No Born Again today? Boo.

I've had Disney+ since like day one, on some cheap introductory offer that got progressively less cheap later, but I'm not sure it's ever been a huge value: sure, I can watch Avengers movies whenever, but I think I can count on my thumbs how many times they've had two new shows that I wanted to watch running new episodes at the same time. (To be fair, I'll watch new Doctor Who soon!) Still, I really did like Daredevil: Born Again, even though I was very disappointed at the end of episode 8, "Isle of Joy," that a creator or two didn't get their names in the thank-you section at the end. 

Spoilers after the break!  Read more.

In that episode, Bullseye--or rather 'Benjamin Poindexter,' since the show doesn't always use costumes or names--breaks out of prison; and he does it about the same way he did in this issue: from 1990, Captain America #372, "Sold on Ice!" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Ron Lim, inks by Danny Bulanadi.

This was the start of the bi-weekly serial "Streets of Poison," best remembered for Captain America on crack; but Mark Gruenwald was trying to reconcile how, in the "Just Say No" era, was it okay that Cap got his powers from drugs? And the answer is yes, of course it is, because he got those drugs as part of a complicated regiment administered and monitored by the finest doctors and scientists in the world at the time; it wasn't something he was peer-pressured into huffing out of a glass pipe in an alley. Cap ends the storyline after a blood transfusion, with the Super-Soldier Serum no longer in his blood; but Gruenwald himself would backpedal on that shortly: the changes the Serum made in Cap were more than just serum floating around his bloodstream. Yet, despite starting on an iffy premise, "Streets of Poison" is a banger, with the cracked-out Cap becoming increasingly deranged, a Kingpin vs. Red Skull fight, and guest-star Daredevil getting wrecked so hard he'd lose his memory in his own title! (Setting up another classic, building up to DD #290!) But, today we're here for Bullseye's escape:

Most of his introduction here, regards his specialized cell in an upstate prison: because he could throw about anything as a deadly weapon, precautions had to be taken, like him sleeping on a mattress cemented to the ground and forced to eat mush out of a bowl on the floor like a dog. Was it cruel and unusual punishment? Gruenwald mentions the ACLU trying to get him moved; but after a hunger strike, Bullseye "trips" and smashes his face into the wall of his cell. When the guards go to check on him, Bullseye spits one of his own teeth into a guard's eye! Even with a mangled mouth, his cruelty still shows, as he tells the guard "Haff no illusions. You're gonna die." It's a horrifying bit, that Bullseye would use later in "Streets," as he spits a false tooth at Crossbones to get out of a headlock. (Crossbones is a quality thug, but not in Bullseye's league, except up close!) I'm not sure if I've seen Bullseye spit teeth since; although he very likely could've in his Thunderbolts stint.

Lim and Bulanadi are at their best in this serial; but Gruenwald may have unintentionally sold ice, as a weight-lost supplement: tech doofus Fabian is described as having lost 30 pounds since the last time Cap had seen him! Sure, he was paranoid and weird now, but still. Anyway, they should have got a mention at the end of the episode; but I'll thank them here.