{"id":11436,"date":"2025-10-26T21:36:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T21:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11436"},"modified":"2025-10-26T23:36:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T23:36:41","slug":"daredevil-villains-62-the-congregation-of-righteousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11436","title":{"rendered":"Daredevil Villains #62: The Congregation of Righteousness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DAREDEVIL #194 (May 1983)<\/strong>
\n“Judgment”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Denny O’Neil<\/strong>
\nArtist: Klaus Janson<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Rosen<\/strong>
\nColourist: Glynis Wein<\/strong>
\nEditor: Linda Grant<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following Frank Miller on Daredevil <\/em>is not an enviable task. After two quite decent fill-in stories, the man who takes on the assignment is the book’s editor Denny O’Neil – not so much because he wanted the job as because somebody had to do it, it would seem. He’ll be with us until issue #226, give or take a few fill-ins scattered along the way.<\/p>\n

This issue doesn’t read like the start of a planned run, though. The next issue starts some actual storylines, with issue #200 looming on the horizon, but issue #194 this feels like it was intended as the book’s third consecutive fill-in. The editor credit tends to confirm that the book was playing for time at this point. Officially, Marvel didn’t have writer-editors in 1983, but they may have been paying lip service to that policy here. Linda Grant, credited as “guest editor” on this issue and “special editor” on the next, was not a full-fledged editor, but O’Neil’s own assistant. She remains the credited editor up to issue #200, after which the book is finally reassigned to a different office.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Congregation of Righteousness are a bit of a borderline inclusion in this feature. “Judgment” is clearly a one-off story and the Congregations were never candidates to be recurring characters. But they’re not exactly generic either, and besides, it’s the first issue of a new writer. So let’s have a look at it.<\/p>\n

Jeremiah Jenks grew up in a puritan religious sect, the Congregation of Righteousness, who reject all modern technology. They even take exception to drawing, so talented artist Jeremiah wound up killing his father in self-defence and running away. Jeremiah made a fortune using his artistic skills as a counterfeiter but still fundamentally subscribes to the Congregation’s religion. Now in old age and declining health, he wants to atone for his crimes by reconciling with the Congregation before he dies. As a first step, he’s tried to return to their traditional way of life, and part of that involves burning candles that he buys from a Congregation farm. Lots of candles. Tons of candles.<\/p>\n

Since the Congregation will kill him if he shows up in person, Jeremiah hires Matt to speak to them on his behalf. So Matt and Foggy head up to the Congregation’s community in upstate New York.<\/p>\n

The Conregation are quite obviously modelled on the Amish. Jeremiah even has two simply-dressed sons who show up in Manhattan in a horse and cart. But the story stresses that the Congregation are way more draconian, and are rumoured to kill and torture heretics. This is all a bit odd. While the Amish do shun excommunicated members (or at least some groups do), they’re hardly associated with extrajudicial killing – if anything, they’re generally perceived as harmless pacifists. Perhaps the story is just running with the idea that weird country folk are always a bit scary. Or maybe it’s just cranking up excommunication to the point where it can work in a superhero plot, but it’s not evident that the Amish become any more interesting for being made more like the Taliban.<\/p>\n

Matt speaks to the Congregation’s elder, Nahum – Jeremiah’s own brother, though that point isn’t particularly stressed. Nahum tells Matt that Jeremiah was sentenced to death seventy years ago, and the decision is final. Rather than getting into the point about the Congregation doing extrajudicial killings – which, to be fair, probably wouldn’t be very persuasive – Matt instead tries to persuade Nahum that his religious beliefs are a bit extreme. Unsurprisingly, this prompts a rant about how the Congregation have no crime, violence or divorce. Except when they kill heretics.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jeremiah asks the Kingpin to arrange some security for him – presumably he thinks that Matt’s visit might prompt retribution. The Kingpin decides to go one better, and sends his henchmen to intimidate the Congregation into taking Jeremiah back. This is very helpful, because it provides some thugs for Matt to punch. After that’s finished with, Matt is thrown off the Congregation’s land.<\/p>\n

At this point, Matt finally figures out that the Congregation is already killing Jeremiah by poisoning the candles. He races back to Jeremiah’s home just in time to save him – a remarkable bit of timing, considering how long Jeremiah has apparently been burning the things.<\/p>\n

So far, all of this is perfectly fine, and Janson’s art is rather striking. But the story ends on a very weird note, as Jeremiah decides that to stop running from his past. He’s going to present himself to the Congregation, “and let them do as they will”. This makes sense in terms of Jeremiah’s world view, but Matt doesn’t even try to talk him out of it. Instead, Matt immediately accepts Jeremiah’s wishes, more or less congratulates him for taking responsibility for his actions, and lets him go on his way. Bye, Jeremiah! Good luck with being murdered!<\/p>\n

You’d expect the ending here to be Jeremiah insisting on the sacrifice which he believes to be a necessary part of his atonement, and Matt either reluctantly deferring to his wishes or somehow being given the slip. It might simply be a case of the story running out of room, and not having enough space to let Matt properly argue the point. But it reads very strangely.<\/p>\n

Religion will eventually become a major theme in\u00a0Daredevil<\/em>. But that hasn’t happened yet; in 1983, Daredevil is still a basically secular character, unless you count the mystical elements introduced by Frank Miller via Stick. And even there, Matt is a secular figure from outside Stick’s mystic tradition. This story might well have been a better fit for the later, more religious, Daredevil. He would more plausibly have respected Jeremiah following his beliefs to a suicidal conclusion – and he would have found more in the story to resonate with his own self-destructive tendencies. In 1983, Matt doesn’t yet bring that to the story; he’s simply playing a secular visitor to a fringe religious culture, and he’s much easier to swap out for other heroes.<\/p>\n

But it’s not a bad issue – it’s just the third\u00a0de facto\u00a0<\/em>fill-in story in a row. That must have left readers wondering what the post-Miller direction was, if there was one at all.\u00a0The next issue will start to address that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAREDEVIL #194 (May 1983) “Judgment” Writer: Denny O’Neil Artist: Klaus Janson Letterer: Joe Rosen Colourist: Glynis Wein Editor: Linda Grant Following Frank Miller on Daredevil is not an enviable task. After two quite decent fill-in stories, the man who takes on the assignment is the book’s editor Denny O’Neil – not so much because he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daredevil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11436"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11500,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436\/revisions\/11500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}