I want you to track him down. I dont care how you do itAnd when you have found him, I want him...MARKED FOR MURDER! Daredevils mystery foe. This is it. Ground zero. Care to say a few words to mark the occasion? With such beautiful artwork in your face, you speak only in vowels. This issue is, in a very real sense, Frank Miller: Year One... Daredevil Issue 159 (from June 1979) was the second DD comic pencilled by an ambitious young upstart named Frank Miller. After wrapping up the previous story arc, writer Roger McKenzie and his young partner embarked on their very first mission together...And boy, it was a doozy! The story begins, appropriately enough, with some clips of Daredevil fighting Bullseye (I actually think this was from a previous story, which would be cool because I like it when comics pay attention to continuity). However, in an interesting twist, we find that were not actually seeing these events as they play out, but rather, someone is watching them on a projector screen. Were then brought into a smoky room full of thugs and lowlifes, as a mystery foe pays off a retired assassin (with only one functioning eye) named Eric Slaughter to take care of Daredevil once and for all... Meanwhile, theres more continuity overspill, as blind lawyer Matt Murdoch is viciously pressured by the media on his way to court for getting mixed up in various bizarre and/or dangerous events (a scene that became a staple of the later Bendis era). As veteran journo Ben Urich looks on, he muses idly to himself that Theres more to this Murdock than meets the eye...Id bet my press card on it! if only you knew, Ben!
After leaving court (presided over by the Honourable Judge Coffin, yes thats really his name!) Slaughters hired goons shake down Murdoch and his business partner Foggy Nelson, telling Matt to make sure that Daredevil meets them on an old pier that night, where they (rather obviously) plan on doing away with him. DD makes his way to the pier and starts picking off the goons in a manner pretty much ripped off wholesale by Batman Begins. The fight scenes are stunning to read and the artwork breathes and flows with a crispness and directness that would go on to become a trademark of the artists. In Millers hands, Daredevils fighting style is hard, perfunctory and ruthless, with no wasted energy whatsoever. It is a style far more befitting the working-class son of a boxer than his graceful, Spider-Man-esque movements of more recent years. When Millers Daredevil takes em down, they stay down! In this era, he used his body, more even than his billy club, as his weapon of choice.
Elsewhere, a desperate underwater scene is expertly rendered, as young Miller pulls out all the stops to impress, implying depth and desperation by re-sizing his panels to maximum effect (in a manner reminiscent of Steve Ditko). For his part, Roger McKenzie crafts an excellent story and his captions are poetic, evocative slices of oblique, shadowy noir (heres an example): Pause now with Daredevil, crouched in the shadows of an old, fire-gutted brownstone overlooking the waterfront. Close your eyes and listen to the muted sounds of the harbour at night...The distant ships mourning fitfully, lost somewhere in the darkness and the fog... (I know, right?) But, as great as he was, Roger McKenzie is not the star of this issue. This issue belongs to a young man whos hardboiled blend of film noir, crime drama and edgy, adult-tinged content was about to make him one of comics true superstars. This is it. Ground zero. Care to say a few words to mark the occasion? I think this is about where we came in. Much of Millers subsequent work can be seen echoed in this issue. Neat parallels between this and the third act of Millers very great Man Without Fear (with JRJR) are obviously apparent, but so is the characterization of the villains. The moment where they willingly shoot one of their own, as the unfortunate reprobate tussles with the costumed hero (I never liked the creep anyway! remarks the shooter) can be read as a cold U-Turn back to the days of DCs ruthless fedora skells of the 1930s. 1979, lest we forget, was a year of punk rock, Soviet posturing, right-wing pragmatism, civil unrest and dirty, ashen cigarette burns appearing all over the paisley-patterned dreams of the 50s and 60s. Corporate America was gearing up to crush anything that stood in its path and the depiction of the healthy and happy super hero was about to swing violently towards the icy pastures of the lonely, unstable vigilante archetype. Miller was just the right guy to push that superhero over the edge, a method he applied with relish as he revamped first Wolverine and then Batman (amongst a great many others), on his way to becoming perhaps the seminal architect of an entire era.
As a single issue, this comic offers the requisite thrills and spills. Had Miller not gone on to such fame, it would still be regarded as a great example of comics writing and art, but, as it stands in 2013, Daredevil 159 is one of the first true steps towards the adult comics we enjoy today. Like I said, ground zero... If Alan Moores early work was literary and deconstructionist and Morrisons was all about nihilistic, art school insouciance, then Millers was edgy, noirish and cinematic. Moores comics belonged in the library, Morrisons could be hung on the wall and puzzled over, but Millers should be watched on flaking screens in dirty, unkempt porno theatres on the wrong side of town. It was a great start to a classic run with a beautifully flawed character. Daredevil met Frank Miller at a very strange time in his life. BOOM. ...Oh, and the mystery villain? It was Bullseye, of course.