DAREDEVIL #160

"IN THE HANDS OF BULLSEYE"
Script: Roger McKenzie | Pencils: Frank Miller | Inks: Klaus Janson
Lettering: Joe Rosen | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editors: Mary Jo Duffy & Allen Milgrom | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Bullseye ambushes Black Widow at her apartment and takes her prisoner, then leaves a note for Daredevil.

Later, after a trip to the cemetery with Heather Glen and his friends, Matt Murdock changes into Daredevil and goes to visit Black Widow. He finds the note in her ransacked apartment and goes out to find Bullseye. At Josie’s Bar & Grill, he beats up a room full of Eric Slaughter’s men and tells Turk to get the word out that he's searching for Bullseye.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: At the cemetery, we learn that Heather’s father died while Matt was “…too busy playing Daredevil to help.” This scene also confirms for new readers that Heather does indeed know Matt’s secret identity.

Daredevil visits Ben Urich for information on Bullseye and Urich takes the opportunity to question DD about his friendship with Matt Murdock.

A footnote reminds us that Eric Slaughter’s gang attacked Daredevil last issue, and DD now suspects that Slaughter was hired by Bullseye.

This issue features the first appearance of Josie and her infamous bar, where Daredevil can often be found shaking down informants and shattering plate glass windows.

Matt spies a couple on the street who he believes haven't got a care in the world. For the record, this particular month, the male half of that couple can be found coping with the apparent death of his aunt, battling the Lizard, and teaming up with Nick Fury, Shang-Chi, and Black Widow against Viper and the Silver Samurai (presumably before the Widow was kidnapped, of course).

My Thoughts: Despite the overly short summary above, this may actually be the densest Roger McKenzie/Frank Miller DAREDEVIL so far. Rather than one extended fight scene as in the prior two installments, this issue features a nicely choreographed skirmish between Bullseye and Black Widow in the opening pages, a brawl at Josie’s to close things out, and the furtherance of a couple sub-plots in between. From a pacing standpoint, this is much closer to my “ideal” comic than either of its predecessors.

On the other hand, McKenzie plays with some bizarre narrative gimmick here that I'm not quite sure I understand. The opening scene is labeled “Epilogue” and features Black Widow arriving home to find Bullseye waiting. The final page features a “Prologue” wherein Daredevil announces his intention to find Bullseye. I'm going to assume McKenzie, a professional writer, knows the difference between an epilogue and a prologue. And really, I have no problem with the “Prologue” we get here. The final scene is the start of Daredevil’s hunt for Bullseye, so it's fine.

It's just the “Epilogue” to start the issue that confounds me. What is it an epilogue to? If the previous issue had featured Black Widow and Daredevil on some adventure together, the it'd be fine — this would be the epilogue to that tale, transplanted into the following issue. But that's not the case at all. The scene isn't an epilogue to anything and as a result, it comes across as McKenzie being a bit to cute or clever for his own good.