Sunday Splash Page #123

"Who Needs Avengers?" in Daredevil #276, by Ann Nocenti (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Max Scheele (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

The end of Ann Nocenti's first year on Daredevil saw John Romita Jr. take over as regular penciler for the next 30+ issues, and the series moved into a longer story of Matt falling to pieces. You could say heck, Born Again was only 20 issues ago, do we need to see that again? I think the difference is we watch the fall slowly but steadily happen, rather than an almost immediate crash, and this time, it's partially of Matt's own doing. He knows he's digging his own grave, and keeps going.

This was the first lengthy stretch of Daredevil comics I really encountered, but doing so in dribs and drabs, the scattered issue here and there, makes for an odd experience. Matt goes from "ghost lawyering" a case against a chemical company that illegally dumped waste and blinded a child, to fighting Ultron. From trying to convince a group of kids not to idolize the two criminals running around robbing and beating people up on Christmas, to being trapped in Hell.

The Kingpin makes his move, deciding if taking tangible things from Murdock - his money, his home, his license to practice law - didn't destroy him, maybe taking intangible things - love, his faith in the legal system - will. There's also an element of jealousy, where Fisk doesn't have Vanessa any longer, but Murdock and Karen Page are back together.

Ultimately, Fisk is only 1-for-2. Kelco loses their case in court, despite all Fisk's attempts to use money and influence to destroy evidence or sway jurors. But using Typhoid Mary to destroy Murdock personally works perfectly. Matt falls for sweet, innocent Mary (and vice versa, which creates its own kind of frustrating trap for Typhoid), making out with her when Karen's not around. Daredevil is equal parts repelled and attracted by Typhoid, who loves to play the aggressor, taunt and confuse the vigilante. Matt wins the case, but is too trapped in self-loathing over how badly he's fucked everything up, how he's let down people who believed in him, to enjoy it.

He spends a couple of issues of Inferno tie-ins either nearly being strangled by a possessed vacuum cleaner, or walking around beating up demons like an automaton. Even if he's not giving in to his worst impulses like many others, he's too wrapped up in his own shit to see he's not really helping anything. Because he doesn't care.

Then Nocenti sends him scurrying out of New York, rather than sticking it out and trying to fix things. Granted, this isn't a new approach. Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen as "hard-traveling heroes", Superman walking across America, Steve Rogers traveling around as The Captain. It's a thing writers do, putting the hero in new settings to explore the character. But usually the character is trying to rediscover themselves, or connect to people. Matt Murdock just wants to run away from all his failures. Romita Jr. draws Matt stubbled and dirty, withdrawn and sour. The broad shoulders he gives everyone bow under the weight of just how badly Murdock's screwed the pooch.

Despite Matt saying he's not looking to help he anyone, he keeps coming across people who need it. A young telekinetic being hunted by the Blob and Pyro, both of them drunk off the free hand working for the authorities gives them. A young woman railing angrily at her father and the world, without really grasping what she's trying to accomplish. (Her name's Brandy, so for some reason when I first read some of the issues were her in them, I thought Nocenti brought in Rom's old love interest Brandy Clark. Wouldn't have been the strangest thing that happened.)

Brandy's father has scientists trying to create the "perfect" woman for him, who is, of course, an absurd combination of traits meant solely to please him, regardless of whether it makes any sense, or suits what she wants. The Inhumans show up, looking for Medusa and Black Bolt's kid. Dr. Doom sends the craziest Ultron (he builds himself a mountain out of the heads of previous Ultrons) ever after Daredevil to try and show up the Kingpin. Mephisto creates his own son, who then drags Daredevil and his little bunch to Hell, only to decide his father is stupid and wrong and that there's no point to what he wants to accomplish. That Mephisto is crying for attention, rather than actively trying to corrupt. Matt has to stop simply reacting to only what's in front of him, stop letting himself be sucked into the madness around him, and start actually thinking about what he's doing and why.

Romita Jr. draws Mephisto in a way I've never seen anyone else do, making him just vaguely human-shaped. Long fingers, no nose, a huge mouth with no teeth, hair more like giant quills. His son, Blackheart is, again, vaguely human-shaped, but just black all over with spines jutting in all directions. Most of the time Daredevil's in Hell, it's a snowy void until he actually reaches Mephisto, at which point it becomes the more conventional caves full of pits of fire and towering rock cliffs.

It's just an intensely strange run, and I love it. Matt fights weird stuff outside his typical wheelhouse. He's not grim and angry exactly, as he would get in so many later runs. He breaks, but rather than turn evil, he becomes more indifferent and cynical. He's exhausted mentally, to the point he seems to tune out conversations and just linger in his own world. Other times, all he can do is laugh, but it's not carefree, but the laughter of someone who gave up on doing anything. He doesn't figure it's worth trying.

The run feels very of its time, with a lot stories focused on environmentalism, whether that's pollution or confined animal feeding operations, and there's a fair amount of post-Cold War concern about nukes and humanity destroying itself that way. In Romita Jr.'s first issue, Nocenti introduces a government agent/freelance hitman named Bullet, who has a son named Lance who becomes a doomsday prepper after learning about the aftermath of using atomic weapons. Lance and Bullet are recurring characters throughout, the boy only going deeper into his attempts to cope with his fears, while Bullet can't find the words to help Lance conquer them.

Nocenti's not exactly a subtle writer much of the time, like the issue where Typhoid sics a bunch of other crooks on Daredevil, and he gets the shit kicked out of him in the middle of an anti-war protest march. Which then naturally devolves into a fight between opposing sides before scaling into a full-blown riot. Matt wanted to march for peace, and instead he's fighting and swinging at anyone who comes in range. Characters make speeches about how heroes may be like nukes themselves, or how they can't be acting for peace if they're always using violence. Extremely on-the-nose kind of stuff, which I imagine could be off-putting depending on the style of writing you like.

But there's an earnestness to it that speaks to me, and stilted dialogue doesn't necessarily bother me as long as I can tell what they're talking about, and it actually interests me. Some of it's probably nostalgia, but it really feels like these are things Nocenti's really interested in and trying to sort out her own thoughts about, and that makes it fascinating to me.

JRJR's art has continued to move in that more blocky, Kirbyesque direction it started in his time with Claremont on Uncanny X-Men. The characters are probably pretty by our standards, but they don't feel superhero comic pretty, if that makes sense. And that fits. Daredevil's dealing with a lot of people who are having hard times. Drug addicts, kids from broken homes, people living in poverty. Most of his enemies aren't gods or anything, they're angry people who grabbed whatever was at hand and turned it on others. Even Bullet, for all that he may work for the rich and powerful, is just a leg breaker at the end of the day.