Issue(s): Daredevil #92
Cover Date: Oct 72
Title: "On the eve of the Talon!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker

Review/plot:
With this issue, the title and the cover becomes "Daredevil and the Black Widow", which it will remain until issue #107. Anyone who might have not been reading Daredevil that got interested enough to pick up the book based on that might be disappointed to find that the character spends the entire issue tied to a chair.

This issue at least starts moving things forward on the Project Four plotline that's been lurking in the background since DD and the Widow moved to San Francisco back in issue #87. It also addresses a problem that has been bothering me since that issue with a surprisingly left-field solution.

Matt Murdock moved to San Fran with the Black Widow and moved into the same house with her. We know that the move wasn't a secret because Jason Sloan's law firm has been contacting Murdock there. But the Black Widow's secret ID isn't a secret, and now she's seen hanging out with Matt Murdock and swinging around town with Daredevil, who suddenly shows up in town at the same time.

People start drawing the obvious conclusion this issue. So when Damon Dran, the nut who has captured the Black Widow and Danny French, sends a martial artist called the Blue Talon after Daredevil...

...Matt arranges it so that he shows up during the fight.

Matt reminds everyone that his "brother" was the original Daredevil, and the new Daredevil feels responsible for looking after Matt so he moved to SF when Matt did.

It basically works (i guess no enterprising reporter has ever tried to locate Mike Murdock's birth certificate) until you really think about the reason for having a secret ID. You don't want bad guys showing up while you're at your day job, or kidnapping your friends and family. But having an established connection to a super-hero makes you and your friends bait just as much as actually being the super-hero would. I guess it keeps the law off your back and in any event it's probably the best story Matt could have come up with.

The person in the Daredevil suit is thankfully not Ivan. It's the Black Panther.

The Panther and Daredevil have a history together and T'Challa already knows his ID, so i love using the connection. But whenever fans ask questions like why doesn't [hero] go to [semi-random hero in another book] for help with [whatever], the response is usually a lecture about how the shared universe is a fun contrivance for team-ups and stuff, but it shouldn't be used as a deus ex machina resolution to problems that have nothing to do with the hero's own themes. And i get that, but here's an example where that rule was broken, and it makes for a pretty cool twist.

Damon Dran is after the globe that Danny French acquired during the Project Four story, and we'll finally see something like a resolution to that whole thing in the next arc.

Like a lot of Gene Colan stories, the ending feels a bit cramped, with all of the fighting with the (never to be seen again) Blue Talon taking place in about 3 pages, with the character accidentally killing himself when hitting a gas main. That's after giving a lot of space to Matt Murdock having a temper tantrum...

...fighting some unrelated thugs, and other scenes that could have been condensed. Still some fun stuff. I love the introduction to the Blue Talon ("Dude, i can't open the door so can you please just bust it down?").

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Damon Dran

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Black Panther mentions his appearance here during the Avengers #105-108 arc, so this takes place before that.

References:

• There are no footnotes regarding the Black Panther (especially surprising considering his out-of-the-blue appearance), but the Panther learned DD's secret ID in Daredevil #52 and they've also teamed up together in Daredevil #69 and Avengers #82.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I am more interested in Black Widow in these issues than Daredevil.

I too expect to get some Black Widow action out of a comic with her name in the title.

Strange how Ivan suddenly starts talking like Ben Grimm in that last panel.