Nocenti/Romita Daredevil

Daredevil 261-268

I am fully prepared right now to dump the rest of the Nocenti run post-issue 260.  There’s nothing in these eight issues that I remotely want to read again.  I’ll start going through each issue, and hope that it takes up thirty minutes of my time.

DD 261 - Human Torch (in a random cameo) looks for the missing Daredevil.  The entirety of his efforts consist of entering a shady bar, fighting the biggest guy there, getting no answers, and burning the place down.  Karen moans so overtly about Daredevil’s disappearance that I can’t believe no one makes the connection to the also-missing Matt Murdock.

DD 262 - The three issue Inferno tie-in starts.  Karen’s uselessness without Matt is so so pathetic.  Matt’s still lying beneath the bridge, fighting a techno-demon-vacuum cleaner.  

Typhoid Mary realizes Matt isn’t dead.

How.  How is she the love of Matt Murdock's life?

DD 263 - Karen somehow finds out that Daredevil is in the hospital.  I don’t know who would know, think, or care to call her.  Typhoid shows up and tells Karen that Matt’s been unfaithful.  So instead of breaking Matt, the revelation breaks Karen, who has not been the most emotionally stable person without a man by her side to begin with.  

Then begins a trippy sequence where Daredevil is now well enough to get out of bed, board a train that’s heading to hell, and kill the demon conductor.  I have no idea what Nocenti is doing.

DD 264 - The editor of the book kindly informs the readers that John Romita Jr is taking a break for an issue to get married.  So we’re treated to a fill-in issue drawn by Steve Ditko.  Nocenti uses this opportunity to bring back the random escaped felon who adopted a baby he found abandoned in the street.  The stupidness of this issue boggles my mind.  

DD 265 - Back to Inferno for one last issue.  Daredevil walks around beating up demons in a catatonic haze.  Nocenti has got to be loving this; She gets to write about about a New York with literal demons to match the figurative ones that rule the city every day.  But it all comes out incomprehensibly, much like a Jonathan Hickman comic.

DD 266 - I’ve completely given up at this point.  DD’s having a beer at a bar.  Mephisto comes to chat him up, makes him ignore a murder that’s going on behind him, destroys the bar, and drops him from a great height into a pile of garbage.  Then a couple of bums help him up and go grab Christmas dinner with him at the local soup kitchen as if nothing happened.  I can’t.  I just can’t.

DD 267 - Daredevil decides to exact revenge on those who beat him up.  He goes to Bullet’s apartment, but meeting Bullet’s messed up kid convinces him to give up his vengeance tour before it even kicks off.  It occurs to me that we haven’t seen Karen in four issues, and I haven’t missed her.

DD 268 - Daredevil starts wandering the backroads of America, which he’ll repeat years later post-Shadowlands.  This issue actually doesn’t suck.  He pops into a bed and breakfast, secretly helps to solve the problems of the owners, and pops back out a day later.  

And done.  Things aren’t looking good for the post-Typhoid Nocenti era.  (Though Typhoid Mary hasn’t entirely disappeared yet.  She’s still got her hooks in Kingpin, and I’m waiting for the payoff.)

Regret buying? Yes

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Stupid.  268 Didn’t suck.