Dakota North 1 (Jun. 1986)

I found this issue (along with Dakota North 2) on a massive comic book rack in the magazine section of a Cheboygan, MI, grocery store while on summer vacation in the summer of '86. I convinced my dad to buy both of them for me using a tactic I like to call "twelve-year-old businessman." I suggested that, because they were the first two issues of a series, they would someday be worth a lot of money. Thus, a sound investment!¹ I don't think my dad necessarily believed this, he was just happy to buy me a couple of comics.

Needless to say, these two comics are not worth a lot of money thirty years later. In fact, I doubt I could get even double their 75¢ cover price. (Having sat in a wire rack in a grocery store for several weeks before I rescued them from oblivion, my copies are not in pristine shape.) The series did not sell well and was canceled after five issues. Much like my beloved Archie, I believe that Dakota North was intended primarily for a female audience. Although Dakota is a private investigator in tight leather pants, and her adventures (to say nothing of her enemies) had a distinctly '80s-action-movie vibe, the series nonetheless featured significant romance and fashion elements.²


Everybody loves Dakota!
I would guess that Dakota's cocreator and writer Martha Thomases might have planned on a slightly less gun-centric, more girl-friendly vibe than is present in the book that ultimately made it into print, but that's strictly conjecture. In any case (and to add even more conjecture to this posting), Dakota North would have had a steep uphill battle in trying to find enough female readers to make the series profitable. There are a lot more female readers of Marvel and DC comics now than there were thirty years ago (and the bar for a successful Marvel comic was a lot higher then than it is now).


Don't let his age or the wheelchair fool you; Dakota's dad is a badass.
Regardless, I still love the five issues that were published. Thomases' lighthearted, funny stories zip right along at a brisk pace. They don't always make complete sense, but they're enjoyable.


Dakota chases some kidnappers through a department store...on her motorcycle.
Dakota North's cast of goofy, memorable characters is the area in which Thomases' writing really shines. Dakota's assistant, the trigger-happy Mad Dog, is just like Rambo--if Rambo had been written by someone with a sense of humor.


Dakota with her one and only employee, the aptly nicknamed Mad Dog.
Then there's Ricky, Dakota's bratty younger brother who's forced by their father to move in with his big sis. He spends his free time getting on Dakota's nerves, barging in on her capers, and dating models.


Ricky, who wears sunglasses even when he's indoors and playing Galaga.
Of course, the story would be nothing without some dynamite illustrations to back it up, and Tony Salmons' delicately rendered artwork reminds me of the inestimable Alex Toth's. Salmons' line work perfectly compliments the book's tone, which shifts seamlessly from comedy to drama to romance, sometimes all on one page--if not all in a single panel. As far as I'm concerned, Marvel canceled Dakota North far too soon.


Dakota North = Modern Art
Fortunately, Dakota North (the character, that is) didn't disappear completely from the Marvel universe. She popped up again in a few random issues of other series in the late '80s and early '90s, and played a significant part in a long string of Daredevil issues written by Ed Brubaker in the mid- to late '00s. What she really needs, however, is another solo book. C'mon, Marvel: bring back Team Thomases and Salmons!

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Pointless Footnotes

¹ See this entry for one of my many real-world lessons in comics as investments.

² She had her own paper doll (albeit pretty tongue-in-cheek) in Marvel Age Annual 2, for goodness' sake!

Daredevil 229 (Apr. 1986)

In 1986 I bought a lot of G.I. Joe back issues from American Comics, a mail order company that ran monthly ads in Marvel's comics. Sometimes they would throw in a random comic for free, presumably to get rid of overstock while also generating some customer goodwill. Some of them were garbage (like The Adventurers 1), but most of them were actually pretty good, and led me to series beyond G.I. Joe.

One of the free issues American Comics sent me was Daredevil 229, which was nearly a year old when they gave it to me. I've mentioned before that Daredevil interested me, but this was the first issue of his series that I read (other than issue 7, which was anthologized in the Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag)--and it singlehandedly altered my understanding of what a superhero comic could be.

First, the cover. Unlike every other superhero comic book on the stands at the time, there's nobody dressed in tights beating up somebody else in tights. Instead, there's a homeless-looking guy confronting a dude dressed as Santa and wielding a knife. Turns out, this homeless-looking guy is Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil, and he doesn't wear his Daredevil costume once in the entire issue. As someone relatively new to superhero comics, I couldn't quite wrap my head around this at first. Plus, he was injured, suffering from a broken rib (from a fight with the Kingpin in the previous issue) and the stab wound that Turk (the thief in the Santa outfit) inflicts on him halfway through the issue. These details, combined with the other elements of the story written by Frank Miller--not to mention David Mazzucchelli's gritty artwork--made it feel real. Or at least more real than the other superhero comics I'd read up to that point.

In the '80s, it was nearly impossible to pick up a random issue of a long-running series without feeling a bit lost. Marvel comics at the time were deeply continuity-based, like a long-running soap opera. This kept me from reading a lot of series at first, but because this issue had simply been given to me, I read it. And I was most certainly dropped into Matt Murdock's life in media res--but Frank Miller had a way of writing a story that, even halfway through, compelled its readers to find out what happens next. This particular issue opens with a tantalizing flashback to the origins of Matt's superpowers. Then we return to the present, where Matt wakes up in an alley among several of New York City's homeless (of which, I learn later in the issue, Matt is one). Then we follow Matt's law partner, Foggy, and Foggy's friend Glori, who is mugged in Rockefeller Center. Ben Urich, the Daily Bugle reporter, visits a Lieutenant Manolis in the hospital, where Manolis's son is being treated. In Mexico, Karen Page--whom I knew as Matt and Foggy's sweet secretary (back in Daredevil 7)--looking very strung-out, robs a blind beggar in Mexico.


Then Matt confronts Turk, one of Daredevil's recurring nemeses, and gets stabbed for his efforts.


Meanwhile, Karen visits a Mexican drug dealer, begging him for some heroin and a ride to New York. Halfway through their conversation, some thugs attempt to take possession of Karen for reasons that weren't clear to me at the time, but the drug dealer blasts them with a shotgun and helps Karen escape.


Back in New York, Glori kisses Foggy, while Matt discovers that his townhouse has been razed to the ground by the Kingpin, and Ben's fingers are broken by a nurse built like a tank who warns him to stay out of the Kingpin's business.


In the final scene, Matt goes to his father's old gym and passes out, where he is found by a Catholic nun who seems to know him.

I ask you, how could I not want to read the next issue after all that?

Thanks to Frank Miller's and David Mazzucchelli's mini opus, Daredevil immediately became the fourth series I started to read regularly, beginning with issue 239. (Never mind that, by then, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli were no longer working on the book. Ann Nocenti had taken over as the writer, and she was pretty amazing.)