Frank Miller's Daredevil pt. 1

Of all the comics I read in my formative years, the one that still stands head-and-shoulders above them all is Frank Miller's Daredevil. As aided and abetted by Klaus Janson on inks, of course. Let me step aside for a moment and let Klaus set the stage (from his introduction to Visionaries: Frank Miller, vol. 3:)

"Frank and I started with a whimper, not a bang. I look at DD #158, and I see two artists trying to fit into a mold neither was very comfortable doing. Frank was doing what Marvel wanted: middle-of-the-road storytelling that would not scare the older readers away. The work was good but not inspired."

Miller's first DD cover (from a breakdown by Dave Cockrum)

"It was 12 months later that the first sign of greatness poked her head out: Elektra." 

"When Frank introduced Elektra in DD #168, it was the culmination of Frank's intent to rebuild Daredevil and his supporting cast. Admit it, wasn't the series as fun to read for the adventures of the hapless Turk as it was to catch up on DD?"

"Where was Ben Ulrich before Frank?"

Both Ben and Turk/Grotto deserve far more attention than these meager screencaps, but I'll try (and likely fail) to keep things as brief as possible.

"Didn't you just love it when someone went flying through Josie's window?"

A running gag throughout Miller's run.

"Frank's writing turned the series into a comic book that did not talk down to the readers. It was smart. That approach was unique at that period of time. We take it for granted, I think, that so many writers working today can trace their origins in style and tenor right back to Frank Miller."

Before I get into some examples of that style / tenor and why it was such a game-changer, I should mention that at times (less lately, given Miller's bizarre gradual transformation into David Mamet) he's given a little too much credit for some things. I would never suggest he's overrated nor am I here to "set the record straight;" I am here only to geek out over these stories that have been illuminating my psyche like signal flares for decades. I forget where I read it so I can't give you the exact quote, but I recall reading a review of Archie Goodwin's and Walt Simonson's Manhunter series (itself an absolute classic) where the reviewer praised the book for "brilliantly foreshadowing Miller's use of ninjas." I mean, really! Kung-fu / ninjas was already as integral to the mythology of the 70s as Kiss and Charlie's Angels before Miller came along. What Miller did was crystallize several already in-process trends of the decade and bring them into the 80s.

Similarly, he's given credit for changing the art of the title page. Miller's titles pages (as evidenced below) were fantastic, loads of fun, and looked so unlike anything else I'd seen at the time. But - as Miller himself has said repeatedly - he made them as tributes to Wil Eisner and Alex Toth, whose pioneering efforts showed him the way.

I recommend enlarging all of these for a proper view.

Again, this isn't to take anything away from the guy. What certainly is true is that Daredevil serves as a microcosm of how comic books as a genre changed over the 80s and beyond.

This, for example, from DD #168 - a fairly typical couple of panels from the period. Caption-heavy. Miller is often (rightly) credited for popularizing getting rid of descriptive captions and instead using them to replace thought balloons. A trend which became ubiquitous in later years (and still today.)

And while it may be a shock to those who only know his later work, he wasn't above the melodrama of the medium, as evidenced here.

Nor was he above using humor alongside all the action and twists and turns and real-world horror of his run.

You just don't see Miller having fun like this in his later work.

I love this. (DD thought the briefcase was full of incriminating papers.) I can't prove it, but I've always thought the scene in Batman Begins (heavily influenced by Frank Miller, as was Robocop - incidentally, two of the best films ever made) where the Chinese cop responds to Bruce Wayne's saying "I'm not a thief!" with "Tell that to the guy who owns these" is a tip of the cap to this panel.

I agree with Janson that it took awhile for the book to hit its stride. Like I say, you can see the "old" style of comic book storytelling in the beginning of their run together (when the stories were still being scripted by Roger McKenzie) and the "new" or style-to-come by the end of it. 

But beyond all that, it's just beautiful to look at.

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up The Hand, i.e. the band of ninja assassins who begin to pop up around issue #174 and stick around for almost 20 issues. 

This side of Daredevil did not exist before Miller's run. After it, one couldn't imagine Daredevil without it. (Well, at least I couldn't - probably a big reason I never connected with any non-Miller material on the book.)

In addition to revamping the Kingpin and Bullseye (both of whom I'll cover next time,) Miller considerably expanded and deepened Daredevil's origin story. He re-defined the character and turned him from a second-tier rather generic Marvel hero into a passionate, complex and fully-fleshed-out superstar. No writer before or since (including Miller himself) has captured the character in quite the same way.

I'll leave off with these few bits from DD #177, which is one of those comics that if you start screencapping, you won't stop. (I'll return to it a few posts down the line when I discuss Miller/ Romita, Jr.'s "reboot" of it in Man Without Fear.) Daredevil - temporarily suffering from a loss of his radar sense - reconnects with his old master, Stick (a Miller creation) to get his groove back.

Daredevil eventually hits the target, to which Stick responds "Anyone can do it once. You're going to get your radar back -"

What Was Your First Comic Book?

I'm curious to hear from readers on this one - what was the first comic book you remember picking up? 

It doesn't have to be the first one you actually purchased, just, what was the first one to light a fire in your memory? Whether it came out fifty years ago or last week, doesn't matter. Maybe you never read a comic until last week but you were inspired by the Bill Nye/ Creationist / internet-zoo-animals-mating to purchase and read:

and

Whatever! Feel free to let me know at whatever length and with whatever meanderings you require.

If you're anything like me, trying to answer this question will lead you on a merry adventure through time and space and associative memories (and probably comics.org.) The year I began purchasing comics was definitely 1981, but my brother must have started bringing them home in the late '70s. I definitely remember seeing this one around the house:

I especially remember that cover price, as they were up to $.50 when I started bring my $2 allowance to the drugstore.

Marvel used to cover-date issues a few months ahead, so though that says April 1979, it was probably published in January or February of that year. As I have no memory of the story that goes with that cover, though, I don't consider Ghost Rider 35 my first comic book.

Nor this, although he definitely had this one, too. I can't say with absolute certainty that this is the first time the X-Men came onto my radar, but it most likely was.

I recall this one somewhat more vividly, both the cover and the story:

But I don't consider this my first comic, either. It tingles my Spider-Sense, though, so I decided to use August 1981 as my starting point.

This proved to be the right approach. It was definitely the summer of 1981 that I began taking monthly trips to the drugstore. But the plot thickens somewhat, as this was also the year when we moved from the States to Germany, and the delay in new comics was about 5 or 6 months. So everything I read 1981 to 1986 was 5 or 6 months behind what kids were reading stateside. (Excepting those summers where we'd come back to the States, when I'd stockpile.)

I apologize for overburdening you with McBackstory when trying to answer the simplest question. 

Long story short, I came up with about 20 comics from this time period, any 1 of which I could legitimately name as the primordial root from which grew the 9 or 10 long boxes currently in my closet. I whittled that 20 down to the following. 

PRELUDE: These first 2 were definite "kiddie comics," something I knew my brother and his pals looked down on, so naturally I pretended not to enjoy them.

Secretly, though, I loved these. These Richie Rich comics actually had some wild stuff going on - he was always time traveling and what not. Someday, some enterprising grad student will win a lot of old Richie Riches and write a dissertation on capitalism and America and make his or her reputation.

Probably not a dissertation-in-the-making for Spidey Super Stories, though. Prove me wrong, nerds of tomorrow!

LET US BEGIN IN EARNEST.

What was it that made me pick this one up? I'm not sure. To tell you the truth, I think my memory is playing a trick on me, as I may have picked up this one first:

and then because I liked it, went back to the drugstore and got #171, which was still on the racks. Or did I pick up #174 and go back and get 171 and 172? (I was missing 173 for years and years; I ended up paying top dollar for that at a convention in the late 80s.) It's a dang ol' mystery. On par with the pyramids, the Piri Reis map, or the continued careers of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. All I know is by the time this came out:

I was telling anyone who would listen that Daredevil was my favorite hero.

 

I have no such confusion when it comes to this next one, though.

Art by Michael Golden

Now that's a cover! As with many of the records I'd later bring home, my parents immediately took this away from me but gave it back after reading/ listening to make sure I wasn't being recruited into some Thrill Kill Cult. (They were cool like that)

This storyline culminated in a war with Satan himself, by the by.

METAL.

EVEN MORE METAL.

Sharing a cover date with Defenders #96 and Daredevil #171:

To be honest, I'm not sure how  I ended up getting into Green Lantern. No one else I knew was, but I liked his costume, I think. It might simply have been the Super-Friends cartoon. 

That would explain how I came to collect this next one, as well.

I had a subscription to both The Flash and Green Lantern for years. These were the only DCs I ever picked up prior to Justice League International and Batman, years later. 

Although I definitely read this one over and over again in 1981. If memory serves, I did not choose this one myself. My grandmother bought it and this next one for me.

Looking at these two especially, I'm chuckling over how many times I have packed them up and moved them with me over the years. I sold the bulk of my collection in the early 90s (though have re-acquired most of it,) but I still have my original copies of Buck Rogers #12 and JLA #194. Which means these have moved from Germany to Rhode Island to Ohio to Georgia to Chicago, multiple times. I haven't cracked that Buck Rogers open since Germany, I wager, so that's kind of funny. (And, I suspect, not an unfamiliar scenario for many of you, as well.)

I definitely associate this one with summertime in Pawtucket, RI, 1981, though not for any particular reason - just a powerful associative memory from looking at the cover.

As well as this one:

We took a trip to Georgia that summer, and I remember reading this one in the safety of my grandmother's trailer. 

Awesome cover.

(I was convinced - thanks to my older brother and my cousin - that if I stepped outside I'd be bitten by snakes or eaten by a crocodile. Plus the trailer had air conditioning.)

Finally, there's this issue of Micronauts:

But I'm not sure if that actually was the first issue of Micronauts I ever picked up. I definitely had this one in my collection by 1982, as I remember reading it that summer in Germany and realizing it was the oldest comic I had. 

How I ended up with it, though, I don't really know. A yard sale, maybe? Did someone see I liked Micronauts and got this for me as a present? I wracked my brains to answer this for you, but, as with those Daredevils, I'm afraid the answer has been consumed in the temporal sandstorm between hither and thither.

Captain McPike has an illusion, and you have reality.

May you find your own way as pleasant.

Your turn!

EDIT: The author of the Defenders comic aforementioned - among many other things, including (now) ongoing titles for DC and my all-time favorite run on Captain America (then) not to mention JLI, Brookyln Dreams, and a dozen other things I've loved over the years was kind enough to respond to my tweet at him.

A) It will never, ever get old to get a reply from J.M. DeMatteis. B) That link is shortened in the above, but here is the post, and it's great fun. Click and enjoy! and C) He referred to this very blog as a "fun read." Day made!