We’ll take a look at some important storylines in the history of comics, there will be SPOILERS but we want to spotlight some of the greatest comics out there, here is our look at:
DAREDEVIL VS THE HULK – MILLER STYLE!!
Daredevil #163 Written by Roger McKenzie Art and Co-Plotting by Frank Miller.
Artist Frank Miller had joined Writer McKenzie on Daredevil #158 which was, at the time, on the verge of cancellation, and had been reduced to a bi-monthly publishing status. By the time #163 had come along, not only had sales improved enough to warrant a regular monthly status again, but Frank Miller was co-plotting the series.
As our story opens, crusading attorney Matt Murdock, who we all know is secretly the crime fighting wonder Daredevil, is attending a society function of some type while the news is out that THE HULK IS ON THE LOOSE! It’s all the party can talk about and pretty soon someone remembers that Murdock once defended The Green Goliath in a trial so they all want to chat with Matt. Matt, realizing The Hulk is dangerous, decides to slip away from the party and see if he can find him, maybe he can reason with him, maybe he’ll even remember him.
Which he does in less than two pages. It’s interesting that Matt remarks how big The Hulk is, because by today’s standards he’s relatively normal sized in comparison. Anyway Matt “finds” The Hulk, don’t forget Matt is blind and has to rely on his radar, and he attempts to reason with Bruce Banner’s monster alter ego.
It doesn’t go well, but in Hulk terms it certainly could have gone much worse. Matt try’s reason, Hulk won’t hear it so he tosses him into some trash cans. I hope that’s not a rented tuxedo he’s wearing.
The Hulk is particularly chatty, telling Murdock “Hulk doesn’t need anyone’s help!”
“Not even Banner’s?” Matt quips, because being sarcastic with The Hulk is a really good idea. Which leads us to that last panel which I think is a swipe from the original Steranko INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #1 cover– check it out for yourself. Don’t worry though, before The Hulk can crush Murdock with a piece of wall, Murdock, ever the lawyer, argues that problems can’t be solved with violence which calms The Hulk down and the next thing you know he’s having a sleepover at Murdock’s apartment.
Matt wakes up the now returned to normal Bruce Banner with a crappy breakfast and sends him on his way– wishing him luck. I’m not liking this plan.
Bruce makes two mistakes– 1. he takes the subway where people are obnoxious and pushy and are just generally annoying and 2. this is the late 70s and THE INCREDIBLE HULK TV Series is in full swing where Bruce Banner (in the show he’s called David) is constantly being turned into The Hulk everytime someone is obnoxious, or pushy or generally annoying, so he Hulk’s out on the train.
He bursts out through the roof of the train and up through the city streets where he causes more mayhem. Matt, who wouldn’t be caught dead on a subway, finds his taxi cab delayed because of all the Hulk shenanigans up ahead so he jumps out and decides to try reasoning with him again, only this time he tries something different…
…this time he shows up as Daredevil, which you’d think could be a bad idea. You wouldn’t try and stop a bull in a bright red costume would you? Plus, Matt Murdock was able to calm Hulk last time, why wouldn’t he just show up the same way? Well, probably because then we wouldn’t get the epic battle between The Hulk and Daredevil which in all honesty is about as short as you think it is.
DD manages to do some dazzling footwork, a bit of the up on the toe stuff, but eventually The Hulk trounces him, but what makes this battle so spectacular and so epic is unlike every other superhero mismatch you’ve seen before it actually puts him into the hospital, so after a filler issue next time around we actually get to one of the best Daredevil stories of all time and a chance to recap his origin to all these new Miller fans who are picking up the title for the first time. We’ll look at that one in another episode.
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