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| Cover art by Frank Miller and (!) Wally Wood |
Monday, February 1, 2016
Secret Origins: "Expose" by McKenzie, Miller, and Janson
Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Whaddya say we kick off the new week (and month--wowzers, already?) with the awesome origin of Daredevil by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, and Klaus Janson! Ol' Groove thought you'd dig that idea! DD's origin was always one of Groove's faves, so this ish hit all the right buttons, ya know? Oh, and yers trooly really digs the extra details Rog and the Lanky One added to DD's origin, how 'bout you? From Daredevil #164 (February 1980), here's "Expose"!
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Probably the best re-telling of DD's origin, I think. This is probably my favorite issue of that initial part of Miller's first run on the title, when the writer was still the virtually (and unfairly) forgotten and quite underrated Roger McKenzie. I really liked the whole sequence that frames the story, with Ben Urich's never published expose on Murdock and Daredevil.
ReplyDeleteI read this story in the British Marvel reprint mag 'Daredevils' in black and white. That issue also carried articles by a newcomer, then unknown in the US, called Alan Moore, plus an episode of Captain Britain by Moore and another newcomer - Alan Davis. Though I loved the work of the two Alans, this story blew me away. The best Daredevil story Miller ever drew by far.
ReplyDeleteI think in retrospect the advent of Frank Miller was the first sign of the end of the groovy age for me. I can't look at his early work without the experience being poisoned by the disgust I feel for his later work. I would have to wade through all of his work to figure out precisely where and what went wrong and I won't do that unless someone pays me to. Maybe Gary Groth has already done it for The Comics Journal. (?)
ReplyDeleteI've never understood Frank Miller's obsession with violence. It has permeated all his work from the latter part of Daredevil onward. I didn't even pick up Sin City or the later iterations of the Dark Knight due to the needless gore.
DeleteI was really excited when I'd heard he was going to do Robocop II. He was coming off his successful DD run and I thought the movie would have the humanity that had been present in DD. But it was awful. He must have had a 2 picture deal with Robocop based on his rep because, despite II bombing he followed it up with the equally bad Robocop III, which also bombed.
I skipped the Sin City movie, having seen clips of its garish violence.
His attempt to turn the Spirit, who'd always been suffused with Will Eisner's wit and whimsy, into another grim and gritty character was a colossal fail at the box office.
I've heard from many sources he isn't a very nice person. How could he be with all that venom percolating inside him that manifests itself in his work.
Looks to me like you didn't scan the whole thing, Groove.
ReplyDeleteNope. I didn't see the need to run the framing sequence since it referred back to the previous issue so much. I just wanted to focus on the origin, and the Hulk stuff would have been too distracting. (Plus the whole thing has been reprinted a lot...)
ReplyDeleteThe Wood inks on that cover are his last work, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteHis last Marvel work, I'm pretty sure. He supposedly inked some of Wonder Woman #269, which appeared a couple months later. I don't have my copy handy, so I'm not positive.
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