Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1991-12-01 01:07:10 |
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Daredevil #298
Issue(s): Daredevil #298
Cover Date: Nov 91
Title: Last Rites: "Turnabout"
Credits:
D.G. Chichester - Writer
Lee Weeks - Penciler
Al Williamson - Inker
Ralph Macchio - Editor
Review/plot:
Matt Murdock has been staying at the office that he shares with Foggy Nelson. At the beginning of issue #298, he is attacked by armored men at the office.
And he's taken out.
They turn out to be SHIELD agents. In fact, one was Dum Dum Dugan.
Meanwhile, Kingpin is worrying about Typhoid Mary's disappearance. He is also being petty about a waiter at the Tavern on the Green not knowing that he's not supposed to get a check. And he's cutting his ties with "Strang", the man behind the organization that helped the Kingpin create the news network that is supposed to help him gain legitimacy.
Matt Murdock is brought to Nick Fury, who reveals that he knows Matt's secret ID, and that the Kingpin is mixed up in a relationship with Hydra. (Strang is in fact the Hydra agent Garotte, and Hydra has been funding the Kingpin's news network plans for their own purposes). Fury tells Daredevil that he's already told "the usuals - Spider-Man, Punisher" to lay off of the Kinpin so that SHIELD can run a sting operation, and he asks Daredevil to do the same. Daredevil isn't happy about that idea. He tells Fury he'll think about it, but when he gets an opportunity, he knocks out a SHIELD agent and takes his uniform, and accesses a SHIELD computer for more information on the Kingpin (with Matt Murdock's blindness being its usual lack of a limitation).
Matt learns that the faction of the Hand that he fought recently had connections to Hydra.
It's a little unclear to me if Daredevil is doing exactly what Fury intended all along or not. It seems like that's the case, but Fury won't like what Daredevil does with this information later in the story.
What Daredevil does do is go to his informant (and Turk replacement) Mad Dog, and has him start spreading information that Hydra has been ordering the Kingpin around. This starts to plant the idea in the heads of other mobsters that the Kingpin is weak.
When the rumors get back to Hydra, Baron Strucker and Garotte think that the Kingpin is spreading them.
And the Kingpin thinks that Hydra is behind it. Hydra sends a messenger to the Kingpin, trying to get the Kingpin to agree to share profits (in an unfavorable split) on the news station, and allow them to use it occasionally for their own purposes. The Kingpin kills the messenger (i was told you're not supposed to do that?).
Clever machinations by Daredevil, and a nice continued build up to the fall of the Kingpin.
Quality Rating: B+
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: In Web of Spider-Man #87, the Kingpin has not yet fallen but word of his involvement with Hydra is on the streets, placing that issue between this issue and Daredevil #300.
References:
- Daredevil fought the Hand in Daredevil #294-296.
- The Kingpin had a run in with Hydra in Captain America #145-148, although the Hydra messenger tells Kingpin that that faction could "hardly be considered" the real Hydra.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Fall of the Kingpin TPB
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Comments
Fnord, see the Hand operatives in issues 294-296 WERE working for Strucker. So does that change your opinion of the flashback scene?
No, i don't think the fact that the Hand were working for Hydra implies that they've always been a secret faction of Hydra. The Hand are a group of hired assassins. They worked for the Mandarin in their appearance prior to this, for example.
I wouldn't like the idea that the Hand were really a subset of Hydra. And i think the idea that there is a separate subset of assassins called the Hand that has always worked for Hydra would mean that they weren't really the Hand. So maybe that's why i'm resisting your interpretation of the flashback (plus the fact that the flashback was so similar to what we already saw about the origin of Hydra from Capt. Savage). In any event, if this is all the additional evidence, i guess the interpretation of that flashback has to be based on the flashback sequence alone.
