Friday, April 22, 2022

Feel like Cap would be more used to guys returning from the dead than DD...

Here's a fun one-shot from a few years back:  from 2008, Daredevil & Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1, written by Tito Faraci; translated by Alexandra Hain Cole; adapted by Larry Hama, art by Claudio Villa.
Death-Stalker has returned, which is kind of impressive since he was solidly dead, embedded in a tombstone in his final battle with Daredevil. He's kidnapped several people, including at least one child, to draw out Daredevil; while at Avengers Mansion Nick Fury interrupts Cap's night-fighting exercise to put him on the case. D-S used to have death-touch blasts he stole from A.I.M, and a number of victims had been found dead with no wounds, and that made S.H.I.E.L.D. worry: they were afraid he was from the past, and if he died it could cause a temporal paradox and maybe destroy the universe? 

The child's mother had been given instructions to tip DD to Death-Stalker's location, St. Stephen's Cemetery. (That may or may not be it!) Before Cap goes to follow a trace on the gloves, a S.H.I.E.L.D. tech advises he take stelazine with him, based on what they found in his old lab. At the cemetery, Death-Stalker waits and tries to sort out what's happened to him: a lab accident sent him to the future, where first he discovered his mother's death, and that her death-traps had failed to kill DD.
Let's check here: Death-Stalker had died in 1979's Daredevil #158 (Frank Miller's first issue on art), and the same month this issue came out, so did...Daredevil #113. Friggin' Marvel numbering...alright, counting backwards from legacy-numbered #500, #113 would've been #493...the point being, this would've been a much more experienced DD than the one that last fought Death-Stalker, but he still gets lured into position and hit with a chemical spray. It gives DD sight--horrible kaleidoscope nightmare-sight, but still. D-S seemed to assume DD would wet his pants, sit there crying, and be an easy target; but DD flips away from him, jumps on his back, and starts working on beating his skull in: slight tactical error on Death-Stalker's part. DD is usually far more reluctant to kill, but between the drug and a healthy respect for his foe, he looks like he's going to do it until Cap stops him.
With DD seeing him as a monster, Cap has to fight him for a bit until he can jab him with the stelazine. By then, Death-Stalker has recovered, and threatens the child: either DD takes a shot of death-touch, or the kid does. Cap protests, but quickly realizes "he's running on all cylinders again" and throws his shield, knowing DD would hear and dodge it. D-S is barely conscious, when Cap explains to DD what S.H.I.E.L.D. had feared, and Death-Stalker decides to test that theory, by using his death-touch on himself. In a crack like thunder and flash of light, he disappears, returning to his place in the timeline but with no memory of his future.

Captain America sees that kind of thing all the time, guys coming back from the dead; but I think Daredevil's foes tended to stay in their graves a little more soundly? Death-Stalker's still dead, anyway; could be just a feeling.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

This is true, and that's usually because during and for the most part after Miller, his villains tended to be street-level thugs & costumed criminals with realistic enough gimmicks. Death-Stalker is an obvious exception who could always come back due to time-travel or other means should there be a good enough story to make sense & drive his own narrative further rather than just being filler.