Daredevil recaps three years worth of issues: Let us never speak of this again.

This was a comic I had forgotten I had, and to be honest, #290 is such a favorite of mine it overshadows this. (#290 is a Daredevil-Bullseye fight that is incredible. We'll take a look at it another time.) But #291 is writer Ann Nocenti's last issue of Daredevil, and as such she wraps up at least a few loose threads from her run, while leaving some things for the new writer to play with.

Nocenti's tenure had it's ups and downs, and while she had John Romita Jr. on art for much of it, it isn't held up as a classic the way the Frank Miller/Klaus Janson stuff is. It was a little more political and philosophical, and less ninja; and to her credit, she tried new things and left Elektra dead. Still, I swear there are like six Christmas issues in her run, and it really plays hell with 'Marvel Time' when you do that: another Christmas is here, and what did DD do last year? Well, he was unconscious in a ditch for an entire issue...(I'm almost serious about that one, it was an Inferno crossover.)

Nocenti and Romita I believe also created Blackheart, Mephisto's son; object of a recent Marvel Legend and I think also appearing in the upcoming Ghost Rider movie. Mephisto was a recurring villain in their run, culminating in the trip to hell Daredevil's not thinking about up there. That's a bit of a disservice of her work though: it was traumatic, but not out of character for Matt to leave New York City for a while. Also, in the Marvel Universe, going to hell or having to punch out Ultron are just things that could and probably will happen: it's not like he had Daredevil-Mite or something. Of course, Nocenti's run also gave us Bullet, Shotgun, and Bushwacker...

I liked this panel, though, because I could very much identify with the need to examine some aspect of life once, and once only; rather than spend more time than necessary moping/obsessing/drunk over past traumas. Of course, by this point Matt's head is pretty much back on track: he has a lot of things to fix, but he's not amnesiac, or convincing himself he imagined his trip to hell, or getting back-to-back asskickings while guest-starring in Captain America. (To be fair, Cap was tripped out, and Crossbones pummelled, and unmasked, Matt like five minutes after Cap.)

More Daredevil tomorrow, I think. In other news, I watched V for Vendetta today, and quite liked it. (I really need to sit down and read the book, though. I usually like Alan Moore, although I don't seem to go out of my way to get it like I will for some creators.) This may sound dumb, but I liked the scene where V sets up his logo in dominos: hobbies are fun! I know it's a visual metaphor, but I just prefer to think after a hard day of sedition and fomenting dissent, V likes to relax with a project or two. And I also enjoy calling cards: that would be half the fun of being a masked vigilante, planning your signature, like your symbol in flames or a card that smokes or a pile of chemical webbing...hmm. One of these things doesn't seem right.