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.)