DAREDEVIL #181

"LAST HAND”
Story & Art : Frank Miller | Finished Art & Colors: Klaus Janson
Letters: Joe Rosen | Editor: Denny O’Neil | Supervisor : Jim Shooter

The Plot: In prison, Bullseye fantasizes about revenge on Daredevil. Upon learning that Elektra has replaced him as the Kingpin’s assassin, Bullseye accepts an offer for a TV interview and uses the event to stage a daring escape. He learns from Eric Slaughter that Elektra has been assigned the task of killing Foggy Nelson, so Bullseye tails Nelson the next day until Elektra makes her move. When she ultimately lets Foggy go, Bullseye attacks and kills her.

As he spies on Nelson & Murdock identifying Elektra's body in the morgue, Bullseye suspects Matt Murdock is actually his arch-enemy. He goes to Matt’s brownstone and attacks, but Daredevil appears to fight him off. Ultimately DD wins, and this time, rather than saving Bullseye’s life, he lets the assassin drop several stories, crippling him.

Later, as Bullseye lays in traction, unable to move or speak, he fantasizes about revenge on Daredevil.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Bullseye is incarcerated under the name Benjamin Pondexter, which dates back to the Roger McKenzie days, though here he identifies it as one of many aliases he's used and refuses to disclose his true name.

Bullseye recalls Daredevil saving his life in issue 172, though there is no footnote. Also, even though his tumor was removed in issue 169, he still suffers agonizing headaches as a side effect. He feigns one of these headaches to facilitate his escape.

Bullseye is told about Elektra by the Punisher, recently arrived in prison. This is setup for a storyline coming a couple issues from now (and also a reminder of a time when the mass-murdering Punisher was absolutely not a protagonist!).

Bullseye is interviewed by Tom Snyde, apparently a parody of late night TV host Tom Snyder, who first appeared in issue 169 interviewing Matt on television — which was also a Bullseye-centric story, strangely enough.

Eric Slaughter makes his first showing since issue 168, and his physical appearance has changed somewhat. He used to have a distinctive look all his own; now he sort of resembles IRON MAN’s Justin Hammer (who was himself based visually on Peter Cushing).

Foggy recognizes Elektra from college as “Matt’s girl,” prompting her to let him go rather than kill him.

My Thoughts: It's another first person narrated issue, this time from Bullseye (interesting we've had two of these so far, but neither from the series’ title character). Miller does some fun stuff with the technique, having Bullseye imagine things while the artwork depicts those things happening — sometimes correctly and other times differently from what Bullseye imagines.

But there are a few things far more important about this one than who narrates it. First is the fact that Bullseye correctly deduces Daredevil’s secret identity and brings that information before the Kingpin, who laughs it off despite mountains of evidence in its favor. Of course Bullseye himself is soon convinced he was wrong, but it seems like a bit of a stretch that he'd back off so easily. It feels more likely to me that, rather than deciding his initial idea was wrong and the incident at the morgue was a hoax, he would more likely look at it the other way around and continue to believe his theory, convinced that DD’s coverup at Matt’s home was the deception. This could've been an interesting way to go: Bullseye, the only criminal around who knows for sure that Daredevil and Matt Murdock are one and the same, is unable to prove it to anyone else.

But it seems Bullseye is easily convinced he was wrong and writes off his idea immediately. Interestingly, a few years later during Miller’s brief second run on DAREDEVIL for the “Born Again” serial, Kingpin will once again be presented with the idea that Daredevil and Murdock are one and the same, but this time he will believe the it and act upon the information.

And then of course we have the death of Elektra. Miller introduced her in his very first issue as writer, #168. He followed this up with an occasional sub-plot page before her next major appearance in issue 174, at which point she essentially became a regular supporting cast member. Now, a mere thirteen issues after he brought her in, Miller kills her off. Certainly this is not the end of Elektra's story, and Miller will get great mileage out of her in death over the final year of his run, but it still feels almost like a waste. She was a promising character with an interesting backstory, but at this point it almost seems she was created merely to die — eventually.

But perhaps that's Miller’s point here — death is random and comes for everyone at some point, and no one, regardless of talent or promise, can stop it.

Lastly, a minor note: I've always found it fascinating that the “Special Double-Size Issue!” blurb at the top of the cover is nearly identical to the one that adorned the classic UNCANNY X-MEN #137. It's not precisely the same, but it's a very close match — so it seems someone actually grabbed a copy of the X-MEN issue and more-or-less reproduced that blurb specifically for DAREDEVIL 181 as well, for some peculiar reason. Marvel didn't have any sort of standardized paste-up for this sort of thing at the time; most such issues had their own unique blurbs — so it seems odd to me that anyone went to this much trouble rather than just laying out a newly-lettered one.