It feels like all the recent selections have been issues focused on set-up or exposition. Not this one. It's time for violence!
Daredevil's been hunting the Purple Man (rocking a cloak he must have stolen from Dracula), but Purple Man's got Matt's girlfriend, Heather Glenn under his control, along with a prison full of guards and convicts. If Daredevil doesn't play nice, Heather will shoot herself in the head.
Which leaves Hornhead up against four of his old foes: Gladiator, Jester, Cobra and Mr. Hyde. Oh come on, at least half those guys are total losers. What, the Enforcers weren't available? There's also no teamwork between the villains. Daredevil catches the sinister *chuckle* yo-yo and chucks the Jester Hyde's direction, but Hyde just backhands the moron away. Cobra tries to shoot Daredevil in the back, Matt simply ducks and lets the darts hit Gladiator.
Hyde's through fooling around and starts choking the life from Daredevil, shrugging off the best hits DD can throw. A mysterious shot knocks Hyde flat, courtesy of Paladin?! Who is also rocking a cape. I guess if you got Gene Colan drawing the book, everybody gets capes.
Paladin's after the bounty on Killgrave, but apparently he didn't read up on his target, because he gets close enough to be subject to the mind-control whammy. Still, he fights it off enough to shoot Purple Man instead of Daredevil, then seals up his costume so he's on internal air supply. Cobra and Gladiator are the only two left standing, and if they couldn't handle just Daredevil, they fold fast when the sides are even. Gladiator doesn't even get to finish saying "Great Ceasar's Gh - " before Daredevil says they've all heard that one before and gut punches him.
But Killgrave still has Heather pointing a gun at her own head. Paladin stands down, so DD grabs his gun, shoots the pistol out of Heather's hand, and now Killgrave's really up shit creek. He runs to a watchtower and tries blinding Daredevil with the spotlight. He'd learned Murdock was Daredevil, but assumed the blindness was a ruse. Realizing it wasn't, he lunges at Daredevil, screaming that he won't lose to a blind man.
Daredevil ducks and Killgrave falls into the ocean. Matt reflects it was too fast for him to save Killgrave, but also, he didn't he really try. Nor should he. Unfortunately, Purple Man would be back, repeatedly. Heather Glenn and Matt would eventually break up, and then Denny O'Neil would have her commit suicide during his tenure on the book. Because Murdock needed another dead girlfriend to self-flagellate over, apparently.
* See Sunday Splash Page #120 for a double-page depiction of the evil assemblage - Self-promoting Calvin
{3rd longbox, 50th comic. Daredevil #154, by Roger McKenzie (writer), Gene Colan (penciler), Steve Leialoha (inker/colorist), Novak (letterer)}
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