By D.G. Chichester, Scott McDaniel & Hector Collazo (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-0024-5
Daredevil is a lawyer in his civilian identity, and as a crime fighter his blindness is compensated for by his hyped-up remaining senses and a sixth “radar†sense that gives him a supernatural awareness of events and objects around him. It’s safe to say that none of these talents are available to we mere mortals, and they’d probably be of little use to the Man Without Fear in unravelling the unnecessary convolutions of this overly complex thriller.
Collecting issues #319-325 of the monthly comicbook, this tale is a good example of everything good and bad about 1990’s Marvel comics. In 1963 (this storyline was designed to celebrate Daredevil’s 30th anniversary so there’s lots of in-jokes and pictorial markers for veteran fans) telepathic secret agent Eddie Passim was distributing vials of a super viral weapon throughout the New York Subway system when an accident occurs and he loses one. Thirty years later Daredevil subdues a deranged bum who screams that someone named Eddie has put pictures into his head. He’s the twelfth person to claim so…
Meanwhile, in the Louisiana Bayou a voodoo ceremony is enthralling Hellspawn; a magical evil doppelganger of Daredevil…
Meanwhile the insane Cyborg SHIELD agent John Garrett recalls the surreal adventure he had with the ninja assassin Elektra…
Meanwhile Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich is reviewing the case of US General Kenkoy who admitted in 1975 that the military were testing nerve gas on unwitting metropolitan commuters in the ’60s…
Meanwhile a Snakeroot ninja is breaking into the Pentagon and stealing the file on an old project, a viral agent called “About Faceâ€â€¦
Meanwhile millionaire Harry Kenkoy has hired Super-mercenary Silver Sable to find a man missing for thirty years. His name is Eddie…
All these threads are ambitiously but bewilderingly drawn together in an action-packed hunt for the lost agent and last vial, involving not only DD and Elektra, but loads of then-hot guest-stars (such as Venom and Morbius), and every modern bogeyman from Ninjas to gangsters to the Government.
Scott McDaniel’s art is phenomenally good but looks oddly crushed; crowded, small even, but the real problem here is narrative clarity. There’s simply too much going on in the mix, and the tale is desperately in need of a savage editing.
Despite – or perhaps because of – a number of attention-grabbing stunts such as revealing DD’s secret identity to the world, a new costume, and the apparent death of Matt Murdock, this is a floundering beast of a tale which was so nearly another masterpiece. Pictorially powerful, this is a little too much everything for all but the most dedicated Fan Without Fear.
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