedby a man wearing his father's boxing robe. When he sheds the robe, he is wearing what looks like a ninja version of Daredevil's original yellow costume and is carry two sickle-like Kusurigama blades. He introduces himself as Ikari, which is Japanese for "fury." He obviously has hyper-senses and, although they are new to him, he is a trained hand-to-hand combatant. Throughout their fight, the scene seemlessly flashes back to memories of young Matt Murdock training with Stick. Daredevil uses every trick he knows to overcome Ikari's hypersenses when he suddenly realizes: Ikari can see! Ikari beats Daredevil to within an inch of his life, then lets him run away... which he does.
ISSUE #26:
NOTE: Clothes on line spell out "Daredevil."
Ikari reports to his master inside the "coffin." Whoever it is cannt move, has no feeling, and can only "speak" through an electronic voicebox. The woman is there, too. Meanwile, Daredevil has gone to the offices of Nelson & Murdock to recuperate. The office is a shambles from the dog attack, and Matt has given the staff paid leave until the mess can be cleared up. Suddenly he is startled by a voice from the out office. It is a man interviewing to fill in for Foggy while he is undergoing treatment. Matt pulls himself together, but wasn't aware of any interview scheduled for today. the man's heartbeat is steady and regular, however, so Matt decides to proceed with the interview, although the man does seem nervous. Matt himself is becoming increasingly paranoid. When the man opens his briefcase, Matt swats the lid closed with his cane, but the man was only reaching for a bottle of antacids. The man seems genuinely upset, and rushes for the elevator. Matt runs after him to apologize, and the man says, "You seem pretty worked up." Matt admits, "I am," and just as the elevator door closes, the man says, "Good. Ikari will be glad to hear that."
Matt gives chase but, by the time he gets to the lobby, the man is gone. then he realizes he's two hours late for Foggy's chemotherapy treatment. He runs to the hospital, but Ikari is on his trail and he knows it. By the time he arrrives, amale nurse Matt hasn't seen before is about to give Foggy an injection (rather than an IV). He punches the nurse in the face and grabs the hypo. On the label, in Braille, are written the words "Got you." Matt starts to go over the facts with Foggy, who takes notes. He describes Klaw as being "the first cirlce of hell" and foggy draws a circle and labels it "Klaw." then he draws other concentric circles labels "Jack Murdock" (for his remains) and "Ikari" when a pattern emerges: a bullseye.
In some story I didn't read, Daredevil apparently killed Bullseye while he (Daredevil) was posessed. Later, Daredevil and the Hand tried to resurrect him but it didn't work. the Avengers stopped him, but Bullseye's corpse was not found. then Hank Pym calls. From analysing the dogs, he has identified where the chemicals to make the radioactive isotope came from. Matt grabs a doctor's smock in case he's being watched and tries to sneak out of the hospital. Too late! Ikari is there and gives chase. Matt picks up three needles of adrenaline from a passing cart and injects theminto his chest to disguise his heartbeat so he cannot be tracked that way. Then he makes his way to the source of the chemicals, which also happens to be Bullseye's watchtower. He breaks through the clock face and makes quick work of LAdy Bullseye, who was the female sihlouette. As he confronts Bullseye, Ikari enters from behind.
ISSUE #27:
Nelson & Murdock's staff has been called back from leave. The enter the office but it's still a mess. A shadowy figure watches them. Back at the watchtower, Daredevil leaps atop Bullseye's sarcaphagus and holds his telescoping billy club in front of Bullseye's eye, threatening to expand it into his brain if Ikari attacks. At the hospital, a shadowy figure relieves the nurse from Foggy's bedside. Bullseyes relates how he got to this state, and threatens to have Daredevil's friends killed. Yet another shadowy figures is watching Kirsten McDuffie in her office from a nearby rooftop. Also, at the asylm, Milla has a rare visitor. Bullseye tells Daredevil that he has agents he trusts near all those he cares about, and Daredevil responds, "Really? Well... so have I." Then the "shadowy figures" are revealed to be: Giant-Man watching over Foggy; Iron fist watching over Matt's staff; Spider-Man watching Kirsten; and the Black widow watching Mila.
Suddenly Daredevil extends his billy club, but it entends in the other direction, hitting Ikari in the throat. Then a fight ensues. Eventually, the rotten floorboards crumble and Bullseye' sarcaphogus breaks through the floor below where the radioactive isotopes are stored. Ikari and Lady Bullseye are burind in the rubble and later taken into custody, but by the time first responders can get to Bullseye, the radioactive sludge has seeped into the eye slit of his container, blinding him. Now his is self aware, but with no senses whatsoever and completely unable to move. Later, when Foggy asks Matt, "Did you really try to save Bulleye from goinf blind?" Matt responds (after a long puse), "I did what was right."
The issue ends with a short, humorous back-up feature in which Foggy tries to keep a group of children in the cancer ward entertained until Iron Man shows up.
And that the end of omnibus one. I think Marvel probabaly could have fit Mark Waid's entire run in a single volume (see the Lee/Ditko Spider-Man omnibus for example if you don't believe me), but personally I'm just as happy to have two volume that are so unwieldy to read. I'll be back tomorrow to start volume two, but I don't think I'll be writing six summaries at a time anymore. I'm beat!
Issue #26, with "DAREDEVIL" spelled out by the garments on the clothesline, has one of the coolest covers ever. Just on the cover designs alone, this series was a cut above most.
ISSUE #17:
Nothing to add.
ISSUE #18:
He calls Foggy to check in only to find that Milla is at the asylum, wearing a straightjacket and in a padded cell.
My reaction to #18 was:
Somebody is creating illusions, maybe even involving Jack Murdock’s bones, somebody who may also drink blood.
ISSUES #19 through 21:
They fooled me into thinking these were illusions. Coyote actually teleported Jack Murdock’s bones and Milla and even teleported the blood out of Mr Hierra! Doesn’t quite explain why Matt’s bed had no scent of Milla and how his hospital corners were accomplished, but okay.
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