Punch Up: “To Me My ❌-Men”
Chapter Fifteen:
1984
March, 1984 Daredevil No. 208 by Mazzucchelli, Bulanadi, Wiacek, Scheele, Rosen, Ellison, Cover + Budiansky & Higgins
August, 1984, Alpha Flight No. 13 by Byrne, Yanchus, Higgins + Denny & L. Grant
Mixtape track: Minor Threat by Minor Threat; & The Antichrist by Slayer
Chapter 15 of “to me my ❌-Men,” where a we have a brief check in with Matt and Ben name drops again. Yeesh. Plus, Byrne flips the script and a process may mean an end in 🇨🇦. Don’t worry Logan is there. A Two-In-One
Previously on “to me my ❌-Men,” to quote a friend named, Neil, it was, “so so messy.” Last visited with Alpha Flight when we saw pages that were all lettering. So clean!?!
So to cleanse the pallet again, we are here to check in with our friend Matt in…
…checks title…
Um…
The Deadliest Night of My Life
Last we saw Matt, he was mixing it up with Frank and Elektra in a Frank Miller story that set up the 80’s and the Hand.
Here we are dipping our toes in at the second Daredevil comic ever with David Mazzucchelli penciling (his fifth Marvel comic…meaning his fifth comic. Period. Fresh out of RISD).
A few months after this I would be at my buddy Shang-Fu’s getting lessons on how to hold, board and bag a comic, using Daredevil and X-Men comics. I definitely looked at this one.
Fifteen years later I would be in a classroom at SCAD, with Mazzucchelli discussing cartooning, and getting specific insights about his Daredevil run.
Daredevil is lured by a child…he knows better…turns out she is a bomb. He is in a sequence of traps, Raiders of the Lost Ark style.
Mazzucchelli was doing life like painting in school before this…so I understand how they knew he could render…but these page layouts are intricate with regards to storytelling layout and action. Nearly every page has a level of mastery he has no business possessing.
We feel relief as he escapes to snow covered roof. Reminds me of future Daredevil snow topped roof cartooning.
Spoke too soon.
Safer inside.
Now they are in his mind. Shout out to Scheele for the color choices. Nice storytelling.
He is safish…in an upscale room, hearing a postmortem message for him from a dead woman. Apparently Matt killed her son.
Which of course triggers the final trial…which Matt barely escapes as the community blows up.
Oh and the fence he climbs falls because it’s actually going to shoot spears at him.
He is at Nats door. They are still a thing. She takes him in.
The next day in court.
Judge: “Is the defence ready…”
Matt: “sorry, your honor…”
Judge: “…Last night is done, this is today.”
On the cover we have what is just starting to feel like a marketing ploy…we have Wolverine on the cover. It’s not 1991, so let’s settle down…heck it is not even 1988.
You have to understand, we didn’t have data, we didn’t have social media of course, heck, I didn’t even have hanging out in the comic shop all day or checking in with comics pros. I had two friends and a hunch. We pretty much guessed right. That the X-Men were taking over the market, and Wolverine was taking over for Superman, Spider-Man and Batman. Though we didn’t know Frank Miller and Tim Burton had Bat plans…or that Todd McFarlane had Spidy desires…or…nope…we had pegged Superman about right.
Page one we have the title: Nightmare and credits etched into tomb stones.
A Burtonesque tree and a silhouetted funeral.
As we had with our previously check in with Alpha Flight, Byrne is experimenting with format…flipping the script literally to go silent or pantomime. Appropriate for the occasion. My favorite comics are Frank by Jim Woodring. This is exactly what I want all the time. Silent, intimate, engaging, universally accessible comics.
The pencils, inks and colors telling the story.
Logan and Alpha Flight attending. Heathers husband (dead weight) is dead (letterer still gets a paycheck).
The corpse is alive and on fire. 🔥
It fights Logan.
Attacks Heather.
She awakes…and the words are back.
Micheal rushes in to help.
He a Judd talk after. A recurring nightmare.
She is blaming herself according to Puck for Mac’s actual death.
He blew up in front of her.
They inform the government and it looks like this marks the end of the program.
But Heather is resilient.
Besides…a need is always a page turn away.
Next: Kitty Pryde & Wolverine
