Love and War

Writer Frank Miller, illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz

My read-through of the Frank Miller Daredevil and Elektra comic books continues with the 1986 graphic novel, Daredevil: Love and War. I managed to find one of the seemingly rare initial copies which just has “Daredevil” on the cover – my postman obviously didn’t think it was that big a deal.

Daredevil: Love and War, Marvel — 3.5/5
Love and War is essentially about obsession in a number of forms: the kind of obsession that springs up suddenly and unexpectedly and in the excitement makes you lose focus; the kind that you try to control and even deny but which ends up taking over you; the kind that slowly insinuates itself into your thoughts and before you know it has overturned your priorities; and the kind that has long established roots and is an unwavering and inescapable part of who you are. In all but one of these instances, obsession leads to the characters acting impetuously and without due thought to the consequences, or awareness of how their actions will be perceived. In Love and War, obsession is a mistake.

I get the impression that at this point Miller wasn’t really that interested in writing about Matt Murdock/Daredevil, perhaps feeling that he’d exhausted him in his initial work for early 80s Daredevil, and like the tail-end of that run, where he chose to write episodes from the point of view of the supporting characters and enemies rather than the hero’s, Love and War is focused around the Kingpin and a kidnapper working for him. The writing is similar to that of Elektra: Assassin, which was written in the same year, and uses fragmented internal monologues – it’s an interesting device which has been endlessly copied but which I’ve sometimes found over-stylised and distracting. A bigger problem for me, however, is the art. Bill Sienkiewicz’s work here is undeniably rich and he paints a multi-faceted Manhattan in ways we haven’t previously seen in the Daredevil stories, but, and this is something I never thought I’d say, I dislike some of the choices that Sienkiewicz made here, chiefly with the way he painted the main three protagonists: Daredevil’s exaggerated musculature is almost demonic at times and feels out of character; the kidnapper is given the face of a baboon as a short-cut to making him unattractive; and the Kingpin is drawn as an immense, flat ball which robs him of any menace. Admittedly, the caricatures give the art personality and they are interesting in that sense, but by lightening the tone in this way Sienkiewicz prevents Love and War from having a more profound effect. It’s odd because when I flip through the pages I think, “wow, this looks amazing” but when it comes to actually reading it I find it hard to fully engage. Overall, despite the potential, I simply failed to connect with the story; Love and War, like a distracted Daredevil, doesn’t hit what it’s aiming for.
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Badlands

Writer Frank Miller, penciller John Buscema, inker Gerry Talaoc, colourist Christie Scheele

I’m only reviewing this to be a completist – it’s not essential by any means. Interestingly, in the editorial to this issue it mentions that Frank Miller was at work on two Daredevil spin-offs, writing and also illustrating an Elektra graphic novel and writing a Kingpin graphic novel to be illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz; I guess Miller became too busy with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns because in the end, both Elektra: Assassin and Daredevil: Love and War (which is presumably the Kingpin storyline) were painted by Sienkiewicz and it was another five years before Miller would get to illustrate an Elektra story himself, with Elektra Rides Again.

Daredevil 219, Marvel — 2.5/5
Issue 219 of Daredevil saw Miller returning for a stand-alone story to give the then regular creative team a break. However, his script (which depicts Matt Murdock as a silent stranger who walks into a hard, blue-collar town and finds himself in the middle of a feud) doesn’t feel like a Daredevil story – you don’t get the sense that he’s there for any particular reason and his presence acts more like a catalyst for the story’s characters to release underlying tensions and settle scores. Despite some good characterisations, on its own, Badlands is an unsatisfying one-off.
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H.A.A.R.P

Writer & illustrator Lando

H.A.A.R.P, Decadence — 3.5/5
I expect Lando has heard this a hundred times before but his art is very reminiscent of that of Moebius (and if you’re going to be inspired by someone I can’t think of anyone better). Yet Lando’s is a much bleaker vision and H.A.A.R.P is one of three short stories in his Pyramid Scheme collection that are set in a post-apocalyptic, Ballardian future where water is scarce and life seems on the verge of giving up. Lando’s emaciated figures and the crumbling concrete architecture in this desertified landscape are drawn with a thin, scratchy line – an ink line which itself looks starved of water. The shading and compositions also remind me of Katsuhiro Otomo’s work in Akira and are used to similarly dramatic effect. The story, like all the others, is told without words and is surprisingly touching. The accompanying Pyramid Scheme story itself has a different vibe, starkly surreal using classicism and geometry, and is worthy of the climax to a psychedelic sci-fi film. The collection is published by the British-based Decadence Comics.
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Elektra: Assassin

Writer Frank Miller, illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz

Elektra: Assassin, Epic — 4/5
Even though Frank Miller’s depiction of Hell’s Kitchen in Daredevil was gritty and grounded by recognisability he introduced magical elements and ninjas to give Daredevil enemies that you were unsure if he could defeat. In the eight-issue mini-series Elektra: Assassin, Miller ramps up the weirdness factor with cyborg S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, mind controlled dwarves and mayonnaise-smelling demons (that’s demons that smell of mayonnaise not demons who go around sniffing it – not that one is weirder than the other), yet there are so many unnatural and unrealistic events that the series doesn’t feel part of the same world. It’s true that Miller’s Daredevil spawned dozens of imitators and, for better or worse, ushered in a darker, harder era in superhero comics and so maybe that’s why Miller chose to go in the opposite direction, to effectively tear down the house that he’d built, ridiculing it in the process (underwater ninjas dressed as accountants, briefcases in hand), and confound everyone’s expectations. If that was his aim he couldn’t have chosen a better accomplice than the increasingly experimental Bill Sienkiewicz. The variety of art styles that he used here means that you never know what to expect from each page and you get the sense that he produced this in an inspired frenzy. Sienkiewicz’s black humour works perfectly with Miller’s political satire and Miller’s writing, with multiple narrators and an almost schizophrenic disorder, probably influenced Sienkiewicz’s own in Stray Toasters which was published a couple of years later. Even though Elektra: Assassin runs to eight chapters there is never any slow-down, although it’s surprising that so little of the story is actually told from Elektra’s point of view, Miller choosing instead to make Garrett, the male cyborg agent, the centre of the story. Perhaps he wanted to ensure that Elektra remained an enigma, uncontrollable and unpredictable, and indeed with a wink she simply vanishes.

There’s apparently some debate about whether Elektra: Assassin should be considered canonical, and it certainly feels more like a fevered nightmare rather than part of the same universe that she was introduced into, but regardless, it’s a hugely inventive and genre-defying series – and another reason why I’m such a Sienkiewicz nut.
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Daredevil

Writers Roger McKenzie (158-166) & Frank Miller (168-191), pencillers Frank Miller (158-184, 191) & Klaus Janson (185-190), inker Klaus Janson, colourists Glynis Wein (158-178) & Klaus Janson (179-191)

In a bright orange and jagged-edged box in the bottom left corner of the opening page of Daredevil 158 is written: “From time to time a truly great new artist will explode upon the scene like a bombshell! [We] confidently predict newcomer, lanky Frank Miller, is just such an artist!” – they certainly weren’t wrong, but it was a slo-mo explosion. I’ve always been curious to see how good these comics really were, having previously only read Miller from Ronin onwards. The 33 issues on which he worked, between 1979 and ’83, can be found collected in the three volumes of Daredevil: Visionaries: Frank Miller.

Daredevil 158-167, Marvel — 1.5/5
For me, the hackneyed old-school writing by Roger McKenzie and the somewhat formal artwork by a Frank Miller either yet to be given the freedom to run with his own style or not yet having found it, makes reading this initial run a bit of a chore. It’s only interesting as a reference point for the work that would follow.

Daredevil 168-178, Marvel — 2.5/5
Once Miller and Klaus Janson had proved themselves to Marvel they were allowed to flex their muscles a bit more and you can sense the shift as they gradually turned Daredevil into a smarter, more relevant title. With Miller now taking over writing duties (after threatening to quit over dissatisfaction with McKenzie’s scripts) there was a noticeable increase in depth to the characterisations and the first thing that he did was to introduce a new character, conceived to act as a counterpoint to Daredevil, the strong and tragic Elektra. Allegedly, Daredevil became one of the most widely read titles at the time amongst female readers, no doubt due to Miller providing a relatable and liberated heroine who answered to no-one. Elektra had skills and vulnerabilities that made her an equal to Daredevil, and her introduction created a dynamic that remains one of the most memorable in Marvel’s history; the pages in which they both appear are tense and indeed electric and Miller knew to ration these moments for maximum effect. But it’s not all good: the Bullseye and Kingpin storylines still struggle with ham-fisted dialogue and constant exposition; the use of thought balloons to explain every action is tedious; some stories move at such a rapid pace that they don’t provide any time for the characters to meaningfully reflect or make you care what’s happening; the art is inconsistent, sometimes inventive and kinetic, other times lacking fluidity or finesse; perhaps worst of all, Daredevil is just too self-righteous a goody two-shoes to make you want to root for him and yet, aside from Elektra, there aren’t any antagonists with enough charisma to inspire a switch in allegiance. Perhaps I’d overlook these problems if I’d originally read these issues when I was younger and they were now filtered through the lens of nostalgia, but I imagine Miller would be the first to acknowledge that he was learning on the job. There was still some way for Daredevil to go; you can sense that Miller and Janson were finding ways to reinvent the title and it must have been tricky trying to steer it into darker territory without frightening the traditionalists.

Daredevil 179-191, Marvel — 4.5/5
But they got there. From issue 179, Janson took over the colouring from Glynis Wein and the team of Miller and Janson really began to gel. However, it was when Janson started doing the pencilling as well from issue 185, using only the roughest of story layouts from Miller as a guide, that I think the art truly broke free from the rigidity of what had gone before. Larger, more iconic panels with less reliance on text gave the pages so much more power. It’s actually really surprising to me that the visually strongest issues were the ones were Miller took a back seat. Janson was very economical with both line and composition and the lack of distractions meant that the fast paced action was more impactful. Of course, none of this would matter if the scripts were stiff or patronising to the reader but Miller really began to nail it. There is an emphasis on introspection and soul-searching, not just from Daredevil but amongst almost all the supporting characters that makes each story feel crucial to the development of the series. Bullseye was at last given a powerful storyline and issue 181 is incredible and rightly celebrated as the best ever Daredevil issue. Seeds for future plots were sown in intriguing ways and Miller injected some great moments of humour to prevent the series from becoming over-wrought. Miller also started to narrate individual issues from one character’s point of view, giving the reader greater insights into their motivations. Daredevil himself, interestingly, became a poor excuse for a role-model during this final run (for example, his treatment and manipulation of his girlfriend is shameful, and his selfish pursuit of Elektra puts his friends and allies in danger) but ironically, it’s these widening cracks in his previously unimpeachable persona which make him a much more engaging and realistic hero. And it’s the emphasis on reality that was probably Miller’s most important innovation in Daredevil, effectively giving birth to a whole new generation of writers who began placing superheroes in believable worlds, a style obviously still used today. It’s surprising that Miller left Daredevil just as it had reached such heights but presumably he was being offered opportunities to do anything he wanted and he embraced them. You can understand how, fresh from turning the title into such a commercial and creative success, fans were so hyped about his next projects, the Wolverine mini-series and the futuristic samurai epic, Ronin.
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Big Numbers

Writer Alan Moore, illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz

It’s always a little heartbreaking when your favourite artists are, for whatever reason, unable to finish projects that are close to their hearts, especially when those projects are abandoned partway through production, leaving everyone with a great big “if only”. Alan Moore, unfortunately, has two such projects: The Ballad of Halo Jones and Big Numbers.

Big Numbers, Mad Love
Conceived as an antidote to mainstream superhero comics after Moore had acrimoniously stopped working for DC, Big Numbers tells the varied stories of ordinary residents of (North)Hampton and sets up how their lives will soon be changed by the construction of an American-style shopping centre. I admit that at the time of publication in 1990 this scenario didn’t exactly get my hand reaching for my wallet, but off the back of Moore’s success with comics like Watchmen and with stunning, fully-painted artwork from Bill Sienkiewicz, 60,000 people were curious enough to commit to the first issue – considering that very few people now seem to have even heard of this comic that’s a pretty astounding number. Moore’s gift for natural and witty dialogue and an allegorical approach to social commentary brings to mind the writing of two other Alans, Bennett and Bleasdale, as well as Tony Marchant’s Holding On, and reading Big Numbers I was actually surprised at how quickly I was drawn into the characters’ lives. This is some of the best writing from Moore that I’ve seen and with A Small Killing being produced around the same time he was clearly at a creative peak. It’s not always the case with Moore but here his writing is equally matched by the artwork – Sienkiewicz’s black and white illustrations use a photography-based style that is perfectly judged and it looks like he invested a lot of time in it. And that leads us into why Big Numbers was abandoned – only the first two issues of a projected twelve were ever published, on Moore’s own Mad Love imprint, with Sienkiewicz, perhaps stymied by his own perfectionism, finding himself overwhelmed by the workload. He did actually complete the artwork for a third issue, moving to a looser (and faster) style, but for perhaps personal reasons, Moore shut down Mad Love before it could be printed. (A few years ago some photocopies of issue three surfaced on eBay.) Another company, Tundra, put up a lot of money to keep the comic going and with Sienkiewicz out, artwork duties fell to his young assistant Al Columbia, but apparently Columbia felt his work didn’t live up to previous standards and he himself destroyed his own artwork for issue four, thereby pretty much killing off the whole project. Like Ian Gibson with Halo Jones, Sienkiewicz seems willing to at least discuss the possibility of returning to it; and so the fate of Hampton’s residents rest with Moore – but it wouldn’t surprise me if he likes the idea that, by not completing it, their lives will never be displaced by the uncaring corporations about to invade and colonise their town.
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The Man Without Fear

Writer Frank Miller, penciller John Romita Jr, inker Al Williamson, colourist Christie Scheele

I recently bought End of Days, the Daredevil equivalent of The Dark Knight Returns, but instead of reading it straight away I thought I’d go back to read some previous classic Daredevil stories, starting with the definitive origin story by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. (It’s worth mentioning that 1993’s The Man Without Fear was actually the last Daredevil story that Miller worked on, so reading this first isn’t chronological in terms of publication history, only in terms of the character’s life.)

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, Marvel — 4/5
Although this was originally published as a five-issue series, The Man Without Fear essentially breaks down into three acts, which makes sense once you learn that Miller originally wrote this as a script for a Daredevil film that never made it into production (the 2003 film ended up using the graphic novel as source material). Going from his bullied childhood and early training, through to his first encounter with Elektra whilst at college, and finally to a confrontation with the Kingpin’s soldiers in Hell’s Kitchen, this has the flavour of a gritty, late 70s vigilante thriller. Miller was born to write about New York and both he and Romita vividly depict a seedy, decaying city bereft of hope and optimism. Befitting a story about a blind man, The Man Without Fear is all about sounds, from the patter of running feet and the pulsing of heartbeats, to the call of police sirens and the crack of splintering bones. It does feel slightly rushed at times, as if the original film script had been ruthlessly edited to only include the essentials and the book could have been given more room to breathe with some wordless atmospheric panels, something Miller himself does to great effect in his own art. Whilst he will never be one of my favourite characters, by showing Matt Murdock/Daredevil as a tortured and imperfect hero who makes mistakes and breaks his own rules in the red mist of action, Miller adds enough layers to this character that he can’t fail to strike a chord, and that’s what makes The Man Without Fear such a page-turner.
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