Issue(s): Daredevil #266
Cover Date: May 89
Title: "A beer with the devil"
Credits:
Ann Nocenti - Writer
John Romita Jr. - Penciler
John Romita Jr. - Inker
Marc Siry - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Merry Christmas, everyone. We'll celebrate in a dingy bar full of depressed people, and with a visit from the man in red himself. Well, actually two men in red: Daredevil, and Santa Satan.

A bar full of sad drunk people is a perfect place for Nocenti's scripting style, so:

Eventually a lady sidles up next to DD.

DD tells her that he's punishing himself for cheating on Karen with Typhoid Mary.

The lady responds with a series of dates similar to the lyrics from Rolling Stone's Sympathy For the Devil.

Other people at the bar see the lady differently. This guy thinks "she" looks like a mugger that he just saw outside.

Keep that in mind when Daredevil starts making out with the lady.

You can see that while the makeout session is happening, brother kills brother behind them.

Daredevil eventually figures out that something weird is going on and punches the lady away. Everyone else at the bar thinks he was making out with a guy.

And i guess he was, because (as if you haven't guessed it) the lady is really Satan. Or at least his cousin, Mephisto.

John Romita Jr. (who is inking himself) obviously has a very different interpretation of Mephisto than the standard John Buscema version.

As for what Mephisto is doing in a Daredevil comic (aside from it being Daredevil, i guess), it seems it's because of his recent "death" during Inferno.

Mephisto grabs Daredevil and tells him that he's "almost mine"...

...and then says he'll go easy on him for now and that the thing he loves "about "heroes... is that they've so far to fall". Daredevil wakes up dumped in the snow, and some bums help him over to the soup kitchen.

Merry Christmas!

This issue begins? continues? renews? a period of depressing stories for Daredevil, and it's not the last we'll see of Mephisto (or his family), either.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - alternate form for Mephisto

Chronological Placement Considerations: I'll keep this next to Amazing Spider-Man #314's Christmas issue as long as it doesn't cause any problems.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I've always assumed that the folks who pick up DD at the end are the romantic old lady and the guy who was fed up with his wife. A classic Christmas issue.

This was the story that fully cemented Nocenti's writing for me. I had loved all the earlier ones, but this issue brought it home. I loved and prefer JR JR's take on Mephisto. The way he allows for the brothers' confrontation to end in tragedy while distracting Daredevil is heartbreaking.

I also got a laugh at the nonchalant way that the onlookers dismissed DD's germ swap with some random dude after years of having their butts saved by the red man of Hell's Kitchen. In New York, when one guy is down, everyone is depressed as well. You gotta love it.

I mean sure it's Daredevil but New York, 80's, dingy bar, alcohol and no one tries to assault him for suddenly having the gay disease?

This is a comic book!

Nocenti said this was based on a Christmas she spent drinking in a NYC strip club:
http://13thdimension.com/super-star-holiday-special-a-daredevil-christmas-by-ann-nocenti/

Oh, yeah. Those issues.

I don't know. When reading it last year-ish, I liked the individual issues, but as a whole, the story is moving nowhere and nothing is ever resolved.

But yeah, it's different, that's trur

Did Romita jr even explain why he had given Mephisto such a different look than usual ? I don't remember any other artist revamping such a major character without apparent motives (besides wanting to be creative).

It was being done across comics at the time. Probably the one that sticks out most to me was Kelley Jones on DC's 'Deadman.' Turned him from an Olympian in white makeup to skin-and-bones.