DAREDEVIL #191

"ROULETTE”
Writer/Penciler : Frank Miller | Inker : Terry Austin
Colorist: Lynn Varley | Letterer: Joe Rosen | Editor: Denny O’Neil

The Plot: Daredevil visits Bullseye in the hospital and plays a round of Russian Roulette with him while his inner monolgooue reflects on a boy who recently shot a schoolmate after seeing DD beat up his father, and on his own father as well.

In the end, DD reveals that there are no bullets in the gun.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: For the most part there are none. This is the final issue of Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL run and is a stand-alone installment. However we do learn that Matt’s dad once hit him after he got into a fight with some classmates.

However, way back when I covered issue 169, Miller's second issue as writer, I noted that he had provided a nice monologue from Daredevil on why, no matter how bad things got, he could never actually kill Bullseye. This issue gives us a very nice bookend to that speech as we see that, sure enough, even at his darkest, Daredevil will hew to his beliefs and Bullseye will live.

My Thoughts: So Matt’s dad once hit him while in a drunken stupor. Because heaven forbid our hero’s idolization of his father be completely earnest. There just has to be some kind of darkness under the surface, doesn’t there? Miller tries to sell this as the moment Matt decided he would become a lawyer, when he recognized that his father had lost control and that laws exist to punish people for doing such things — but why? Isn’t it just possible that a guy could become an attorney and a superhero simply because he was instilled with good values by a father he looked up to? Isn’t that enough?

Apparently not.

It's kind of odd that Miller ends his run this way. The story has nothing to do with any of his ongoing plots. No Foggy to be seen; no one, in fact, aside from Daredevil and Bullseye, plus Jack Murdock and the one-off characters in DD's flashbacks. Miller already wrapped up Heather, Elektra, and the Kingpin; I guess he figured he should give Bullseye a sendoff too.

And Klaus Janson is gone. I don't know why he left, but I suppose it's nice, at least, that Frank Miller's DAREDEVIL ends with full Miller pencils, and Terry Austin does a great job inking Miller, so while Janson's distinct look is missed, it's not the end of the world.

One other note about this one. Try to think of it from Bullseye’s perspective. Actually, no need to try. Here you go. This is the full issue from Bullseye’s point of view (remember, DD never actually says anything to Bullseye here; it's all an internal monologue):

It’s kinda funny but also super creepy.

And now for some thoughts on Miller's DAREDEVIL run as a whole. Do I like it? Obviously. I’ve read it about four times now in the past fifteen-ish years. I already owned it in trade paperback format, but I sold those trades off to upgrade to the Omnibus. This is the definitive Daredevil — at least for the most part.

I have a lot of all-time favorite Marvel runs. I wrote about many of them a few years back. But with nearly all of them, I can find some nits to pick here and there, and Miller’s DAREDEVIL is no exception. I love how he handled the supporting cast, I love the crime noir influence. The comedy pretty much always hits its mark. It’s very well-written stuff, and it’s really hard to believe that Miller was only twenty-four years old when his first issue as writer hit the stands, and twenty-six when his run ended. His writing conveyed a sense of worldliness and maturity well beyond his years. I can’t imagine anyone I knew in my twenties churning out a product this deep and throught-provoking.

But, as the run goes along, it becomes plain that Miller wants to deconstruct the character of Matt Murdock, and I really don’t like that. I know deconstructionism was all the rage in the eighties, and certainly Miller was at the forefront of that movement with material such as DAREDEVIL and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. It’s perhaps telling that my preferred Miller Batman is YEAR ONE, which is mostly more of a construction of the character. I also prefer Miller’s original DAREDEVIL to his later run, also a deconstruction, the famous “Born Again” arc.

I just like my superheroes to be super. To be better than me; better than anyone I know. And Miller’s Daredevil starts off that way, through a number of issues rife with heroic moments and nobility. But by the end, Matt Murdock has become a manipulative bully, and Daredevil has become a hero who revels in wanton violence. Mind you, this all happens after Elektra’s death, and Miller makes it plain that our hero's actions are a result of that event, but it’s still a bit much, especially when the character has no real overt, dramatic redemptive moment other than the “purification” of Elektra which is way too low-key to make up for his previous behavior.

So yeah, Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL is very good. Well plotted, well written, and entertaining pretty much all the way through, and it’s great to watch the evolution of Miller as both a writer and an artist within its pages. I just think he begins to woefully mistreat the title character as he nears the end of the run, which is a real shame, because it sets a precedent which still hasn’t been overcome by anyone to this day (at least not for any extended period of time): the idea that Matt Murdock is kind of an unstable violence-junkie.