A YEAR OF GIVEAWAYS: Win An Ann Nocenti Daredevil Trade
48 Comments | Posted: March 8th, 2010 | Filed under: Contests
But first, let’s get to last week’s winner. The random number generator at Random.org has spoken and Mike Laughlin won Palestine: The Special Edition! Congratulations, Mike, and thanks for everyone’s thoughtful responses. I know it wasn’t as random or as goofy as previous contests, but the participation was impressive, to say the least.
This week, we’ve got a collection of stories from Ann Nocenti’s run on Daredevil, all of which feature art by John Romita, Jr. Here’s the official solicitation for Lone Stranger:
The Man Without Fear becomes the Man Without Hope as Manhattan falls beneath the fangs and claws of Inferno! Losing everything in more than one kind of fire, DD leaves Hell’s Kitchen to walk to and fro upon the Earth – but no matter where he goes, Mephisto’s waiting for him! Inhumane experimentation and Inhuman secrets abound! Guest-starring Spider-Man and Freedom Force! Collects Daredevil (1964) #265-273.
To qualify, just mention your favorite non-Miller/Bendis/Brubaker Daredevil comics story and say why, if you want to. Mine, for instance, is the Chichester-written arc Last Rites that was later dubbed The Fall Of The Kingpin for the trade. Matt Murdock takes on The Kingpin in a reversal of Born Again and systematically destroys his criminal empire with the help of Nick Fury and some other friends.
Just leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, March 13, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants qualify, because I’m nice like that. Comments that don’t qualify will be deleted.
Terms And Conditions:
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.
Let’s go with the silly Silver Age fun of Daredevil’s appearance in the Fantastic Four book followed by Doctor Doom’s appearance in Daredevil’s. Lee & Kirby and Lee & Colan respectively.
My favorite DD story is the movie with Ben Affleck.
Kidding, of course!
Seriously, I’m keen on the original DD #5-10 with some amazing (as always) artwork by Wally Wood.
“Guardian Devil” by Kevin Smith was one of the first trades I read after a decade or so of not reading comics. I was hesitant when the LCS recommended it, as I had never been a big Daredevil fan back in the day, but a few pages in and I was sold. Glad I hopped on board when I did, as Daredevil just kept getting better and better after that.
I dunno how far this rates for some people, but I’ve always loved the Acts of Vengeance tie-in where DD fights a schizophrenic Ultron who’s trying to raise an army of zombie robots with a pile of his old heads tied to sticks. It’s . . . brilliant, is what it is.
As an uninformed youth, the only story I knew was Daredevil 266, “A Beer With the Devil.”
This is only one of many shortcomings I have worked to remedy.
My favorite Daredevil story? Well, for sentimental value, I think it has to be the one in the very first comic book I ever read. The issue of Daredevil where Heather hangs herself. I was five.
My introduction to Daredevil was the Cary Nord/Karl Kesel run. I really, really, really loved the arc with Matt defending Mr. Hyde in court — because as horrible as Mr. Hyde is, Matt KNEW he was innocent of the crime he was accused of. Great art, great story, great dialogue… wish DD was more like this now.
This is a tricky one, because (like many casual Daredevil readers, I guess) I haven’t read more than a handful of non-Miller Daredevil comics. By default, my favorite would have to be Daredevil: Yellow.
How about…
What If?…. Daredevil killed Kingpin
I’ve gotta go with Loeb and Sale’s Daredevil: Yellow as well.
I love Daredevil but I’ve only read volume 2 I would love to see more of the original stuff.
Just realized that I forgot to leave my favorite story. The only arc I have read in its entirety is Daredevil’s first trip to Japan in issues 197-199 where Lady Deathstrike makes her first appearance as an ally to Daredevil. I thought it was great for many reasons. Matt Murdock walks around japan without his mask regularly not worried that anyone will recognize him as Daredevil.
The whole psychic link with Bullseye was unnecessary but on the whole I like the arc and wonder if Lady Deathstrike has ever met Matt Murdock/Daredevil since then? I hope to find out as I catch up on my reading.
I was introduced to Daredevil by Nocenti and JR, Jr about a year before the issues in this collection. Being a nostalgia-addled comics fan, I’d have to say that those issues, particularly #253-260 or so, with the introduction of Typhoid Mary and the great Punisher crossover, are always going to be my favorite (outside of Miller and Bendis, natch).
Man my favorite DD story is from this very run – the incredibly implausible Acts of Vengeance crossover that pits Daredevil against Ultron of all people, and there’s this incredible sequence of DD walking up a hill in the slashing rain, just these huge tall vertical panels with all this Al Williamson ink all over the place and it’s just incredible, muscular, gutsy superhero art that forever influenced how this stuff could get emotions across for me.
Daredevil #146: Gil Kane, and an early Bullseye appearance. Bullseye nearly kills Matt Murdock with a golf ball to the head, pretty much turning off his “radar-sense”. Leads to a scene where now-actually-blind Matt stumbles around his office asking (like anyone would who stumbles on his own coffee table in front of people), “Who moved the furniture?”
I really liked it when Daredevil stories would focus on the journalism and the crime drama as reported through the media. But that was before law school, whereby now I think I would like the legal and courtroom stuff.
I feel bad not choosing a Gene Colan book – He’s my favorite Marvel artist EVER on Tuesdays and Thursdays – But I’m going with this ‘n:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sopNa8uxaTA/SxFC5gvZP4I/AAAAAAAACkg/yrnKlwkImYM/s1600/Daredevil+130+-+00+-+FC.jpg
Because it scared the crap out of me the first time I read it. I was 24.
My favorite might be the current stuff where Daredevil is running The Hand. Of course, I also like the Stan Lee stories where Matt pretended to be his own twin brother.
Remember when DD stopped Mind-Wave with the psychic help of Uri Geller? The story was by Marv Wolfman, Bob Brown and Jim Mooney. If I recall correctly, Geller had a belt with a bunch of pouches and in all the pouches were various sizes and shapes of spoons, which Uri psychically wrapped around Mind-Wave’s testicles and squoze until Mind-Wave was all like, “Aw please stop! You’ll break my vas defrens! I surrender!” And then he did surrender – he was using his mind to force spectators at a minor-league baseball game to do The Wave, but he stopped ‘cuz his nuts REALLY hurt.
And, like, Daredevil could tell that Geller was really just wrapping the spoons around MW’s balls with his hands and squeezing, but he couldn’t tell anyone because if he did then people would know he was blind. That was a can of worms he did NOT want to deal with at that minor league ballgame.
I liked his guest appearance in the Death of Jean DeWolff storyline.
The Stan Lee-Gene Colan era is the best, but I’d have to specify the Mike Murdock era, from the 20s to the 40s. Matt Murdock pretending to be his own brother is the height of Stan Lee ingenuity.
I’ve got to go with Daredevil #7 where DD gets into hand to hand combat with the Sub-Mariner. It’s the earliest example that I know of Marvel’s favorite story: relatively weak hero fights an overpowering enemy and keeps getting up to come after him again. The formula before was the hero gets beaten, retreats, and returns to defeat the villain; this issue was the hero gets beaten, gets up, gets beaten, gets up, repeats until the villain walks away. It’s been imitated so many times at this point that it’s become a genre staple.
The non-Miller/Bendis/Brubaker limitation is tricky since they wrote some damn fine DD. I can remember reading a lot of single issues of Daredevil in my youth, but not any longer form stories.
I’ll have to go with Guardian Devil, flawed though it is, because it helped me get back into comics a decade ago.
I’m fond of the Harlan Ellison two parter in 208-9… the one with the exploding girl robots.
Daredevil #7. The Sub-Mariner attacks New York, and the only hero around to save the city is Daredevil, who is completely outmatched. But he won’t stop fighting, and even when he ultimately loses, he strength of character is enough to convince Namor to give humanity a reprieve. Great stuff.
“Parts of a Whole,” David Mack’s follow-up to Kevin Smith’s run, had some fantastic art and pacing. It felt very much like a heightened reality noir (twin assassins who speak only in aphorisms?! Matt takes a date to see Mallrats?!) and had some great colouring.
Also, while I can’t speak to what they’ve done with her now, Echo was a neat character with some beautiful monologuing in that run.
And we see Wilson Fisk as a kid.
I’ll have to say 1602 by Gaiman.
Sue me, I liked it.
My favorite’s Giant-Size Defenders #3, where Daredevil rigs a coin toss to win the freedom of the Earth from the Grandmaster. I love when he uses his hypersenses for stupid things like that!
I haven’t read a lot of Daredevil (one reason I am hoping to win this, it sounds awesome). With the given limitations I would have to say it’s What if Daredevil Killed the Kingpin.
Oh man. Daredevil is my favorite and the Bendis limitation is killing me (considering it is my favorite run on any character, ever).
So, I’m going to dig deep and say that my favorite Daredevil story is the DD guest appearance in Ennis/Dillon’s “Welcome Back, Frank” Punisher storyline. I have an irrational enjoyment of the Punisher, and the characters’ interactions are really a joy.
Gosh, did I love that short that Nocenti did for the anniversary issue just a bit ago, if only for that incedibly beautiful Aja art (& speaking of art, that Rafael Grampa pin-up in that ish was the cat’s meow indeed!).
Thanks for this opportunity!
Amazing Spider-Man #16.
Stan Lee. Steve Ditko. A reprint of this was my gateway drug into the world of comics. This story is responsible for all the time and money I waste on funny books. And I love it for it.
(Plus, DD is in his yellow suit. And that’s just cool.)
Parts of a Hole. David Mack.
This is gonna sound lame, but mine is the one from Brand New Day where he and Spider-Man fight the new Kraven.
I like when Daredevil showed up in spider-man during the whole Scarlet Spider thing and was taken aback when Spider-Man swung by while talking to Peter.
My favorite use of the character in a non-DD book story was in the Punisher kills the Marvel Universe story.
Best out-of-context moment. Taking Daredevil’s reveal that Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic were evil doppelgangers in Infinity War and making it the end of Civil War.
Jeph Loeb’s “Daredevil: Yellow.” I would have suggested Fred Hembeck’s work, but I guess that doesn’t really count.
I want this, Kevin.
My favorite non-Miller/Bendis/Brubaker Daredevil story is “Crimson Ash,” a back-up story from Marvel Fanfare #15 (which has a wicked BWS lead Thing story) featuring old-school art from Jack Sparling inked my then-newcomers Ian Akin and Brian Garvey. It featured a hot redhead arsonist who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen with Matt Murdock and though she appears to die at the end, her body was never found.
Which leads me to think it’s high time I pitch my Crimson Ash return story to Marvel ASAP.
Thanks!
Honestly, I haven’t read a whole lot not by the three mentioned writers that I really liked (I’m one of the many that hasn’t read Nocenti’s run).
It may be a cheat, but I’ve always liked Amazing Spider-Man #16- where, due to his blindness, DD avoids being hypnotized by the Ringmaster’s hat and then has to throw down with a hypnotized Spidey. To my knowledge, it’s the most DD we ever got out of Ditko and the whole thing’s got that fun, early ASM thing going on.
Somehow i have a strange affinity for the original Bullet and Typhoid Mary stories…maybe it was JRjr and my man-crush for all things romita.
I rather liked the run in the early ’70′s, when DD moved out to San Francisco, and they added Black Widow to the title. Particularly amusing when he had an extended encounter with Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone. Wenner was also appearing in Doonesbury about that time, so there was some real possibility for a crossover.
Have to go with Daredevil’s first appearance, if anything for the beautifully goofy costume and the gorgeous Jack Kirby art.
My personal favorite non-Miller/Bendis/Brubaker Daredevil story is the 1997 Daredevil/Deadpool Annual written by Joe Kelly. Even though it was arguably more Typhoid Mary’s story than Daredevil or Deadpool’s, that annual was the hook that got me curious enough to delve deeper into DD’s back issues and discover Born Again, et al.
If you’re talking about a strictly Daredevil only story, tho’, I’d have to second Daredevil #7. Stan Lee and Wally Wood showing off both the red costume and the depths of Matt’s sheer, stubborn badassery for the first time? Fun for the whole family.
I have to go with Kevin Smith’s Guardian Devil story arc. First time I’d read Daredevil and I’ve been a fan ever since.
Daredevil #99, from 1973. Daredevil and Black Widow return home from wherever, and find Hawkeye waiting for them (he had camped out in a tree in Natasha’s backyard for several hours). Hawkeye and Daredevil fight, naturally, and DD has to pick up some cues while doing so (one Hawkeye tells him he used his phosphorous arrow, DD suddenly pretends he was blinded). It gets even better from there.
I have only read Smith’s Guardian Angel storyline which I enjoyed BUT have I read a really great Daredevil story? Maybe not make me the winner so I can see a true classic Daredevil storyline.
I like the first one with Echo!
Oh, darn time change! I just read you were doing this two seconds ago and thought I had time to get in under the wire.
Eh, we’ll let it slide. This once. I forgot completely about the time change, myself.