Issue(s): Daredevil #224
Cover Date: Nov 85
Title: "Abe"
Credits:
Christopher Priest - Writer
Geof Isherwood & Dan Jurgens - Penciler
Mel Candido & Bruce D. Patterson - Inker
Craig Anderson - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
This is a fill-in, and one issue before Denny O'Neil's final Daredevil story before Frank Miller's return. But i'll take a Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest story any day. Also note Dan Jurgens as a co-penciler; Jurgens had been at DC for several years but this is his first work at Marvel, and it won't be a common occurrence.

The super-antagonist in this story is meant to be a man named Mike Stone, who fishes the Sunturion armor out of the water off the coast of Florida and uses it to get vengeance on his corrupt drug-dealing former boss, Richard Knox (Stone was a courier for Knox's organization, and was fired when he was caught dealing on the side).

Daredevil is put into the position of having to defend the crimelord from Sunturion. As usual with Priest, the set-up is done very well. Knox takes advantage of Daredevil's morality to get DD to help him.

During the fight with Sunturion...

...Daredevil realizes the Sunturion doesn't have a hearbeat, and when he tears open the armor, Mike Stone dissipates.

It turns out that Stone was actually being converted into energy to power the suit. Daredevil is so rattled by the discovery that he accidentally calls Mr. Knox, "Mr. Stone".

That's an interesting enough story, but Priest adds another layer with the titular "Abe", a blind janitor that was on the scene when Daredevil first got onto this Sunturion's trail. He and DD bond, and DD promises to help retrieve Abe's locket containing a picture of his dead wife (which Sunturion accidentally picked up in a mistaken suitcase scenario).

At the end of the story, it turns out that the locket is actually empty, something neither blind character would be aware of.

Really nice stuff.

Even though we saw the original Sunturion die over Florida and that's where Stone fishes out the armor, it will turn out that this is not that suit. Instead, Roxxon created a second suit trying to reconstitute the original Sunturion, and lost it in the ocean. The retcon was added while bringing back the original in 1987's Iron Man annual #9.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• There's no explanation of where the Sunturion suit came from, but we saw the original Sunturion dissipate over the Gulf of Mexico in Iron Man #143-144.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A