DAREDEVIL #305-306 (June & July 1992)
“Under the Knife” / “Emergency Procedure”
Writer: D.G. Chichester
Artist: Scott McDaniel
Inkers: Chris Ivy (#305) and Bud LaRosa (#306)
Colourist: Max Scheele (#305) and Nel Yomtov (#306)
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Ralph Macchio

We’ve jumped forward about a year. Issues #297-300 are “Last Rites”, which is a Kingpin story. It removes him and Typhoid Mary from the picture for a while, and resets the book to a classic status quo, with Matt and Foggy as lawyers again. It’s also the final story drawn by Lee Weeks. Issues #301-303 are an Owl story, with guest artist MC Wyman. And issue #304 is a format-breaking issue which consists of Daredevil saving assorted lives across New York over the course of 24 hours.

So it’s not until issues #305-306 that we get the first DG Chichester story to focus on a new villain. With hindsight, the most notable thing about this two-parter is that it’s the start of Scott McDaniel’s run as penciller, which continues through to issue #336. He had done some scattered work for Marvel before this on fill-ins, annuals and Marvel Comics Presents, but this was his first regular assignment. It’s a signature run for him, and his art style will evolve dramatically over its course. By issue #320 or so, he’ll be working in the abstract and stylised mode that people associate with him, but at the start of his run, he’s doing Marvel house style.

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DAREDEVIL #294-296 (July to September 1991)
“The Infernal Mysteries” / “Through the Eyes of the Enemy” / “Balancing Act”
Writer: DG Chichester
Pencillers: Lee Weeks (#294-295) and Ron Garney (#296)
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Max Scheele
Letterer: Jack Morellli
Editor: Ralph Macchio

After our detour into the annuals, we’re back with the main title, and we’ve reached DG Chichester’s run as writer. He takes over from Ann Nocenti with issue #292, and with a couple of exceptions, he’ll be with us all the way through to issue #342, although he took his name off the last few issues. He started his career as an editor on the Epic imprint before writing some of the largely-forgotten Shadowline books; by this point, he had been writing Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD for a year or so.

Penciller Lee Weeks had y joined the book for Ann Nocenti’s final arc. This was his first regular assignment on a Marvel Universe title, following runs on the New Universe title Justice and the licensed book Destroyer. But he’ll only be around until issue #300 before moving on.

Nocenti ended her run by putting the toys back in the box, up to a point. She finished with Daredevil returning to New York and reclaiming his identity from the imposter Bullseye. This left the book ready to return to a more traditional status quo, and Chichester wasn’t going to follow in Nocenti’s more experimental footsteps. The first part of his run draws heavily on Frank Miller concepts, but stylistically it’s arguably more of a return to pre-Miller material (though he’ll have some format-breaking stories of his own in due course). It’s very dense and wordy, and more conventional in style than either Miller or Nocenti. And this was in the early 90s, when other books were leaning into the Image style.

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DAREDEVIL ANNUAL #7 (1991)
“The Von Strucker Gambit, part 1: Crippling Death”
Writer, colourist: Gregory Wright
Penciller: Ron Garney
Inker: Doug Hazlewood
Editor: Ralph Macchio

Yes, two Annuals in a row. This is just how the timeline works out – in publishing terms, this issue came out in the second month of DG Chichester’s run, so we’ll be getting to him next time.

In the meantime, we’re looking at another Annual by Gregory Wright. Once again, this is part of a crossover. In this case, it’s “The Von Strucker Gambit”, which ran through the 1991 annuals for Daredevil, Punisher and Captain America. Those three titles feel like they ought to mesh reasonably well, but it’s another crossover where the individual annuals are designed to stand alone, so that the heroes never team up, and the chapters merely gesture in the direction of an overarching plot.

That overarching plot is rudimentary to the point of being token. Hydra has mutated three people. At the start of the story, the trio escape and go their separate ways. Baron Strucker, who’s running Hydra at this point, sends three henchmen to get them back. Nick Fury enlists our heroes to get to them first. So it’s really three separate stories in which Hero X and Henchman Y fight over Mutate Z, while Mutate Z tries to pursue their personal agenda. The twist, such as it is, is that Strucker actually wanted the escapees to get away and fight some superheroes, so that he could gather some data. But other than Strucker himself, nobody in the Daredevil chapter knows about that, so it has no effect at all on the issue as a standalone story. “The Von Strucker Gambit” is really nothing more than a grudging gesture in the direction of being a crossover.

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DAREDEVIL ANNUAL #6 (1990)
“Predator”
Writer, colourist: Gregory Wright
Artist: Cam Kennedy
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Editor: Ralph Macchio

We may have finished Ann Nocenti’s run, but we aren’t moving on to DG Chichester just yet. It’s time to check in on Daredevil Annual.

The last character that we covered from a Daredevil Annual was the Mind-Master, who debuted in Annual #4, way back in 1976. After that, Daredevil didn’t get another annual for over a decade. But in 1989, the book got another annual. Daredevil Annual #5 was a tie-in to the line-wide “Atlantis Attacks” event, with Tyrannus and Viper as the guest villains, and as such, it doesn’t concern us. It may be most notable for being misnumbered as a second Daredevil Annual #4. (The version on Marvel Unlimited has corrected the number.) But it must have done okay, since further Daredevil Annuals continued to appear through to 1994, all of them  written by Gregory Wright.

For 1990, instead of a single line-wide event across the annuals, Marvel opted for crossovers among smaller groups of titles. Most of those groupings made sense. “Days of Futures Present” had the X-Men, the New Mutants, X-Factor and the Fantastic Four, in a story about Franklin Richards from the Days of Future Past timeline. “Terminus Factor” had Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Avengers and West Coast Avengers. The three Spider-Man annuals did their own story. And that left…

Um. Well, it left Daredevil, Punisher, Incredible Hulk and Silver Surfer. Natural bedfellows, I think you’ll agree.

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DAREDEVIL #272-273 (November 1989)
“Liberation” / “The Billion Dollar Ashtray”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Max Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio

There’s still a way to go in the Ann Nocenti run after these issues, but this is where we leave it. While she created a string of new characters in the early part of her run, the later issues feature longer storylines and returning or guest villains, with a couple of one-off stories about everyday bad people along the way.

So, to be specific, issue #274 has Skip Ash as the villain. Issues #275-276 are an Acts of Vengeance tie-in, with guest villain Ultron. Issue #277 is a one-off story about a manipulative psychiatrist. Issues #278-282 feature Mephisto and Blackheart. Issue #283 guest stars Captain America, and the villains are assorted corporations. Issues #284-290 are a Bullseye storyline. And her final issue, issue #291, has Bullet.

Which means that for us, Ann Nocenti’s run draws to a close with the entirely unrepresentative figure of Shotgun. These two issues are part of the Number Nine storyline, which we’ve already looked at in the context of Skip Ash. As you’ll remember, Skip is a factory farmer who’s doing illegal operations for the CIA on the side. But he’s also got a laboratory which is altering women to make them “perfect”, and one of them, Number Nine, has been freed by his semi-estranged daughter Brandy. Since this is still a superhero comic, Skip calls in some favours from his government contacts to try and get Number Nine back. And so they send Shotgun to help out.

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DAREDEVIL #270 (September 1989)
“Blackheart!”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inkers: Mike Manley & Al Williamson
Colourists: Max Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio

We skipped over quite a few issues last time, so for anyone wondering what was in them: issues #259-263 are the end of the Typhoid Mary storyline, with the last two of those issues doubling as Inferno tie-ins. Issue #264 is a fill-in story with the Owl. (Yes, I know there are some gimmicky street gangs in it too, but it’s an Owl story.) Issue #265 is another Inferno tie-in. Issue #266 was a Christmas story with guest villain Mephisto. And issue #267, which we covered last time, has Bullet and the debut of Skip Ash, with Daredevil leaving New York City to spend some time upstate.

Issue #268 is a small town crime story, and issue #269 has Freedom Force as the guest villains. So that brings us to issue #270. I skipped over Mephisto earlier, but he does show up quite extensive in the next year or so. Nonetheless, he’s still an outside villain, as the storyline acknowledged – it ends with the Silver Surfer showing up to deal with him, and Daredevil leaving the two of them to get on with it. Besides, we get to talk about those issues anyway, thanks to Blackheart, who is a Daredevil original.

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DAREDEVIL #267 (June 1989)
“Cremains”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio

Skip Ash isn’t really the main villain in issue #267. In fact, he’s not even an antagonist in the story at all. But it is his debut, and he continues to appear into the #270s, and he has a really weird side project that makes him count as a villain. So he makes the cut.

As issue #267 begins, Daredevil has lost Karen Page thanks to Typhoid, and his Storefront law clinic has been closed. He’s tormented by his urges to seek revenge, but changes his mind after an altercation with Bullet, which leads him to conclude that Bullet himself is just a guy, and not the real problem. Disillusioned with everything, including himself, Matt gets a random train ticket upstate. When the train passes a government plane crashed in a nearby field – don’t ask how anyone identifies it as a “government plane” at that distance – Matt jumps off the moving train to help.

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DAREDEVIL #258 (September 1988)
“I Heard The Jungle Breathe”
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Penciller: Ron Lim
Inker: Jim Sanders III
Letterer: Diana Alberts
Colourist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Ralph Macchio

We’ve skipped issue #257, which is a crossover with Punisher. Technically the villain in that story is a guy called Alfred Coppersmith, but his story plays out mostly in Punisher, so we’ll pass him over. That brings us to issue #258, which is a fill-in story by Fabian Nicieza and Ron Lim. Inevitably, it bears little resemblance to the Nocenti/Romita issues that surround it. But it does introduce a new supervillain, and one who actually comes back.

This issue brings back Willie Lincoln, a short-lived supporting character who hadn’t appeared since issue #59. In the original stories, he was a Vietnam veteran who had been blinded in action. Daredevil helped him to clear his name after he was framed by a mobster, and finally he got his old job back with the NYPD. It’s an overcoming-adversity story. After that, he occasionally popped up to help out, before being quietly forgotten about.

That was the 1960s. This is 1988, and American attitudes to the Vietnam War have moved on. Willie remains anchored to late 60s Vietnam despite the floating timeline, with other aspects of the original story being retconned accordingly. We open with a flashback to Willie serving in Vietnam in 1968, as the panicky soldiers in his patrol start killing innocent villagers. This turns out to be the mission on which he got blinded. Nicieza doesn’t quite throw Willie under the bus here – he’s at least dithering about what he can do to stop it, before the question is taken out of his hands when the enemy shows up. Daredevil assures us later on that Willie isn’t to blame. But his blinding is still recast as an ironic punishment for Lincoln wishing that he didn’t have to watch this happen.

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DAREDEVIL #254-256 (May to July 1988)
“Typhoid” / “Temptation” / “Blindspots”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Max Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio

Up to this point, Ann Nocenti has given us a lot of one-off villains, and a few who showed more staying power. But Typhoid really is a major addition to the rogues gallery, and someone who goes on to be used across the Marvel Universe.

She’s also the first Nocenti creation to get an extended storyline. Previous new characters appeared in one or two issues, but Typhoid is around for nearly a year. While I’ve given the credits for issues #254-256 above, she appears in some form in every issue from #254 to #263, except for a fill-in story in issue #258.

Issue #254 opens with a splash page of Typhoid, complete with her swords, her one-armed jacket, her weird metal shoulder plates, her fishnets, her braids, and the white make-up on the right half of her face. She has a serious expression. Meanwhile, the narrator tells us that poisonous people live among without knowing what they are, doing what they have to do to survive. “Touch her, she’s the best,” the narrator adds. The opening scene has her breaking up a mugging, only to enlist the mugger as her sidekick – she “brands” the guy by clawing his face with her fingernails, offers him excitement, kisses him, and declares that “Typhoid’s on top, she calls the shots”. It’s mostly played as if the mugger, Rip, is receiving some sort of infection.

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DAREDEVIL #253 (April 1988)
“Merry Christmas, Kingpin”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Max Scheele
Editor: Ralph Macchio

You might have picked up from the cover and the title that this story isn’t really about the Wildboys. It’s a Christmas story, and the main plot is basically that the Kingpin is Scrooge without the epiphany. He doesn’t see any ghosts, but he does refuse to give his staff the day off for Christmas (“a useless waste of a business day”), and he fails to intimidate a property owner because he doesn’t understand the power of the festive season. It’s that sort of issue.

The Wildboys – Jet and Spit – are a B-plot, and they only actually appear on six pages of this issue. But they do come back. They’ve made nine appearances in total, eight of which were in Daredevil. In particular, they’ll be included among the returning villains in issues #259-260. So they merit an entry, even if they don’t really have a spotlight story to debut in. (The Official Handbook claims that they were also among Ammo’s gang in the previous issue, but so far as I can see, there’s nothing on the page to support that.)

The issue opens on Christmas Eve, with the Wildboys driving through Hell’s Kitchen and making a general nuisance of themselves. They’re harassing women, driving onto the pavement so that pedestrians have to dive out of their way, and robbing charity collectors. Basically, they’re just a couple of assholes. Everyone hates them – one person even says that he hopes they get shot.

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