Random Happenstance

Cue up the "why would you say something so controversial" meme, but Ann Nocenti is my favorite Daredevil writer by a country mile, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. But, when did I start buying her run myself; since I'm pretty sure I was reading a friend's for quite a while. Which gets me to today's book, where the cover was very familiar, but opening it up I had no recollection of reading this one! From 1987, Daredevil #244, "Touch Me" Written by Ann Nocenti, pencils by Louis Williams, inks by Tony DeZuniga.

Shoot, I'm not sure I've read the previous issue now either, but Karen Page recaps the hell out of it here: clutching Matt's red glove, she laments that she killed him...maybe. She had been developing a complex: the same hands that Matt used to lovingly caress her, were also the ones he used to beat the snot out of bad guys. Karen admits she had wanted his hands clean, figuratively, although probably also literally; and had been nagging him to give up the violence. Now left holding his bloody glove, she felt responsible. But, not that far away, Matt was waking up in a pile of rubble, after getting the snot beat out of him, by some kind of voodoo creature. Missing his mask, he improvises one out of strips--keeping his eyes uncovered, which I don't think he usually bothers to do--but also notices that not only was his glove missing, that hand didn't work. Still, the creature had a distinctive stench, that Matt would be able to follow...just as soon as he could move.

With few leads, Karen brings in young junkie Eric, and cop Bucko Leary, who both want to bring down dealer Danny Guitar. Guitar was using a combination of "bad drugs" and voodoo threats to build an army, and was going to hit a warehouse that night for more troops; but he wasn't doing great himself, as we see in a three-page sequence where he sweatily remembers freaking out in a voodoo ceremony in Haiti and running away to New York. That feels like Nocenti was trying to make Guitar a victim himself--just about everybody in her run has been hurt bad by someone or something--but also doesn't seem especially culturally sensitive. Just like there's more than mummies to Egypt, Haiti wasn't all voodoo: the art was nice, but I wonder if this was researched more than re-watching Live and Let Die. (When I was young, and my heart was an open book--no, stop that!) Shirtless and painted, Guitar robs some fellow dealers for cash to flee further; putting his faith in the gun and seemingly not even realizing he had been marked.

The voodoo priestess's Nameless One had "dragged (Guitar's) apartment back to the ritual ground," and also advises that Daredevil--Matt--now believes his fists are useless: they had divined his secret name, and as such had power over him. But having no name, his power couldn't be taken; although the priestess tells him to wear DD's mask: "Wear the cloth of a man of courage, and you steal his courage." (Maybe Nocenti did do some research!) At the warehouse, Guitar is alone, and the cops actually capture him alive, shooting him through the hand: Leary had wanted to show up Daredevil, and brags even as Karen begs him to find DD. The Nameless One then strikes, first from the shadows, then in the open; just rolling through the cops. When he grabs Karen, she notices he was carrying the mask (somewhere...) and grabs it; just in time for Daredevil to arrive! He takes a bit of thumping, before Karen can give him the mask back--and more importantly, her faith. 

After a lengthier fight than we see here, Daredevil defeats the Nameless One, which then dissolves. Guitar is left seemingly catatonic, as if scared to silence, possibly forever. Later, Matt wonders if he should've been involved in this one at all: would the Nameless One have just done its business, then left? Karen then tells Matt, she understands he only uses his fists to save lives. As they embrace, the voodoo priestess and the Nameless One watch from a distance, and think they may meet again, possibly as allies. Not yet, anyway! Also, if I was a less-trusting soul, I would wonder if this wasn't building up Matt and Karen, for a bigger fall: we were coming up on the first appearance of Typhoid Mary in DD #254.