Issue(s): Daredevil #225
Cover Date: Dec 85
Title: "...And then you die!"
Credits:
Denny O'Neil - Writer
David Mazzucchelli - Penciler
David Mazzucchelli - Inker
Craig Anderson - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Denny O'Neil's last full issue of Daredevil (next issue is co-written with Frank Miller) and he ends on a high note. Well, a creative high. Thematically, we start really low, with the Vulture, who like everyone else in this issue is going through a dark period, robbing Heather Glenn's grave. Matt Murdock was on the scene to say goodbye to Heather, and he fights the Vulture off, although with difficulty.

Matt returns to his law office to find that it's no longer his law office. Nelson & Murdock are behind on the rent and are getting kicked out. Foggy lets Matt have it, even going for a really low blow.

Foggy leaves, but Matt realizes that he's headed for the roof. Foggy is contemplating suicide, and the Vulture is there to egg him along.

The grave-robbing and this are both an interesting use of the Vulture that brings him closer to his namesake (i've noted that Kurt Busiek used the Vulture in the opposite way in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #20). Mazzucchelli's art is great at creating a moody depressing atmosphere that fits this issue perfectly.

Matt shows up as Daredevil, and the Vulture seems to indicate that he's close to figuring out some secrets.

In the subsequent fight, Daredevil brings the Vulture indoors to limit his flying abilities. In a bit of subtle humor, they first crash into a building that has a couple on a couch together, so i thought it was a home, but turns out to be an office building, so i think somebody was engaging in some hanky-panky on the man's time.

Anyway, the Daredevil/Vulture fight winds up in the basement, and Daredevil tells the Vulture he's beating the Vulture up because of what he represents: "The death and decay that eat away at a man until he surrenders... the horror that pulls you down into the pit!" Daredevil tells him he's not the surrendering type, and he leaves the basement and enters the light of day.

Heavily, obviously metaphorical, but it works really well and could have served as a turning point on the series if O'Neil had stayed on, although Foggy's issues still seem unresolved. Instead it's a great end to his run.

During the battle, DD is observed by a silver bird who turns out to be the Black Crow. The Crow tells a rock that Daredevil is worthy, and the rock responds that he must "return to him and do what must be done", or die. Nothing comes of it.

Quality Rating: A

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Matt has been "so frazzled" since he returned from Italy in Daredevil #221 that he hasn't had time to visit Heather's grave earlier than this.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Kinda glad that the Black Crow didnt reappear in DD. He made sense fighting Captain America as a kind of AmerIndian political statement maker against historical atrocities. He would lose his significance if he fought DD (who couldn't be said to represent "America" the way Cap did)

Isn't "I can seldom follow the workings of diseased minds" a rough quote from what Christopher Reeve said to Gene Hackman in the first "Superman" movie?

This is my favorite single issue of O'Neil's run, but one oddity stood out to me: that Daredevil immediately recognized the grave robber as Vulture, who he's never met. A sighted hero could easily have seen Vulture's picture in the Bugle or such, but Matt seems like he'd need a relatively detailed written description, as well as a radar sense that's less unique from vision than I'd like.

Great issue. I loved the way the Vulture was used, and the idea that Daredevil would bump into a Spider-Man villain. What's disappointing is that I had long wondered about the unresolved Black Crow cliffhanger, and now I learn the story was apparently never made. Do you know why ? Was that simply because O'Neil left the book and no one cared about it ? Didn't the story even appear in an annual or something ?

If you want to close that door, you could just say it was to recruit him to fight the Cat, which he got Hawkeye for, in his next appearance in http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/marvel_fanfare_39_hawkeye.shtml

While this is a really good issue, great art, and good use of the Vulture, I wasn't really happy with DD winning in the end. Non-powered heroes like DD and Moon Knight are better off fighting thugs than villains with actual power. (One of the reasons that I liked it when the Fly kicked MK's butt). While I think DD could beat super-powered foes it should be once in a blue moon.