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Monday, February 20, 2017

DAREDEVIL #165

"ARMS OF THE OCTOPUS"
Script/Co-Plotters/Pencils: Roger McKenzie & Frank Miller | Inks: Klaus Janson
Lettering: Joe Rosen | Coloring: Bob Sharen
Editor: Denny O’Neil | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Having gotten wind of the impending theft of a shipment of adamantium, Daredevil visits Josie’s Bar & Grill to shake down some informants. Learning that the unbreakable metal is due to be delivered to Glenn Industries, DD pays a visit to their offices, where he bursts into a board meeting and informs Heather Glenn that something is going on within the company behind her back.

The next night, Matt Murdock learns that Heather never showed up for a date. He heads for the wharf, where the adamantium is in the process of being stolen, and is clobbered by Doctor Octopus.

Later, at Glenn Industries, Doc Ock brags to his prisoner, Heather, that he plans to use the adamantium to construct a set of new, unbreakable arms. But Daredevil arrives and attacks, defeating Ock.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: It's revealed that since her father’s death, Heather has had tenuous control over his company. We also learn how he died: enthralled by the Purple Man, he was jailed for embezzlement. Later he killed himself after Daredevil failed to prove his innocence.


Foggy Nelson is getting married next week, and has purchased a tasteful tuxedo for the occasion.


Black Widow appears to have been shacking up with Matt lately, but she suspects he still harbors feelings for Heather. By issue’s end she has confirmed this suspicion and leaves New York, heartbroken.


Doctor Octopus explains how he survived his last encounter with Spider-Man, though no footnote is present to let readers know in which comic the fight took place.


My Thoughts: Frank Miller’s run as the writer of DAREDEVIL is just around the corner, but first he slides into a “Co-Plotter” role alongside Roger McKenzie — though one gets the feeling from prior installments that perhaps Miller was already plotting in some capacity, as his sensibilities are all over some recent characters and situations.

Miller states in the introduction to his DAREDEVIL OMNIBUS (which is actually a repurposed intro from his DAREDEVIL VISIONARIES collection) that he and McKenzie “conspired to steal as many Spider-Man villains as [they] could” -- yet somehow this story appears to be their only success on that front. But at least they stole a good one! I'm a sucker for stories where heroes “borrow” other heroes’ enemies, and this tale is no exception. Daredevil versus Doctor Octopus is a terrific idea, and it's executed naturally here as Ock uses Heather’s manufacturing plant in a bid to construct new admantium arms (which in itself is also a fantastic plot and one wonders why it had never previously occurred in an issue of SPIDER-MAN). The soap opera stuff with Matt, Heather, and the Black Widow is great too, making this possibly the best McKenzie/Miller issue to date.


That said, I'm not quite sure I understand part of the plot. Daredevil spies on a bunch of bad guys and overhears them talking about stealing the admantium shipment “…before it reaches Glenn Industries.” This immediately makes DD suspicious of Heather’s company. My issues are twofold: One, why is DD so freaked out over Glenn Industries receiving an admantium shipment that he goes immediately to confront the board of directors? Mind you, I don't know what the company does (though they do have a manufacturing facility in New Jersey), so it's entirely possible this is indeed suspicious — but nothing in the script explains why. We just have to take it for granted that there's something fishy about this, which seems like really careless writing.


But number two is even stranger: these crooks work for Doctor Octopus. They want to steal the adamantium before it reaches Glenn Industries. So what do they do after they've stolen it? Why, they take it to Glenn Industries so Ock can build his new arms there. Huh?? What was the point of stealing it first when they could've simply waited for the stuff to arrive at the facility to which they apparently already planned to take it? Again, this is really sloppy on McKenzie’s part. It's like he scripted this issue a page at a time without referring back to the stuff he'd already written — which I suppose is fine; plot holes happen now and then under deadline pressure. But how this slipped past every editorial level is mystifying.

20 comments:

  1. Mistake in comics? That's unpossible!

    The adamantium was stolen from Pittsburgh and was in process of being smuggled. Doc Ock was buying the lab from Glenn Industries in NJ with tech necessary to work it. DD's interest in GI dealing with stolen property causes the smugglers to step up timetable.

    It would appear that the stolen adamantium was being smuggled to NY within/by/into GI and would have reached the lab through the normal GI delivery channels in time (and Doc Ock was supposed to buy the lab stocked with the adamantium) but because of DD's meddling the goons who answer to Doc Ock saw it best to cut the corners and directly deliver the metal to Doc Ock's lab.

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    1. Teemu, your No-Prize is in the mail.

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    2. I've re-read it now and... The goons looking to steal the adamantium aren’t working for Ock, as evidenced by the fact that he hijacks their hijacking of it — so there’s not even a need to invent an explanation for why Pike’s gang wants to intercept the shipment before it gets to Glenn Industries, where, unbeknownst to Pike's gang, Ock was going to take possession.

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    3. Ach, so it seems. I thought Daredevil knew his business when seeking out Pike thinking he's on the smuggling job, but apparently Pike has only heard the same rumors as DD and looks to be "rippin' off stolen goods" from the original thieves. Ock attaking and chastising Pike's gang makes that clear, and also all but confirms that Ock in all likeliness was the mastermind behind the original heist in Pittsburgh. Also, looks like Glenn Industries really is up to its hilt in it all because Ock knows to come for Heather in the GI archives.

      Would have been fun though if DD was again throwing false accusations at innocent people at GI, but Pike unknowningly trying to rob Doc Ock of all people kind of makes up.

      DD suggests in the beginning that Pike deals especially in adamantium-like materials... based in NY, he really should know what kind of people he likely ends up tangling with when pulling off something like that.

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    4. Huh. I should probably just scrap this post's final two paragraphs entirely, but I'm going to leave them up as a constant reminder of how little I can pay attention if I really put my mind to it!

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  2. // I'm a sucker for stories where heroes “borrow” other heroes’ enemies //

    Me too. Plus, Daredevil and Spider-Man are more likely than most to stumble across the plots of one another’s usual opponents. When I think of Doc Ock by Miller, though, I go right to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15, published over a year after this, whose cover I absolutely love.

    I do agree that the adamantium arms for Octopus is a simple and brilliant idea, but while neither the whole deal of him intercepting a shipment he was already about to acquire nor the unvoiced grounds for DD’s suspicion of a shipment of adamantium to Glenn Industries were flagged by me as head-scratchers until I read your post — to be fair to myself, I was really tired when I read the issue the other day 8^) — I was stopped cold by the perfunctory way Matt shuts down Natasha. Yeah, Matt clearly still has feelings for Heather, and that sequence you shared is very much how melodrama played out in comics of this vintage; “That’s all we can ever be… now” is really lacking context for me, however — even just reordering the dialogue in those panels would work better.

    // Later he killed himself after Daredevil failed to prove his innocence. //

    I was all set for a revelation of part of the story Heather didn’t know, because otherwise that’s all pretty damning of Matt as a defense attorney, a superhero, and a human being.

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    1. DD's concern for the adamantium shipment was explicitly voiced on-panel: he took interest to the shipment in the first place because it was stolen, and then was shocked over hearing about Glenn Industries' participation into receiving stolen property which is a serious crime her girlfriend's company should not be making.

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    2. Maybe I need to revisit that page. The way I read it, the criminals were just talking about hijacking any old adamantium shipment, and Daredevil didn't freak out until the mentioned the shipment was bound for Glenn Industries. At that point he inexplicably goes to confront the board of directors to question them about the shipment, as if by its very nature it's illegal or something.

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    3. From Marvel Unlimited: Page 2, DD appears: "... I want to talk to you, Pike. A shipment of adamantium was stolen from a Pittsburgh foundry last week. I heard it's being smuggled into New York, and word on the street says you deal in smuggled goods."

      He follows Pike, learns to his shock that Glenn Industries is the intended recipient. It was just business this far, but at this point it becomes personal because of Heather. Cue to Page 5 and srorming into the GI boards meeting: "Routine, as in dealing in stolen property?" The shipment has obviously been by its nature illegal after the initial theft in Pittsburgh.

      The rest is a bit shady I admit. There are no customs obviously necessitating the smuggling or anything, so they probably have to deliver it to NY (maybe among a legit load of A to GI or something) for the reason that the SHIELD's bound to get very interested, for obvious reasons, of bunch of adamantium having walked away and are probably scanning the whole of Pennsylvania with adamantium sniffers.

      A part of the process of smuggling probably is that the smugglers have to remove the stolen A from the other stuff that was in the legit delivery in which they smuggled the A to NY and take it to their intended destination. It was probably planned to happen only when the stolen A had reached GI, but with DD getting involved the have to snatch it already at some halfway depot, violently as the panel shows us.

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    4. It may as well be that GI actually has nothing to do with the smuggling plan itself and they are just being used as the mule without them knowing it all by coincidence (or to be exact, because they have legit adamantium deliveries, what with having a lab capable of working it, which the smugglers can take advantage of) and they have done nothing wrong here, and DD is being just dumb courtesy of doing his thinking with his balls stuffed in too tight spandex.

      He sure does mess stuff up when it's about the Glenns. Like Spidey with the Stacys.

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    5. Blam -- The poor Widow comes across as a bit of a sad sack in these early issues, clinging to Matt like some lovesick supporting cast member from the Stan Lee days. She really deserves better treatment.

      As far as Matt and Heather go, yeah -- his role in her father's death, if it happened exactly as recapped her, is pretty appalling. But it's par for the course concerning his relationship with Heather. By the end of Miller's run as writer, his treatment of her will have gone far beyond the pale. A few years later, Denny O'Neil would drive her to alcoholism and eventually suicide due to Matt's terrible behavior.

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    6. Wow, Teemu -- I'm either blind, stupid, or both. I totally missed that Daredevil was looking for stolen adamantium to start the issue!

      In my defense, I think I was rocking my baby when I read this one. I'll pin this on splitting attention between him and the book!

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    7. I was already horrified that the original would have been such mess as you described that it to be and it had to be completely re-scripted for the re-publication on Marvel Unlimited. :D

      But at the same time happily reminded of my first copy of our X-book issue that printed the Days of Future Past issues which was missing not only the covers but also the first and the last page and started totally in media res with Big Alex boasting and missed the epilogue.

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    8. My copy of "Days of Future Past" omitted the final page too! It was a squarebound book containing both issues, released somewhere around 1990 or so, and it ended with Angel wondering whether the X-Men had succeeded in changing the future. It did at least have the first page, though.

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    9. Mine was a stables-bound 52-pager and the two outermost sheets had just fallen off due to heavy usage/abuse by the previous owner(s).

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  3. 'Blam -- The poor Widow comes across as a bit of a sad sack in these early issues, clinging to Matt like some lovesick supporting cast member from the Stan Lee days. She really deserves better treatment.'
    Rather ironic, considering what broke them up in the first place was her frustration that Matt refused to treat her as an equal in their partnership. Adds some insight to her discomfort over the corrupted nature of Matt's relationship with Heather at the end of the run.
    Poor Heather. Nobody seems to like her. An AMAZING HEROES study (published after the end of the Miller run) on DD's girlfriends paints her as the worst. Later in Kevin Smith's run, Natasha goes over all of Matt's girls (herself, Karen, Gloriana, Typhoid Mary, Elektra) but makes no mention of Heather whatsoever.

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    1. Interesting, considering Smith seemed to be a big fan of Miller's Daredevil, that he didn't mention Heather. Though -- and perhaps I'm giving him too much credit -- perhaps that was intentional on his part. The Widow may have omitted Heather from her list because, of all the women Matt had been with, Heather was the one for whom he actually broke up with the Widow.

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  4. I mean, Kingpin was a Spider-Man villain until Miller stole him...

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    1. This whole thing will get a hilarious pay in the "Guardian Demon" story by Kevin Smith.

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    2. Yeah, I thought of that at some point after writing the above. I think I was writing based on Miller's statement that he and McKenzie together went after the Spider-villains, and Doc Ock is the only one who they wound up using. Though it's possible the Kingpin was something they discussed, but Miller didn't get to him until after McKenzie had left the series.

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