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Mike Murdock
Golden Age
Joined: 08 Sep 2014
Posts: 1750
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 Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:28 am Post subject: |
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This issue occurs after #264, which is a fill-in with Steve Ditko. At some point, I'll probably cover that story. It feels too much like a break in the narrative to include now and I have to wonder how it felt then. Anyway, this is the final issue of the Inferno storyline:
Daredevil Vol. 1 #265 - We Again Beheld the Stars
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New York City caves under the demonic terror of Inferno. A dentist goes mad; children become nightmarish visions from Hell. What is Daredevil to do but save his city from insanity? |
Due 4/11
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I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
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Dimetre
Underboss
Joined: 16 Feb 2006
Posts: 1366
Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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This just isn't a good issue, and that's bizarre to me because Ann Nocenti was doing some of her best writing around this time. But it's clear to me that she just tossed this story off. She clearly didn't care too much.
That is made even more of a shame because this is the only issue of Daredevil that legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko drew. His style may be better suited to the 60s, but I think he did a very good job. Manley and Williamson supported him well with their inking.
In tiny type above the opening splash page we get this:
| Quote: | | Mighty Marvel Message: With regular artist John Romita Jr. unavailable to pencil this issue due to his impending wedding (congrats Johnny) we decided to put our awesome INFERNO storyline on hold for a month. Then we asked writer Ann Nocenti to come up with a special off-beat issue whose chronology placement, for you timekeepers, would be sometime in the very recent past. Artist Steve Ditko stepped into the art chores -- and voila! Hope you like it as much as we do. And remember -- Next month... INFERNO returns! |
Nocenti, as always, attempts to weave a social theme through the issue's length -- this one concerns dismissal of old ways. The Owl is derided throughout the issue as yesterday's man, a relic of the past. He doesn't get respect until he jumps out of a helicopter and glides away.
But that brings me to a big criticism. When this issue opens I had no idea where Owl and the Bomber gang were. I thought perhaps they were on a New York subway train. It wasn't until the Owl made that jump that it was clear they were on a helicopter. It's pretty bad when neither a writer nor an artist can be bothered to tell the reader the setting of a scene.
I enjoyed the Owl's musings when he's alone with his namesake bird, but the scene that follows is again problematic. We get a homeless man with this baby he's taking care of. He has grown attached to the kid, and it seems that the kid has grown attached in return. That's nice enough, and I felt for the guy, but Ditko drew him wearing a pretty nice dress shirt, and colourist Max Scheele gave it a very clean white look. Even the pants look pressed. Nocenti doesn't give either him or the baby a name, and there was no good. reason for the guy to put the kid in the bag, other than to get the plot moving. It's just too hard for me to believe that a paper bag from a grocery store would be strong enough to hold a baby who's old enough to have grown a thick head of dark hair. The kid would easily kick or punch his way out of the bag in no time at all.
Also, we know for sure that the bag the guy put the baby in was one of the Bomber's explosive bags. Why doesn't it blow up? We see many other paper bags explode. But the bag containing the baby never explodes. It seems like the member of the Cannibals who took that bag never bothered looking inside, and never noticed that instead of containing cocaine, it contained a baby. And when the Cannibal member left the bag alone, the baby never crawled out. It's too much to believe.
It's also strange that every time Daredevil encounters the homeless man, he wonders who he is, but he doesn't confront him. When he finally does near the end of the story, he gets nothing out of him and just leaves. But somehow, when he finds the baby, he somehow knows that the homeless guy was looking for him. It makes no sense. And when he does return the baby to the homeless guy, he says that he should report him, but the homeless guy cuts him off and asks him not to. After all, he loves the baby and he's a good father. Daredevil responds, "Okay okay. But I'm going to keep an eye on you two -- and report this to the authorities." The homeless guy happily walks away with the baby, even though he just asked Daredevil not to report him to the authorities, which Daredevil just told him he's going to do. Was this written in one minute? Did editor Ralph Macchio not bother to proofread this?
If I have anything nice to say about this issue, it's that the Owl is somewhat empathetic. He's a class act compared to the Bombers, and you can kind of get with his scheme to bilk a bunch of cocaine dealers out of their money. However, it's weird that the Owl starts to muse aloud that perhaps the young gangsters should shove older people like him and Daredevil aside someday. There's no reason shown for him to have a change of heart like that, and nothing comes of it anyway.
But I'll always enjoy the way the late Ditko drew action. He was one of the best at it. His figures are malleable. The way they bend and move from panel to panel should be studied by anyone interested in the comics medium. This fight between Daredevil and the Owl doesn't rise to Ditko's previous heights like Spidey versus the Green Goblin or Doctor Strange versus Dormammu, but it's a good one.
The only reason I'm giving this issue a passing grade is because it's the only Daredevil issue drawn by Steve Ditko (although he did draw Matt in Amazing Spider-Man #16), and the inking by Manley and Williamson is good. However nobody else involved showed any effort -- not Nocenti, not Macchio, no one, and that's really too bad.
Three out of five. |
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Mike Murdock
Golden Age
Joined: 08 Sep 2014
Posts: 1750
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| Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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Dimetre,
I actually skipped that issue because it wasn't part of the main narrative. I reviewed 265, not 264, to finish the story we were reading.
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Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother
Not sure what to read next? Check out the Book Club for some ideas!
I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons |
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Dimetre
Underboss
Joined: 16 Feb 2006
Posts: 1366
Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike Murdock wrote: | Dimetre,
I actually skipped that issue because it wasn't part of the main narrative. I reviewed 265, not 264, to finish the story we were reading. |
Whoops.
Oh well, worse mistakes have been made. A sub-par issue of Daredevil is far from the biggest imposition on my life these days. I really do enjoy this book club and the bit of fun it lends to my routine at the beginning of each week. This week, because of my inattentiveness, I get to review two issues!
Unfortunately, I didn't like #265 much either. At all.
The best thing about this run we've been studying was, to me, Typhoid. She is completely absent from both #264 and #265. By this point "Inferno" completely hijacked the narrative. That's such a shame since she drove the beginning of this story so strongly, and nobody understands her as well as Nocenti does.
If there is a central antagonist in this story, and that's a big if, it would be Officer Drillbit. We're introduced to him on the opening splash page being violated by his own dental equipment. Instead of killing him outright, the machines seem to fuse with him, creating a whole new being. The problem with that is we didn't get to know who he once was. We've formed no connection with him. We just get this weird loudmouth with big lightbulb eyes who eats other people, which doesn't differentiate him too much from all the other demons in this issue.
Darla has been possessed by a demon, and it clearly happened between this and #263. Butch doesn't seem able to figure out that she's possessed. Once all the demons are sucked up by that pentagram in the sky, we aren't shown Darla to see if she's okay.
Daredevil doesn't utter a syllable in this entire issue, and normally that wouldn't be a problem. But he has had such a drastic character shift since he was dropped off that bridge. He came out of his coma and immediately set to work beating up demons. We didn't even get internal monologue telling us his state of mind. Beating up demons had nothing to do with his life before being dropped off the bridge. Now he seems to be about nothing else. He has nothing to say about Karen, Mary or Fisk.
There is one thing I think this issue does right. As usual, Nocenti likes to work on a theme throughout every issue, and she picked a good one here. Ninety percent of this issue depicts New York City like a hellscape, more easily habitable by demons than people. This issue was coming off overly negative to me, but then Daredevil started picking up the litter, and other people joined in. That hit home to me. If you don't like how dirty the city is, do something about it. Roll up your sleeves and clean it up. That led nicely to that final panel where someone buys Daredevil a drink and offers a toast to the greatest city in the world, finally eliciting a grin from our hero.
But this issue is just too chaotic for my tastes. Again, Romita Jr. is having the time of his life drawing all these demons, but it's often way too difficult to follow what's going on. The human characters take all of these demonic developments way too much in stride to feel natural. I just found this issue unpleasant. It squandered Nocenti's very promising Typhoid storyline. I'm giving this a two out of five. |
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Mike Murdock
Golden Age
Joined: 08 Sep 2014
Posts: 1750
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:15 am Post subject: |
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This story feels closer in spirit to a lot of Inferno. I love the casual indifference to the nonsense craziness we see. People just put things coming alive in the same category as construction and traffic. That being said, it's a bizarre Daredevil story. Additionally, not all the flaws are the event. Some of Nocenti's lack of subtleness is in full force here and, even for something that invites satire, can be off-putting.
Daredevil is not so much a character as a force of nature in this story. He's a silent machine rescuing people through acts of violence, but it's hard to say whether it's helping. Honestly, Office Drillbit's speech as Daredevil beats him works the best. It's arguably an epilogue to the Typhoid Mary story because he seems right. No matter what, the city beats Daredevil down. But, in the end, Daredevil proves him wrong (and so does everyone else), demonstrating that they wouldn't trade it for the world.
It's a very odd story. I appreciate what Nocenti was going for. It feels very much in the spirit of New York. But it's also quite a bit of a mess. It also creates a disjointed end for the saga. Three and a Half Stars.
_________________
Matt Murdock's cooler twin brother
Not sure what to read next? Check out the Book Club for some ideas!
I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons |
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