Longtime readers may know about my “Seeing things” series, in which I poke gentle fun at Daredevil, well, seeing things. In some cases, we’re talking about obvious goofs, and in others – usually more recent ones – it might just be a scene that comes across as a little odd (see, for example, Seeing things #4 from the Brubaker/Lark run). Here’s another first, in that it’s from an issue that hasn’t hit the shelves yet. Yes, while not an obvious goof like some of the older examples, the first page from the Daredevil #504 review did make me raise an eyebrow (is Matt actually looking at those sketches on the ground before him?). And, just because I couldn’t resist, I did my own take on the dialogue… Look at both below, the original is the top one. 
Daredevil #504, original preview page
Daredevil #504, altered preview page
Tagged as:
Andy Diggle,
Humor,
preview,
Roberto de la Torre
Okay, I admit it. This one is sort of minor. I guess I’m just taking the opportunity to pick on Kevin Smith. Not a big Smith fan… Anyway, below, in the very beginning of issue #4 (vol 2) we see DD talking to Natasha about his recent incarceration (which happened in issue #3) where he was held prisoner in a very spooky white room with even spookier sound effects. Considering what happened to him in that room, it’s a little surprising to see him describe to room by its color. First of all, would he even know that the room was white? I wouldn’t have found it odd had he referred to it as “bright,” but I don’t really buy that he can sense colors. And, even if he could, something like that would probably be very far down the list of things that would have stood out to him about that room. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have described the room as “the room with hellish synthetic angel shrieks which messed up my head for an hour”?
But I guess compared to some other goofs we’ve seen in this category, this one wasn’t that bad. So, to smooth things over with you my dear readers, I offer you a second goof from this arc, taken from issue #3. Just after Foggy’s arrest for murder, Matt storms into his office and asks for a paralegal. The guy below, Reggie apparently, comes to his aid. Or does he? Is this a case of the staff playing mean tricks on the blind guy or just a simple case of Joe Quesada (who supplied the art for this arc) confusing his own left with Matt’s? Although this Reggie guy must think Matt’s hearing is screwy too, because most people, whether blind or sighted, have no problem determining where someone’s voice is coming from. Whatever happened to Reggie, I wonder. He might still work for Razor Sharpe. Who knows?
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 2 #1- 100,
Humor,
Joe Quesada,
Kevin Smith,
Seeing things
From Daredevil #141, co-written by Marv Wolfman (plot) and Jim Shooter (script), with art by Gil Kane and Bob Brown. The glaze over his eyes? Need I say more? I think not…
Oh, and as a Swede, I’m simply stunned by DD’s prejudices against the Vikings.* I’ll have you know that most of them were peaceful merchants. Though I guess a significant percentage raped, pillaged and… Okay, never mind.
*Bonus Viking trivia: Did you know that historians generally consider the Viking Age to have lasted from 793 AD (with the Norse attack on the monestary on the Scottish island of Lindesfarne) until just before the battle of Hastings in 1066 when Harald III of Norway attempted an invasion of England, only to be defeated by Harold Godwinson (Harold II), who in turn lost the throne to William the Conqueror. That’s right, I’m not just a science geek I do history too!
Tagged as:
Bob Brown,
Daredevil vol 1 #101-150,
Gil Kane,
Humor,
Marv Wolfman,
Seeing things
This is another little gem from issue #128 (see the previous post) featuring Daredevil versus the enigmatic figure known only as the Sky Walker – though I prefer to think of him as the Stair Master myself – a character that made vague threats of a possible return on the last page, but was never to be heard from again. The big fight in this issue is primarily between Daredevil and the Death Stalker, but this little guy gets in on the action too. Aside from Sky Walker’s general goofiness, his inclusion in the Seeing Things series is due to his miraculous Jesusesque ability to restore sight to the blind, as can be seen below…
First of all, isn’t that little dance in the first panel kind of cute? Love those jazz hands, dude! But let’s look at what Matty boy is saying here:
“Unless my radar sense has gone totally bananas — there’s a clown up there creating steps out of light. And what’s even nuttier — he’s walking on them!”
Eh, I hate to break this to you, Matt, but the nuttiest thing about all of this is that you’re seeing them! Remember, light has no solid form so he shouldn’t be picking them up at all except possibly as some kind of vague heat. But it’s like with the bumble bee and flying, I suppose. As long as we don’t say anything, he can see that light just fine…
Tagged as:
Bob Brown,
Daredevil vol 1 #101-150,
Humor,
Marv Wolfman,
Seeing things
This goof is a real nice one since it comes back to an inconsistency in the storyline, and the storyline in question is a big heaping pile of goofy in and of itself. Nutty early Daredevil at its best, in other words.
The panels here are from Daredevil #56 and #57 (the former was also referenced in the Wacky power post below). These issues are something of a landmark since they feature Daredevil following Karen to her home in Vermont and revealing to her that Daredevil and Matt Murdock are one and the same. This marks the first time that Matt willingly revealed his secret to anyone in the comic. In terms of continuity, he “came out” to Elektra first, but she hadn’t been invented yet as Frank Miller was still in grade school when this issue hit the stands.
Just to give a brief background here, I’ve included a nice little picture of Death’s-Head, the villain of this story. I just wanted you to get a good look at him, as that sort of relates to the whole seeing goof I’ll get to below. Now, Death’s-Head is a figure Karen Page remembers from a childhood dream and who has recently taken up haunting the Page estate . As Daredevil follows her to her childhood home, he has numerous encounters with this scary-looking foe while also looking for Karen’s missing father, Paxton Page, a former scientist. The way the story ends, Death’s-Head is revealed to be none other than Karen’s father himself, who has been driven insane by exposure to cobalt radiation. He took on the Death’s-Head persona after hearing about Karen’s dream as a child and then twisting that around in ways not even Freud can begin to figure out. Suddenly, her eventually becoming a heroin addict doesn’t seem all that surprising. Anyway, the appearance of Death’s-Head (and his horse) are important, so get a good look at their skeletal appearance, before we go on…
Now, note what Daredevil is actually saying in this first panel (on the left), taken from issue #56. There is no doubt that the horse in question appears to be skeletal in shape to him. And, remember, if he perceives it as skeletal, it should be skeletal. He picks up on the shapes of things and cannot fall for optical illusions. The problem with all of this is that an optical illusion is exactly what it is revealed to be in the next issue, as you see in the panel on the right, from issue #57. Apparently, as we learn later on, the horse was treated with a serum that rendered its flesh transparent. We also learn that this treatment ended up actually killing the horse. Poor thing… I wonder what PETA would say about that. Anyway, the horse should have looked like a regular horse to DD, thus making this a clear seeing goof, not to mention a rather striking plot hole.
As for how the issue ends, Paxton Page dies while saving his daughter’s life in a final moment of his long-gone sanity shining through. Matt, meanwhile, has the poor taste of telling her his secret right after Paxton’s funeral. For crying out loud, DD, would you at least wait until you guys leave the cemetary to dump another big shocker on the poor girl! Murdock and gang had the social skills of five-year-olds back in the day. I won’t even go into the fact that the revelation in question also meant Karen finding out that Matt was even still alive, since he had faked his own death not long before this issue. Geez, these guys all needed therapy…
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 1 #51-100,
Gene Colan,
Humor,
Roy Thomas,
Seeing things
Seeing goof again? Well, not quite, hence the question mark. This scene, from the most recent issue (DD vol 2, #108) got picked as a comic book moment of the week last week on Kirk Warren’s The Weekly Crisis because it featured Matt commenting on Dakota’s apartment. I didn’t actually find that to be all that odd, since he’s not really commenting on the look of it, just his overall impression. I can think of many reasons why he’d get a postitive impression. Maybe it struck him as being organized and free of clutter. Maybe Dakota went straight home after being beaten and made a batch of cinnamon rolls (that’s what people do when they’re putting a house up for sale and are showing it to people, I bet Matt would go all ga-ga over the smell of cinnamon rolls) or maybe she just has really nice plants. Or an ultra-silent refrigerator.
What does strike me as a little odd in these two panels is the art, however, as Matt appears to be looking around in the first panel (he doesn’t have to turn his head to “look” at things, he doesn’t see with his eyes and the radar is 360 degrees), and specifically seems to be checking out Dakota’s Vogue covers in the second panel. Ah, those Vogue covers… Maybe not seeing them actually heightened his appreciation of her apartment. So this isn’t really a seeing goof perhaps, but it is a bordeline art goof.
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 2 #100-current,
Ed Brubaker,
Humor,
Meandering musings,
Michael Lark,
Seeing things
This panel from Daredevil #64 (vol 1), by Roy Thomas isn’t strictly a “seeing” goof, so it doesn’t really belong in this category. But it’s kind of a funny panel and I haven’t updated much this week. I’m blaming that on a bad cold and a screwy Internet connection. And in a pinch, this one will just have to do.
This is actually an example of one of those cool DD tricks that consists of feeling the indentations left by a pen on the pages underneath. It’s kind of neat, and yes, it is very “spy movie.” And he may even have picked this one up from a spy movie. But when does he find the time to watch 2000 spy movies? That’s the equivalent of one spy movie per night for almost five and a half years. And if he’s doing it to pick up certain tricks, I’m not sure all of them are referenced in the audio portion. So yeah, this one might be a stretch, but it does make me smile. Also note Roy Thomas’s habit of using the word “brother” when Matt is talking about himself in the third person. The careful reader will see that one a few times during his run.
Anyway, I shall return soon, and by the end of the week there should be a review of DD #107 up as well!
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 1 #51-100,
Gene Colan,
Meandering musings,
Roy Thomas,
Seeing things
This is it. This is the classic goof of Daredevil seeing a portrait of Deathstalker’s mother. As much as I like the fun of this issue, one has to wonder why no one(!) noticed this mistake. And this was an issue (#208) with two writers in Harlan Ellison and Arthur Byron Cover. Fun, exciting, but man that’s a big goof…
‘Nuff said…
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 1 #201-250,
David Mazzucchelli,
Humor,
Seeing things
Well this isn’t really a series of posts with any grand objective attached, it will simply be a category for posting panels of – you guessed it – Daredevil seeing things. And I don’t mean by means of having his radar sense pick up a shape of something, but actually seeing. Now, one might imagine that the basics of the character (blind lawyer with heightened senses who fights baddies in a devil costume) would be easy enough to remember. However, he’s been spotted seeing lots of things he shouldn’t have over the years, and numerous No-Prizes have been handed out to fans for catching these, sometimes obvious, goofs on behalf of writers and artists. Below is a panel from Daredevil #237, Context, written by John Harkness and pencilled by Louis Williams:
Daredevil: “This is my turf mister and I don’t need competition from other guys in red jumpsuits. Looking for anyone in particular?”
Klaw: “Yes, someone to destroy.”
Of course, there could be plenty of reasons Daredevil might know that Klaw wears a red costume. Heck, he probably does. The only problem is that, while he has heard of Klaw (courtesy of the Black Panther), they have never actually met before. It is also clear from a later panel that Daredevil doesn’t know right away that this is in fact Klaw. So, open and shut case of the writer goofing up. His doing so is actually quite suprising, considering that the first couple of pages of this issue are devoted to something as relatively rare as the writer doing a little exploration (well, sort of) of the character’s blindness:
[Page 1, set against an all black background]
“My name is Matt Murdock, This is what my world looks like. I’m blind. But don’t let it worry you. It doesn’t worry me. Out of all the things that have worried me lately, blindness is nothing at all. In fact, blindness — and the radiation that caused it — have made my other senses… Well, super-human! And they made me Daredevil. There’s just one thing about blindness — one thing I’ve only just seen. If this is what your world looks like — you live in a very black world!”
[Page 2, in full color]
“Thank God my world feels like this!”
Of course, the funny thing about the second page is that it shows Daredevil’s perspective of being shot at by two thugs… Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d want to be feeling, but whatever floats your boat! It also turns out that poor DD will be feeling a lot of pain this issue since Klaw is actually “vast power — solidified sound — made flesh!” So, while Klaw takes a beating, so do poor Matty’s ears. Luckily for him, he gets to snuggle with Karen too…
Tagged as:
Daredevil vol 1 #201-250,
John Harkness,
Louis Williams,
Seeing things
Christine is a thirty something Daredevil fan from Sweden who spends way too much of her free time writing posts for this blog. Check the