In a year so recent that we don’t even have Eisners for it yet, comics continued to thrive and movie ticket sales continued to dive.  It was a great time to be a comic retailer, but a very bad year if you happen to be a political cartoonist.  Lets talk about the year that was 2025.

Preshow

• New era of Daredevil comic begins in March: https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/daredevil-stephanie-phillips-lee-garbett-new-era-true-believer-blind-bags-march-2026 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards - Hall of Fame Judges Choices

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v8 #15-25, Daredevil: Unleash Hell – Red Band #1-5, Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #1-3, Timeslide #1, Alligator Loki Holiday Special #1, Women of Marvel: She-Devils #1, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur 10th Anniversary Special #1, Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #19, Marvel/DC: Deadpool/Batman #1, Undead Iron Fist #2

Writer: Saladin Ahmed (#15-25) 

Pencils: Luigi Zagaria (#15), Aaron Kuder (#16-19), Jose Luis (#20, #24-25), Luis and Carlos Nieto (#21-23) 

Inks: Luigi Zagaria (#15), Aaron Kuder (#16-19), Oren Junior (#20, #24-25), Junior and Carlos Neito (#21, #23), Junior, Nieto and Jonas Trindade (#22) 

• As we open the year, the Introductory Rites storyline continues: Daredevil and Elektra find her private investigator dead in an alley, and the tension between them is thick. Matt insists he’s chasing Jason, not causing collateral damage — and Father Javi backs him up later at Saint Nicholas, reminding him that not every tragedy is God’s doing. But before Matt can steady himself, a scream in the night leads him to a rooftop encounter with the sin demon Wrath — fast, brutal, overwhelming. Matt gets absolutely wrecked and blacks out. 
• He wakes up shaken, served with a legal summons from Nelson & North Legal Services. Foggy is suing Saint Nick’s over Matt beating down a would-be pimp, Chris Rizzollo — and Matt is convinced a demon is behind it. He tries to exorcise Foggy with scripture, only to learn the hard way that when he burned his priestly clothes, he gave up that authority. The demon inside Foggy taunts him: judgment is coming. Even She-Hulk can’t help — legally, Matt has to defend the youth home himself. 
• Meanwhile, the horror escalates. Matt finds part of Bullseye’s detached arm in an alley and soon discovers Wrath again — only this time, when he looks closely, he sees Jason’s face inside the monster. Realizing he can’t fight this with holy words, Matt tries violence, but Wrath slips away. Back at Saint Nick’s, the kids are divided — some happy to see him, others angry and afraid. And as Foggy challenges him to beat him in court to learn where Cole North is, we see North barely alive… with Wrath looming over him. 
• Courtroom Matt returns, defending Saint Nicholas himself while Foggy — still demon-possessed — tears him apart on the stand. During a recess in the park, Matt admits he’s ready to concede. That’s when the demon Pride abandons Foggy in fury, claiming Wrath will finish Matt anyway. Free at last, Foggy points him to the building where North and Jason are being held. Inside? A massacre. Daredevil finds North barely breathing before Wrath attacks again and forces Matt into the cruelest choice imaginable: save Foggy… or Bullseye. 
• In the final rooftop showdown, Matt refuses to play the demon’s game. He saves Foggy without hesitation and even throws a line to the one-armed Bullseye — who misses and plummets to the street below. Wrath releases Jason and declares Daredevil “worthy of hell” before vanishing. Days later, Elektra tells Matt she still can’t find Kingpin. Matt offers to help — she declines. And in a quiet, heavy final beat, Matt returns to Saint Nicholas one last time… to apologize, and to say goodbye. 
• In the second and final storyline of volume 8, Rites of Reconciliation, It opens with Matt wakes up from devil-and-Bullseye nightmares and we find him living with Nyla Skin—someone he first connected with back when he was “Jack” and had lost his memory. He’s freelancing legal advice through an app, trying to be semi-functional, but of course a missing girl case pulls him back into the suit. What starts as a simple disappearance turns into a full-blown bio-horror situation: spores, infected tenants, shady corporate cover-ups, and Justin Stromwyn reborn as the fungal monster Lionsmane. Nyla actually saves Matt with a coded clue, and he finishes the job with industrial fungicide—because sometimes the devil fights mold with hardware-store science. 
• Meanwhile, Hell’s Kitchen is tearing itself apart under a new gang called Nouvelle Direction. Matt learns that Cole North has been working with Elektra—and yeah, that stings. He clashes with Taskmaster (who was hired to kill him), gets his senses scrambled by grenades, and Elektra swoops in for the save. Matt tries to talk feelings; Elektra shuts that down immediately. Back home, Nyla calls him out for always leaving, always choosing the mask. She’s right. He walks away realizing he’s pushed almost everyone out of his life. 
• Back in the red suit, Matt rescues Father Javi, reconnects with Elektra, and starts chasing the real power behind Nouvelle Direction. Bodies begin turning up—gang leaders executed, scripture written in blood. After a brutal bar fight with Wrecker and another grisly discovery, Daredevil finally recognizes the handwriting. The blood. The message. It’s not just gang warfare. 
  It’s Kingpin. 
• The conclusion of Rites of Reconciliation and volume 8 will be our final spotlight... 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 8 issues #25 (#687 LGY) from November 2025 “Rites of Reconciliation Part 6”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Comics had their biggest year yet.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

Can comics survive without big-screen movies to prop them up?  Yes, it appears they can.  It was another great year for comics in stores, even as the pop-culture phenomenon of the MCU seems to have largely died. 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v8 #3-14, Daredevil: Black Armor #1-4, Daredevil: Gang War #1-4, Daredevil Omnibus #3, Giant-Size Daredevil #1, Daredevil: Woman Without Fear #1-4, Venom War: Daredevil #1, Daredevil Epic Collection #7, Avengers Epic Collection #11, Amazing Spider-Man Collection #10, Defenders Epic Collection #2, Scarlet Witch #5, Dazzler Omnibus and the Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu: Gang War graphic novel. 

Writer: Saladin Ahmed (#3-7, #9-14), Ahmed, Erica Schultz, Elsa Sjunneson, Ann Nocenti, D. G. Chichester, and Ty Templeton (#8) 

Pencils: Aaron Kuder and Farid Karami (#3), German Peralta (#4), Karami (#5), Kuder (#6-7 and #11-12), Kuder, Jan Bazaldua, Eric Koda, Stefano Raffaele, Ken Lashley, Tommaso Bianchi and Ty Templeton (#8), Juann Cabal (#9-10), Chris Campana (#13), Luigi Zagaria (#14) 

Inks: Cam Smith and Farid Karami (#3), German Peralta (#4), Karami (#5), Kuder (#6-7 and #11-12) Kuder, Jan Bazaldua, Eric Koda, Stefano Raffaele, Ken Lashley, Tommaso Bianchi and Ty Templeton (#8), Juann Cabal (#9-10), Craig Yeung (#13), Luigi Zagaria (#14) 

• Matt Murdock is living as Father Matt, devoting himself to St. Nicholas Youth Home, which is suddenly facing shutdown over financial and other disagreements with the church despite its bills being secretly paid by Elektra. When Matt aggressively defends a girl from attackers, it’s clear Daredevil’s instincts are still right under the surface — even if he’s trying to bury that life. 
• A mysterious demonic force possesses Elektra and turns her against Matt. During their fight, his lost memories begin resurfacing — her name, their past, everything. He frees her through prayer, but the entity warns they’re only the first wave. Matt refuses to abandon the priesthood, yet the pull of Daredevil grows stronger. 
• Online smears claim St. Nick’s is a criminal training ground, bringing police and CPS to the door. As Daredevil, Matt traces the lies to Ben Urich and the Daily Bugle — who’s shockingly possessed by a demon — and learns about a new gang called The Heat rising under Bullseye. Matt begins realizing these possessions aren’t random. 
• The pattern clicks when She-Hulk is also overtaken. After Matt frees her, Doctor Strange arrives with the truth: the Seven Deadly Sins have manifested as demons, and they followed Matt back from Hell. Strange sends him on a spiritual trial that returns him to New York wearing a white Daredevil suit, symbolizing a holy war rather than street justice. 
• Trying to stop the spread, Matt clashes with a demon-controlled Wolverine (Lust) in a brutal, city-spanning fight. Instead of winning through force, Matt prays and drives the demon out. Proving faith is his greatest weapon in this new battle. 
• Meanwhile, gang war erupts in Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil and Elektra confront The Heat and Bullseye, only to discover Wilson Fisk is backing the operation — who is also supernaturally empowered by the demon of Greed, which makes him stronger and more cunning than ever. This was part of a 60th anniversary issue that will be this week’s spotlight. 
• At St. Nick’s, Jason — a troubled boy whose father died in a past Daredevil-related disaster — learns Matt’s secret and runs away, believing Daredevil ruins lives. Bullseye manipulates the boy while demonic forces begin directly attacking the orphanage. 
• After repeated setbacks, Matt confronts a painful truth: he’s been guilty of greed too, trying to keep both lives — priest and vigilante. Accepting he can’t do both, he burns his clerical clothes and offers one final prayer, choosing to serve God the only way left to him — as Daredevil. 
• As the year closes, Jason is still missing and there’s whispers of a monster haunting Hell’s Kitchen. Matt is fully back in the mask full time and appears determined to take on whatever is coming. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 8 issues #8 (#670 LGY) from June 2024 “Introductory Rites Part 8”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

The takeaway is back, just long enough to say comics seem to have hit a new level of popularity post-pandemic, and that popularity has the potential to grow even more.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

The pandemic book that brought comics to their highest sales figures ever finally ended, and sales dropped about 7% from 2022’s all-time high. Even so, both sales and quality made this another fantastic year for American comics.  The movies…well that is something else…

Preshow Talk

Alec Seguera’s Enemy of My Enemy: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781368095365

Comic Book Yeti: https://www.comicbookyeti.com/

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v7 #5-14, Daredevil & Echo (#1-4), Daredevil Omnibus #2, Daredevil v8 #1-2, Daredevil Epic Collection #6 and #17, Thor Epic Collection #9, Captain America Epic Collection #5, Defenders Omnibus #2, Moon Knight Epic Collection #7, Iron Man Epic Collection #6, Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection #27, Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #18 and Devil’s Reign Omnibus 

Writer: Chip Zdarsky (#5-14), Saladin Ahmed (v8 #1-2) 

Pencils: Marco Checchetto (#5, #8, #10, #12-14) Rafael De LaTorre (#6, #11) Checchetto and De Latorre (#7), Manuel Garcia (#9), Aaron Kuder (v8 #1-2) 

Inks: Rafael De LaTorre (#5-6, #11), Elisabetta D’Amico (#7), Marco Checchetto (#8, #10, #12-14), Manuel Garcia (#9), Aaron Kuder (v8 #1-2) 

• Quick refresher from last week’s 2022 Daredevil talk: We left off with The Red Fist Saga kicking into gear—Matt confronting Butch, revealing his identity to Spider-Man, and realizing the Hand is now being steered by bigger, scarier forces tied to the Stromwyns and the Punisher, making it clear Hell’s Kitchen isn’t the endgame anymore. 
• Where it landed: Matt pulls Foggy and Cole North out of New York, links up with Elektra and Stick, and by the end of issue #4 the ritual is complete—Matt and Elektra are declared King and Queen of the reborn Fist (and man and wife), officially stepping into a global war that takes Daredevil far beyond the streets we’re used to. 
• As 2023 kicks off we learn - A reborn Fist with real stakes. The resurrection ritual doesn’t just crown Daredevil and Elektra as King and Queen—it supercharges everyone, including Foggy and Cole North, and the Book of the Fist literally rewrites itself to guide them. Its warning is chilling: the Hand is using the Lunate Talisman to replace world leaders with undead puppets, quietly steering global power while no one notices. 
• Recruiting monsters to stop monsters. Daredevil leads a breakout at the Myrmidon, offering prisoners a chance to fight for something bigger. Speed Demon, Stilt-Man, Agony, Stegron, and others join up. During the escape, Matt easily takes down U.S. Agent and is shaken to find Robert Goldman imprisoned there, clearly still part of a larger “plan.” In the aftermath, Iron Man and Captain America watch the footage and agree on one thing—Daredevil has crossed a line and needs to be brought in.  
• Elektra lights the fuse. While Doc Sasquatch tries to hold this unstable team together through therapy, Elektra infiltrates the White House, confirms the President is a Hand construct, and throws him out a window—on camera. It’s a tactical win and a PR nightmare, pushing the Avengers closer and painting the Fist as terrorists instead of saviors. 
• Doing good the hard way. Matt insists the Fist prove they’re different, leading a mission to North Carolina where they stop illegal evictions, defuse coordinated bombings, and protect a falling child—caught midair by Stilt-Man. Afterwards, Bullet leaves to find his son Lance, and we learn he’s unknowingly walking straight into the Hand’s trap. 
• The war with the Hand. Knowing it’s a setup but knowing they need to save Lance, Daredevil still attacks when the Book warns that the Punisher—who’s leading the Hand—is killing again. The battle is massive and brutal: Daredevil and Elektra vs. the Punisher, Stick vs. Aka, Cole North vs. a Hand-controlled Bullet, and the rest of the Fist fighting dragons and assassins. They lose ground, barely escape, but Elektra steals the Lunate Talisman—proof the Hand can be beaten. 
• Everything falls apart. The Avengers close in, the Stromwyns escalate, and Re-Cid gas bombs rain down on the Fist’s base. Elektra destroys the Talisman, which reveals the truth _ Stick and Foggy were resurrected by the Hand—then disintegrate. The cost to beat the Hand is devastating as the Avengers arrive to arrest most of the team. 
• God’s plan goes loud. Daredevil manages to escape along with Robert Goldman, who unleashing an avalanche that forces the Avengers to retreat while nearly everyone else is captured. Weeks later, Cole North snaps Matt out of his spiral—telling him to put the suit back on, go fix it. Matt confronts the Stromwyns and trades himself for Elektra’s freedom, proving his loyalty by plunging blades into his own eyes. 
• Death, rebirth, and the real enemy. Believing sacrifice is the only answer, Matt travels to Japan to die at the Beast’s gate and rescue the trapped souls—Foggy included. Elektra tries to stop him; he dies anyway, is reborn in white, and learns he’s been manipulated by the Wild, sister to the Beast. In the collapsing afterlife, Matt rejects comforting illusions, frees Foggy and the others through love and willpower, and stays behind—armless but defiant—to face the Beast alone. 
• The final book of volume 7 and the Red Fist Saga was an epilogue to this story and seemly sets us up for volume 8. This seemed like a good book for this week’s spotlight story. 
• We did get the first 2 books of volume 8 at the end of this year with a new creative team but we are going to save those and talk about them when we look at 2024. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 7 issue #14 from October 2023 “The Red Fist Saga Part 14” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

No takeaway - too recent

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a good year for comics, with things being stable, but still pointing up.  In the movie world, though, there were some dangerous signs of problems to come…

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v6 #36, Daredevil v7 #1-4, Devil’s Reign #1-6, Devil’s Reign Omega #1, Daredevil Epic Collection #12, Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus #1, Marvel Masterworks: Werewolf By Night #1, Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Namor the Sub-Mariner #1 

Writer: Chip Zdarsky (v6 #36, DR #1-6, v7 #1-3) Zdarsky, Rodney Barnes and Jim Zub (Omega) 

Pencils: Manuel Garcia (#36), Marco Checchetto (DR #1-6, v7 #1), Rafael De Latorre, Luciano Vecchio and Guillermo Sanna Bauza (Omega), Checchetto, De Latorre, Alex Maleev, Paul Azaceta, Phil Noto, Chris Samnee, Klaus Janson, Mike Hawthorne and John Romita Jr (v7 #2), De Latorre (v7 #3-4) 

Inks: Cam Smith, Scott Hanna and Victor Nava (#36), Marco Checchetto (DR #1-6, v7 #1-), Rafael De Latorre, Luciano Vecchio and Guillermo Sanna Bauza (Omega) , Checchetto, De Latorre, Alex Maleev, Paul Azaceta, Phil Noto, Chris Samnee, Klaus Janson, Mike Hawthorne and Scott Hanna (v7 #2), De Latorre (v7 #3-4) 

• The year begins with the final book of the Lock Down storyline we talked about in 2021. Fisk gets married to Typhoid Mary and while at his summer home finds his secret file with information on Daredevil’s secret identity.   
• That leads us into the big crossover event for 2022 – Devil’s Reign. Since it’s a huge crossover event that basically takes the place of a Daredevil volume for much of 2022, this will be our Spotlight story for the week.  
• Following Devil’s Reign in July, we get an epilogue book called Devil’s Reign Omega. In it there are 3 stories:  
• In “Fall and Rise” Reed Richards tells Daredevil he believes Fisk has traveled to Latveria before everything pauses for Matt Murdock’s funeral, with Kirsten delivering the eulogy and the Marvel cast quietly circling the truth—Foggy grieving, Jessica learning Joe is alive but warehoused in an orphanage, and Butch Pharris showing up just long enough to confirm he knows Mike died in Matt’s place and to ask the one question no one can answer: where is Matt? 
• Daredevil and Elektra watch the post-funeral scene, telling Luke Cage and Danny Rand that Matt being “dead” is the only way they can leave New York and take the fight to the Hand. A quick bank-robbery stop turns awkward when the Thunderbolts arrive and remind everyone that Fisk may be gone, but the Powers Act—and their authority—very much isn’t. 
• The story ends with Jessica Jones freeing Joe from his inhibitor collar and takes responsibility for him, Kirsten quietly buries the Norn Stone with Matt and admits she knows, somehow, this isn’t goodbye.  
• In “Mayor For Hire” we see Luke Cage reflect on his past before his first press conference as Mayor. During the opening statement he tries to bring people together and afterwords talks about the role of the Thunderbolts. 
• In “Cleaning House” Luke Cage tries to recruit Monica Rambeau to lead the Thunderbolts and reform them from within. She turns him down and it’s suggested they try asking Clint Barton next. 
• By September the events of Devil’s Reign have wrapped up and Daredevil volume 7 starts. In it we get the first 4 issues of a storyline entitled “The Red Fist Saga”. It opens with Matt —posing as Mike—confronting Butch and learns about Fisk’s fate. He then drops the act and with Spider-Man backing him up gives Butch a clear warning: rule like Fisk, and the heroes will come. Before leaving the city, Matt finally trusts Peter with his secret identity, then races to stop Kirsten from leaving town—only to miss her train as it explodes, pulling him into a nightmare orchestrated by the unnervingly calm Robert Goldman – a former college friend. 
• Goldman claims he’s been shaping Matt’s life all along, pushing him toward greatness through tragedy—revealing he may have caused Elektra’s father’s death and the train bombings to “reforge” Daredevil. Their rain-soaked clash ends with Goldman leaping away and turning himself in, while Matt reunites with a very much alive Kirsten, confessing his love but still keeping his true identity hidden. 
• Elektra and Stick establish a base near the Fist’s origin, meanwhile Luke Cage stands his ground as mayor against the Stromwyns. Matt recruits Cole North for what’s coming, learns the Hand is allied with the Stromwyns and the Punisher is now leading the Hand from Aka, a former mentor of Elektra’s while she was in the Hand.  
• As the year ends, Matt and Elektra complete a brutal spiritual trial, defeating the lingering souls of the Hand. Stick seals the ceremony, declaring Matt and Elektra King and Queen of the reborn Fist as well as husband and wife—before calmly telling them, “Now let’s get to work.” 

This Week's Spotlight: Devil’s Reign issues #1-6 from February 2022 to June 2022 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Oversaturation and poor quality led to comic book fatigue.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

As the Covid-19 pandemic entered its second year comics continued to charge forward, with the unchallenged biggest year in the history of the medium (so far!) in 2021.  Great books and a public desperate to be entertained combined to make this a great year to be a comic retailer…or a comic fan! 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v6 #24-35, Daredevil Epic Collection #5 and 16, Avengers: Marvels Snapshots #1, Marvel Masterworks: Dazzler #2, Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection #1, Avenger’s Epic Collection #6 and 20, Power Pack Classic Omnibus #2, Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #15, Heroes Reborn: American Knights #1, Marvel’s Voices: Pride #1, Marvel Masterworks: The Defenders #8, Phoenix Omnibus #1, Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four #23, Thor Epic Collection #7 and Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man, along with Daredevil No.1 Halloween Comic Extravaganza 2021, Shang-Chi: Earth’s Mightiest Martial Artist, Marvel Snapshots, X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus graphic novels 

Writer: Chip Zdarsky (#24-35) 

Pencils: Mike Hawthorne (#24, #31), Marco Checchetto (#25, #28-29, #33) Checchetto and Hawthorne (#26-27, #30-32), Stefano Landini (#34), Landini and Francesco Mobili (#35) 

Inks: JP Mayer (#24), Marco Checchetto (#25, #28-29, #33), Adriano Di Benedetto (#26, #30-32), Checchetto and Di Benedetto (#27), Stefano Landini (#34), Landini and Francesco Mobili (#35) 

• As the year begins, we open with Matt Murdock behind bars — two years into a sentence he chose — when Elektra pays him a visit with classic Elektra energy and apocalyptic stakes. She and Stick have uncovered a book that could finally wipe out the Hand, but it requires a King and a Queen. Translation: Daredevil and Elektra. Matt refuses, believing prison is his penance. Elektra walks away… but not from Hell’s Kitchen. 
• On the streets, Elektra becomes Daredevil — literally putting on the horns to protect the neighborhood while Matt can’t. Her first night nearly kills her until Stick intervenes, confirming the book’s prophecy: only one of the King or Queen survives. Meanwhile, symbiotes descend on the city, targeting a mother and her daughter Alice, and Elektra-as-Daredevil jumps straight into the chaos. 
• The symbiote crisis explodes everywhere at once — Typhoid Mary joins the fight, Fisk scrambles for control, and the creatures even breach Matt’s prison. Mistaking them for Venom at first, Daredevil is briefly overtaken by a symbiote tied to Knull himself, who offers partnership and power. Matt rejects it the hardest way possible — strapping himself into an electric chair to burn the symbiote out rather than escape prison. 
• Elektra’s war turns personal as Mary bonds with a symbiote and targets her. In a brutal construction-site showdown, Mary kills Alice’s mother, nearly kills Elektra, and walks away believing Daredevil is dead. Elektra survives, consoles Alice, and quietly takes the orphaned girl under her wing — not to comfort her, but to prepare her. “First you’re sad,” she tells her. “Then you’re angry. That’s when I can help.” 
• Back inside, Matt spirals — poisoned, hallucinating, and haunted by the deaths tied to his past as a prosecutor. Inmates die mysteriously; the warden circles him like a vulture, and when Daredevil is lured into the yard, he’s jumped, stabbed, and left bleeding out as the warden declares him dead. 
• Crime shifts hands in Hell’s Kitchen while Matt is down. Elektra shakes down Izzy Libris, demands tribute, and Izzy responds by handing control of Hell’s Kitchen to Butch — an Owl defector and, in a major reveal in the Daredevil Annual last year, Wilson Fisk’s son. Meanwhile, Mike Murdock is posing as Matt on the outside, secretly working with Butch to undermine Izzy from within. 
• Matt survives the prison attack and wakes up in the hospital to Foggy, Kirsten, Cole North, and the FBI. They want his help investigating a string of inside-job murders in exchange for commuting his sentence. Matt agrees… but insists he’ll still serve the full two years. This isn’t about freedom anymore — it’s about responsibility. 
• Everything starts breaking loose at once: Elektra and Alice survive an ambush when Alice pulls the trigger herself; Fisk and Mary quietly plan their future over dinner; and Ravencroft calls with catastrophic news — Bullseye has slaughtered everyone inside and escaped. Two Daredevils. A rising crime heir. And the Devil’s deadliest enemy is back on the board. 
• The final story arch of 2021 is an action packed 6-book story arch called “Lock Down”. Which definitely feels like the spotlight for this week. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 6 issues #31-36 from August 2021 to January 2022 “Lock Down” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

This was a “making lemonade” year.  Sometimes you need to have something big happen to shake things up.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

In case you don’t remember, 2020 pretty much sucked.  Comics did not escape the vortex of Covid-19 and its associated disruptions and dangers, but the industry actually weathered the first year of the pandemic better than one might expect.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v6 #13-23, Daredevil Annual #1, Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #1, Tarot #2-3, True Believers: The Criminally Insane – Bullseye #1, True Believers: The Criminally Insane - Purple Man #1, Hawkeye: Freefall #3-4, Captain America: Marvels Snapshots #1, True Believers: Black Widow & Daredevil #1, Amazing Spider-Man: Sins Rising Prelude #1, Spider-Man: Marvels Snapshots #1, True Believers: Black Widow - Yelena Belova #1, True Believers: Black Widow & the Avengers #1 

Writer: Chip Zdarsky (#13-23) 

Pencils: Marco Checchetto (#13, #19-21, #23), Checchetto and Francesco Mobili (#14-15), Jorge Fornes (#16-18), Mobili (#22) 

Inks: Marco Checchetto (#13, #19-21, #23), Checchetto and Francesco Mobili (#14-15), Jorge Fornes (#16-18), Mobili (#22) 

• The year begins with a massive 8-part story entitled Through Hell that appears to be just that for Matt Murdock. We pick up with Matt trying to not be Daredevil… and basically failing at it. Elektra tells him he’s gone soft, Mindy is spiraling after the sniper attack, and Matt’s stuck between messy romance and even messier morality. Meanwhile, Detective Cole North gets a new partner and a new perspective when Spider-Man drags him out of a vigilante sting operation and gives him the “law vs. justice” pep talk he desperately needs. And in the background? Fisk tries to put the Owl in his place—but the Owl refuses, kills Fisk’s men, and openly challenges the Kingpin’s throne. 
• Matt keeps trying to help people without putting the horns back on, but New York just won’t let him stay retired. He checks in on Tom—the brother of the man Matt accidentally killed—and then stumbles into a fake Daredevil getting pummeled. Matt and Foggy try to save the impostor without throwing punches… which lasts about 30 seconds. When it all goes sideways, Elektra swoops in, makes her “train or die” pitch again, and this time Matt finally says yes. Meanwhile, Fisk loses control during a tense meeting with the ultra-rich Stromwyns and ends up murdering a loudmouth in a bathroom—triggering a cover-up and putting him in the crosshairs of people way more powerful than he expected. 
• As Matt and Elektra begin intense, targeted training, Hell’s Kitchen spirals into a full-scale mob war. The Owl challenges Izzy Libris openly, kills her men, and declares himself the new kingpin; Izzy responds by forging an alliance with Hammerhead before the whole thing goes south. Cole North, beaten down by cops and politics, is still trying to be the “good cop” in a rotten system, and Daredevil—watching him stand up for a homeless man—asks the detective to coffee. They have a brutally honest conversation about guilt, accountability, and the difference between lawful and right that starts to bridge the gap between them. 
• The Stromwyns’ influence becomes the heart of the conspiracy, pushing the story from street-level grit into political corruption on a terrifying scale. They convince the governor—via massive donor pressure—to pull police out of Hell’s Kitchen entirely, setting the neighborhood up for collapse so they can swoop in and buy it all. Matt and Elektra infiltrate the governor’s summer home, confirm the Stromwyn plan, then tumble into an emotional, romantic reconnection. Meanwhile, Fisk is punished by the Stromwyns for his unauthorized murder—forced into a brutal fight he loses, tossed out a window, and reminded that he’s still just a “thug” to the true elites of New York. 
• Daredevil and Elektra strike back, Robin Hood–style, as the mob war escalates to bloodshed. They break into a Stromwyn server farm, steal millions, and funnel the cash into Hell’s Kitchen—though Elektra takes her own cut for “something big.” Izzy Libris uses her share to flip Hammerhead’s crew and put him down herself. But the Owl retaliates by kidnapping Belle, Mindy’s daughter. Daredevil teams up with North to save her, defusing a hostage situation without bloodshed. The Owl, enraged at the loss, murders Tom Libris, pushing the crime family to the brink. 
• And just when it seems things can’t get worse… the Stromwyns pull the nuclear option. With police back in Hell’s Kitchen and the neighborhood refusing to collapse, the Stromwyns call Fisk and tell him a purge is coming. They deploy a nightmare roster—Bullseye, Rhino, Crossbones, Bullet, and Stilt-Man—to wipe the slate clean. Daredevil, newly trained, morally sharpened, and more determined than ever, now faces a city where the mob, the government, the cops, and the ultra-rich have all decided Hell’s Kitchen is theirs to burn. 
• Up next, we get the short 2 book “Inferno” story arch that continues the story. Hell’s Kitchen becomes a war zone, and the heroes are just… regular people. With Bullseye, Rhino, Crossbones and the rest tearing the neighborhood apart, the cops won’t enter—not out of orders, but pure fear—so citizens pour into the streets, many wearing makeshift Daredevil masks, and start fighting for their homes. Cole North joins them. Matt meets one of the “fake Daredevils,” comforts him, takes his mask, and steps into the fire. When Bullseye mocks him as just another imitator, Matt corrects him: “Not a fake… just Daredevil.” Across the neighborhood, Sister Elizabeth—Matt’s spiritual confidant—reveals herself as Typhoid Mary, throwing herself into the chaos. Fisk and Wesley watch helplessly as the villains slaughter civilians. 
• Daredevil turns the tide—reminding the city who he really is. Drawing on Elektra’s training, Matt cuts through the chaos, coordinating with Mary, who charges Rhino straight into the river—only for him to swim out. The Owl’s men abandon him, unwilling to aid in destroying their own neighborhood, and Fisk finally storms into the streets himself, beating the Owl senseless as news cameras capture the destruction the Stromwyns unleashed. When the smoke clears, Fisk orders Cole North to arrest Daredevil for murder. North refuses. So Matt, battered, masked, fully reclaiming the mantle, simply turns himself in. 
• The final story of the year is called “Truth / Dare” which appears to be the reckoning for the death caused by Daredevil way back in issue 1 of volume 6. This 4-part story arch will be the spotlight for this week.

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 6 issues #21-24 from September 2020 to January 2021 “Truth / Dare”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

No matter what your industry was, it was all about the pandemic this year.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

In 2019 Marvel Studios completed the most ambitious movie cycle in history with its 2 billion dollar Avengers: Endgame masterpiece, even as comic stores wondered about the future and politics made deeper and deeper inroads into comics and comics fandom.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v5 #611-612, Man Without Fear #1-5, Daredevil v6 1-12, Marvel Knights 20th #2, Guardians of the Galaxy #1, Spider-Man / Deadpool #47-48, Avengers: No Road Home #10, War of the Realms #1-6, War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1-3, Avengers #20 True Believers: Spider-Man – The New Spider-Man! #1, War of the Realms Omega #1, History of the Marvel Universe #3   

Writer: Charles Soule (#611-612), Chip Zdarsky (#1-12) 

Pencils: Phil Noto (#611-612), Marco Checchetto (#1-5 and #11-12), Lalit Kumar Sharma (#6-9), Jorge Fornes (#10) 

Inks: Phil Noto (#611-612), Marco Checchetto (#1-5 and #11-12), Jay Leisten (#6-9), Jorge Fornes (#10)

• In the final storyline of volume 5, “The Death of Daredevil”, We open with Matt Murdock on the brink of death—lying in an ER after being hit by a truck while saving a child, eerily echoing the childhood accident that made him Daredevil in the first place. And as the doctors fight to keep him alive, Matt mentally resets his mission. He decides this is war with Wilson Fisk, and war requires honesty. So he tells his entire team the truth: he’s Daredevil. No more secrets. 
• When he gets back out on the streets in his mind’s version of events, he barely has time to breathe before a bone-knife-throwing assassin attacks him. And when he limps home afterward, who’s waiting in his apartment? Elektra. They fall back into old patterns, but when Matt asks her to stay and join the team. 
• From there, Matt and his crew move aggressively—they decide to kidnap John Wesley, Fisk’s right-hand man, to force him to spill how the election was rigged. The plan blows up in their faces, but somehow, they still manage to grab Wesley. They lose his guards, get attacked by more bone knives, and end up scrambling into a church for cover…where Fisk’s assassin, Vigil, is already waiting. Daredevil and Elektra take him on in a brutal fight. Elektra almost kills him, Daredevil stops her, and in that split second, Vigil drives a bone knife straight into Wesley’s back. The only man who could presumably tell them how Fisk did it is now dead—Elektra walks out. 
• While out on patrol he’s ambushed by a swarm of Stilt-Men, forced into an arena, and dropped into a who’s-who gauntlet of enemies—Klaw, Ikari, Electro, Gladiator, Typhoid Mary. But Matt turns the tables, manipulating the villains into fighting each other for the “honor” of killing him. It works. At least until he reaches the roof, hoping to catch his breath, and is immediately shot by Bullseye. Matt’s seconds from dying again when he’s unexpectedly saved…by his magically created, now-fully-real brother, Mike Murdock, who claims he can help end all of this. 
• Mike’s intel leads Matt straight to the truth: the Mad Thinker helped Fisk rig the mayoral election. With that, Matt convinces the DA to prosecute the mayor and put Daredevil himself on the witness stand. A parade of heroes testify. Fisk slips up under questioning, admits to “adjustments,” and Fisk loses the court case and he’s recalled as mayor. It’s a victory…until Vigil returns. Daredevil unmasks him—and sees his own face staring back. 
• And that’s when the illusion cracks. We realize the entire story, every moment, every battle, every twist, has been in Matt’s head while he lies unconscious in the hospital. He’s still fighting for his life. In the quiet between heartbeats, he sees Karen Page beside him. She tells him gently that it isn’t his time. The panels go dark…until a single heartbeat rises from the silence. Daredevil isn’t dead. He’s choosing to fight. 
• In March we get the Man Without Fear limited series from writer Jed Mackay and artists Danilo Beyruth, Stefano Landini, Iban Coello, and Paolo Villanelli. It’s a haunting bridge between Daredevil’s fall and whatever comes next. It’s a really interesting story – deserving our spotlight for this week. 
• In April, Volume 6 starts with a new creative team – Writer Chip Zdarsky and art by Marco Checchetto. The opening storyline is titled “Know Fear”. In it we see Matt Murdock back on the streets as Daredevil—too early, too shaky, and already in over his head. Between flashbacks of young Matt talking to a priest, we watch him struggle through patrols, botch a robbery takedown, and accidentally kill one of the thieves due to head trauma. New-to-NYC Detective Cole North zeroes in on him immediately, refusing to play the usual “look the other way” game, and soon Daredevil is shot, chased, cornered, and nearly arrested as Wilson Fisk—now Mayor—watches from a distance, thrilled to see his old enemy unraveling. 
• Things spiral further as Daredevil finds himself rescued—and judged—by the one man he never wants to owe anything to: the Punisher. Frank Castle drags Matt to his hideout and brutally challenges the idea that Daredevil is still a hero. A prisoner dies, blows are exchanged, and Matt ultimately escapes, injured and ashamed, just as the NYPD begins questioning Cole North’s escalating methods… even while Fisk quietly rewards him for keeping the pressure on. 
• The breaking point comes when Matt is rescued from the Owl’s men by Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Danny Rand—street-level peers who’ve been watching him self-destruct in real time. After Matt admits he accidentally killed the robber, the others acknowledge they’ve made mistakes too… but they also agree he’s too unstable to keep wearing the mask. Matt slips away, heads home, and meets Spider-Man waiting for him on the rooftop—delivering the final gut punch: Matt’s done. No more Daredevil. And if he suits up again? His own friends will stop him. 
• In the final full story arch of 2019, “No Devils, Only God”, Eight weeks after Daredevil “died,” Matt Murdock is trying hard to live a normal life—working as a probation officer, meeting ex-cons, even starting a romance with Mindy from the local bookstore—but the shadows keep tugging at him. NYC is shifting: Fisk is secretly beating inmates to a pulp while publicly claiming he’s going legitimate, and Cole North—now targeted by dirty cops and nearly killed—is the lone detective trying to clean up a precinct drowning in corruption. As Matt finds himself drawn into Mindy’s family dinner, he realizes her in-laws are the Libris crime family… just moments before a sniper attack (courtesy of the Owl) leaves one man wounded and Matt forced to intervene without revealing who he once was. 
• The city whispers that Daredevil is back, but Matt insists he’s not—at least, not fully. He shadows crimes with his senses and quietly calls them in, plays tortured theology chess with Reed Richards, and wrestles with whether God expects him to rise again. He slips into a makeshift costume to save a runaway boy from gang life, and that taste of heroism only deepens his conflict. Meanwhile, Matt’s relationship with Mindy crosses into an affair, complicating everything just as the Owl escalates his war, burning down her bookstore and pulling Matt in deeper. 
• When Cole North is targeted again—his partner beaten so badly he later dies—Matt can’t stay retired. He joins North in the police station brawl, stopping the detective from killing corrupt officers and telling him to pin the chaos on Daredevil. As Matt slips away into the night, bleeding and conflicted, he finds Elektra waiting on a rooftop… it seems on a matter of time until Matt Murdock is putting the mask back on for real. 

This Week's Spotlight: Man Without Fear Limited Series issues #1-5 from March 2019

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

The Billion dollar question: Is the comic world just too small for both the Joker and Captain Marvel?

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a great year for comics, everywhere except the shops, and movies, graphic novels and TV continued to do well. 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v5 #595-610, Daredevil Annual #1, She-Hulk #159, Falcon #6, All-New Wolverine #33, Avengers #687-689, Hunt for Wolverine #1, Hunt for Wolverine: Weapon Lost #1-4, Hunt for Wolverine: Dead Ends #1, Infinity Countdown: Daredevil #1, True Believers: Infinity War #1, True Believers: Fantastic Four – The Wedding of Redd & Sue #1, True Believers: Marvel Knights 20th Anniversary – Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev #1, True Believers: What if Kraven the Hunter Had Killed Spider-Man? #1 

Writer: Charles Soule (#595-610) 

Pencils: Stefano Landini (#595-597), Ron Garney (#598-600), Mike Henderson (#601-605), Phil Noto (#606-610) 

Inks: Stefano Landini (#595-597), Ron Garney (#598-600), Mike Henderson (#601-605), Phil Noto (#606-610) 

• Most of 2018 is devoted to one storyline – Mayor Fisk. The Kingpin has fully legitimized himself — not in the shadows or backrooms like the past, but right out in public with a suit, a flag pin, and a press conference. His first major move? He weaponizes the entire NYPD against vigilantes. Anyone in a mask is now considered a rogue element. And he’s specifically asked the DA’s office, and in particular Matt Murdock, build a case against Daredevil. 
• But that doesn’t last very long as Fisk offers Murdock a job as Deputy Mayor (keep your friends close…) which Murdock surprisingly accepts. Fisk’s plan is to keep him occupied with things of his choosing so Fisk can continue what he’s doing without Murdock full attention.  
• Meanwhile, the inhuman serial killer Muse escapes from prison so Frank McGee (head of security force for New Attilan) asks Daredevil to help find him while Muse creates new pro vigilante art throughout the city. But it’s Blindspot who ends up coming face to face with the killer who once took his sight. Meanwhile, 6 cops get killed in the Meatpacking District and Fisk uses it as an opportunity to further demonize vigilante’s by blaming the killings on Frank Castle aka the Punisher.   
• In an oversized issue 600 adorned on the cover with the who’s who of street level heroes and villains behind our man in red. In it we see a trap set by Fisk to roundup street level heroes as well as the confrontation between Blindspot and Muse that ends up having major consequences. This issue will be our spotlight story this week. 
• Over the next few issues, we see Matt Murdock as the acting mayor and see him enlist heroes and then villains in the fight against the hand. Murdock fires Welsey, Fisk’s chief of Staff, for fighting him every step of the way and installs his lifelong friend Foggy Nelson in the role – He also gets to act as cover so Matt can go out and fight the hand as Daredevil. This continues until the Hand launches their latest offensive – a gas cloud that incapacitates Matt Murdock who was looking down at the city from the roof of city hall. And he’s only able to be awoken by Father Jordan, Matt’s priest, who arrives at city hall offering the help of Ordo Draconum, The Order of the Dragon, of whom Jordan is a member.  
• The story comminates with a final battle at City Hall that includes horses and swords. It ends with Daredevil plunging a sword into the Beast and a bright white light. With the Hand now defeated, Matt and Wilson Fisk, who has recovered, talk. To spare New York further stress and political turmoil, Matt agrees to relinquish the mayor's office back to Fisk, but only on the condition that Fisk ends his anti-vigilante crusade. Fisk agrees to the terms. As Matt and Foggy are leaving, Matt overhears Fisk and his associate Wesley admitting to rigging the mayoral election. 
• Now knowing for sure the election was rigged, Daredevil reaches out to Frank McGee to help him start an investigation into Wilson Fisk. McGee brings in a couple inhumans to help them with the case. Cypher, who can read and understand any code or language as well as Reader (and his dog Forey) who has the ability to make anything he reads manifest into reality 3 times per day.  
• In a short 2-book story in the latter part of the year, we see the return of Mike Murdock – and not just Matt Murdock pretending to be his twin brother but an actual separate person. Daredevil saves Mike from some C list villains at the Bar with No Name. We learn Reader read Mike into existence and can easily erase him. But Mike insists on talking to his brother Matt. He escapes and enlists Foggy’s help (at gunpoint) in setting up a meeting.  
• The two meet in public and after talking Matt lets Mike leave saying it’s not their decision to erase Mike anymore. Mike then approaches Wilson Fisk and to prove he’s not Matt, tells Fisk that Matt knows he rigged the election and is trying to build a case against him. The story ends with the Hood offering Mike an opportunity to prove himself. 
• The year ends with the start of the final story arc of volume 5 “The Death of Daredevil” which spills over into 2019 so we are going to save this story until next episode.

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 5, Issue 600 May 2018 “Mayor Fisk part 6” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Everything is a circle!

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a big year for comics in theaters, but local comic shops did not do nearly as well, with sales diving substantially from 2016.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Notable Comics

Top Comic News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v5 #13-28, Power Man and Iron Fist #10, Avengers #3.1, Kingpin #2-3, Elektra #3, Doctor Strange #21-24, FCBD All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #1, Defenders #1 and 6, X-Men: Gold #6, Thanos #10, Iron Fist #73 

Writer: Charles Soule (#13-28) 

Pencils: Ron Garney (#13-14, #17-18, #20, #26-28), Goran Sudzuka (#15-16, #21-22), Marc Laming (#19), Alec Morgan (#23-25) 

Inks: Ron Garney (#13-14, #17-18, #20, #26-28), Goran Sudzuka (#15-16, #21-22), Marc Laming (#19), Alec Morgan (#23-25) 

• As we teased in 2016, the year starts with the Dark Art storyline that actually begins in October of 2016 and features the debut of serial killer/artist Muse. Daredevil’s protégé Blindspot is invited to a warehouse where a giant blood mural has been painted. He phones Daredevil and the pair investigate while the owner of the warehouse starts charging admission so people can see the twisted art.  
• When the mural gets desecrated by an address, the pair find another equally horrifying art exhibit made with inhumans. Daredevil has a brief interaction with Muse on the building’s rooftop before Muse escapes. While Daredevil tries to get help from Medusa and the inhumans, Blindspot goes after Muse and finds his hideout and several hostages he plans to use in his next art piece. Blindspot frees the hostages and acts as a decoy to Muse so they can escape. Blindspot though is captured by Muse and before Daredevil can save him, Muse gouges his eyes out.  
• Ultimately Daredevil defeats Muse and gets Blindspot to a hospital, but the damage is done. Matt Murdock is left feeling very guilty he let his student be hurt. 
• This leads to a short 2 book story arch called the Seventh Day where Matt enters a church for the first time in a while and speaks with Father Jordan. The story is light on action but makes up for it with real character development will be our Spotlight story of the week.  
• Next, Matt Murdock returns to Father Jordan and the confessional booth and finally answers the question we’ve had all series – “How was Matt able to make everyone forget he is Daredevil?” as he recounts his final days in San Francsico in a story called Purple.   
• Not surprising it has to do with Killgrave and his purple children. Killgrave used a guard in prison to escape and upon escaping sought his children to elevate his power beyond it’s already dangerous level. Two of the children show up a Mat Murdock’s house just ahead of a hoard of crazed people sent by Killgrave to capture them. Matt locks them and Kirsten in a panic room and then incapacitates the mob.  
• Daredevil goes after Killgrave and upon finding him, the rest of the kidnapped children and his power-boosting machine, Daredevil can’t keep from falling under the purple man’s influence.  Killgrave toys with him asking asks Daredevil what exactly the worst possible thing he could do is. Daredevil suggests the Purple Man to have everybody, heroes, villains and civilians, wreak havoc upon the streets. When asked what he would do in this scenario, Daredevil simply says "nothing". 
• This outrages Killgrave which is apparently enough for Daredevil to break free of control and takedown Killgrave. As a thank you for saving them, the Purple kids decide to help Daredevil by using the device and making everyone in the world forget that Matt Murdock and Daredevil are one in the same. Daredevil returns home where Kirsten doesn’t realize Daredevil and Matt are the same so he leaves and decided to use this free start to go back to New York and start over. 
• This leads us into the next story – Supreme. In it we see Matt Murdock and Daredevil team up take the fight against criminals to the courtroom. Daredevil, with the help of Luke Cage and Echo – stop the Munition Militia from blowing up city hall but are only manage to capture Simon “Slug” Slugansky in the process. It’s then ADA Murdock puts his idea into motion – have Daredevil testify against Slugansky in court – without revealing his secret identity.  
• The defense team tries to discredit the red suit wearing Daredevil saying “anyone can wear a suit”. Daredevil proves he is the real deal when the Milita charge into the courtroom attempting to free they cohort. When the dust settles, Daredevil is able to give testimony and the District Attorney’s office wins the now high-profile case.  
• Seeing how the decision could affect his business interests, Kingpin launches a two-part attack on Matt Murdock to see the case go away is it gets appealed to higher and higher courts. He hires a former lead attorney for Tony Stark called just “Legal” to represent Slugansky in court and hires Tombstone to take out Murdock when not in court.  
• Legal is able to get the verdict overturned in the New York Supreme Court – which angers D.A. Hochberg (Matt’s boss) saying he needs to stop using New York resources. That causes Matt to reach out to Foggy for help – which is interrupted by a Tombstone attack. Matt uses his Daredevil skills to beat him and escape with Foggy and Foggy agrees to help. Fast forward 2 weeks and the case is being heard by the Supreme Court. 
• To Foggy’s surprise, Matt confesses that he lost the previous appeals case on purpose. He says he needed it to come before the Supremes in order for the ruling to have true power. And while waiting to for the case to be called, Matt gets confirmation Kingpin was the one who hired Legal. While arguing before the Justices, Murdock imagines his exchange with them as a physical battle, and feels like he’s getting beat up badly. In his rebuttal to Legal’s opening statement he stresses the voluntary good that all citizens are obliged to do.  
• Ten days later, the court rules in Matt’s favor, potentially changing the entire landscape of law enforcement. Matt calls Foggy and tries to explain why he needs to fight criminals both in the courtroom and in the streets at once. He reverts to his classic red costume. Meanwhile, In NYC, and enraged Kingpin punches out a window, and tells Wesley to turn to Plan C. 
• The year ends with a 3-book story called “Land of the Blind”. Matt learns Samuel Chung (aka Blindspot) is in China, so he travels there looking for him. Shortly after arriving, he’s captured by Blindspot and put in a hole for what seems like several months. We learn he has gotten his eyesight back thanks to a deal his mother made with the Beast and the Hand. Sam wants to trade Daredevil’s life for the life of his mother – which he does. Though he has a change of heart during their escape and the pair return and help Daredevil escape. Upon returning to NYC, Daredevil learns Wilson Fisk has been elected Mayor of New York. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil v5 Issues 15 and 16 from March 2017 “The Seventh Day” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It was a big year for women in comics.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

TBD

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

Comic Sales

Top Comics News

Notable Passings

Marvel

Eisner Awards

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v5 #1-12, Daredevil/Punisher: Seventh Circle #1-3, True Believers: Daredevil – Practice to Deceive #1, Daredevil Annual #1, Secret Wars Too #1, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #5, Mockingbird #5, Accused #1, Captain America: Steve Rogers #5, Civil War II #5 

Writer: Charles Soule (#1-12) 

Pencils: Ron Garney (#1-3, #5, #10-12), Garney and Goran Sudzuka (#4), Matteo Buffagni (#6-7), Sudzuka (#8-9) 

Inks: Ron Garney (#1-3, #5, #10-12), Garney and Goran Sudzuka (#4), Matteo Buffagni (#6-7), Sudzuka (#8-9) 

• The year kicks off with a whole new status quo. Matt’s back in New York, he’s somehow regained his secret identity—don’t ask him how, he’s very cagey about it—and he’s traded the bright red suit for a slicker, darker black one. On top of that, he’s now working as a prosecutor for the DA’s office. So Daredevil by night, ADA by day… because nothing says “healthy work-life balance” like doubling down on stress. 
• And for reasons only Matt understands, he decides this is the perfect time to take on a protégé. Enter Blindspot—a kid genius with an invisibility suit, an undocumented immigrant background, and all the ambition (and naïveté) Matt had at his age. Matt trains him, pushes him, and absolutely refuses to admit to anyone that he might be in way over his head as a mentor. 
• The first big arc is the Tenfingers saga, centered around a cult leader in Chinatown who—yes—literally has ten fingers on each hand. He’s stolen power from The Hand, his followers think he’s some kind of holy savior, and Blindspot’s mother is deep in the cult, which drags the kid into the conflict whether he wants it or not. The whole thing spirals into a massive church showdown that ends with The Hand (and then a giant beast on behalf of the hand) showing up to wipe Tenfingers off the map. Blindspot is injured, but he gets a harsh lesson in what Daredevil’s world really looks like. 
• Following that we get a two-issue story “Elektric Connections” with the return of Elektra. First she shows up in Matt’s courtroom during trial, then asks to meet Daredevil. When she does, she attacks him. Blindspot jumps in to try to save Daredevil, but Elektra breaks his arm. Elektra’s convinced she has a daughter who’s gone missing and that Daredevil is involved. Turns out it was a trick and after finally convincing her the “evidence” she was given wasn’t real, she approaches the man who gave it to her. He breaks the planted memories with the phrase “The tangled web we weave!”. Elektra is relieved she won’t be corrupting a child but very angry at the person who deceived her.  
• Then we get the “Blind Man’s Bluff” story arc that feature’s a team up with Spider-Man. Matt is posing as a Frenchman, playing Texas Hold ’em in a tournament and intends to rob someone at a Casino in Macau, which is as fun a story as it sounds. This will be our spotlight story for the week.  
• The year ends with the start of a terrifying “Dark Art” story that starts with the discovery of a full wall mural made from human blood. We are going to hold off until 2017 to discuss the entire story, but if you watched season one of Daredevil Born Again, you might have an idea of just who Daredevil and Blindspot are dealing with. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 5, Issue 8 August 2016 and Issue 9 September 2016 “Blind Man’s Bluff Part 1 and 2” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

The Marvel Reboot.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2015 was a turning point for the American comic industry in a number of ways, and seems to be a satisfying place to wrap up our look at over 50 years of American comic books.  This year is in many ways a fulcrum that links the insular comics world that I grew up in with the fast-moving media-entwined and politically-charged environment of recent times.   

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2015.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v4 #10-18, She-Hulk #10, Superior Iron Man #1-2, Marvel Free Previews Scret Wars #1, Deadpool #45, Night Nurse #1, Secret Wars Journal #5, All-New, All-Different Point One #1 

Writer: Mark Waid (#10-18) 

Pencils: Chris Samnee (#10-18) 

Inks: Chris Samnee (#10-18) 

• We kick off the year with the big Purple Man arc that rolled over from 2014. Kilgrave is having a full-on existential crisis—he wants genuine affection for once—so he rounds up his five kids, each of whom has a piece of his mind-control powers. But teaming them up backfires spectacularly: the kids turn on him and literally toss him into the street… where he gets smoked by a train. Classic family bonding. 
• With dad out of the picture, the kids go wild—stealing a cop car, causing mayhem—until Daredevil shows up to contain them. But these kids aren’t like Kilgrave alone; together they’re a psychic wrecking ball and Matt ends up curled under a bridge in a full panic response. Kilgrave, very much alive, shows up to beat him senseless… until one magic word—“fear”—snaps Matt back into fight mode. Still, Kilgrave and the kids slip away. 
• After regrouping with Kirsten, Daredevil tracks the whole purple family to a mall arcade (which is honestly a perfect place for a mind-control clan). With some strategic help from police, Matt gets the kids separated so their powers weaken, and everyone—including Kilgrave—gets taken into custody. And the issue closes with a surprisingly tender moment of Matt finally letting Kirsten in—on every level. 
• Meanwhile, there’s a running side plot: Kirsten’s father offers Matt eight million dollars for a Daredevil autobiography. So throughout the year we see Matt and his ghostwriter Foggy chipping away at the book. 
• Next up: the Stunt-Master saga. A new, young, daredevil wannabe is stealing the identity of the original Stunt-Master and pulling off death-defying stunts all over San Francisco. The original, George Smith, wants to sue and goes to Matt—but legally, he doesn’t really have a case. When the new Stunt-Master publicly challenges Daredevil to join his next big stunt on the Golden Gate Bridge, Matt refuses… until he hears that Smith has apparently committed suicide. 
• Daredevil accepts the challenge and instantly realizes something is off. He discovers that the rider at the stunt is actually Smith himself—and that the “new” Stunt-Master’s whole trick is murdering stand-ins to survive his stunts. Matt gives chase in a wild car/motorcycle sequence, only for Kirsten to be the one who cracks the final twist: Smith faked the suicide and played everyone. His goal wasn’t fame—it was immortality as the world’s greatest “death cheater.” 
• Then we get a really fun twist: Kirsten gets her own arch-nemesis. Matt’s worried that their relationship is putting her in danger… and then she’s kidnapped. Except it’s not one of Matt’s villains—it’s the Lilac Killer, a serial killer Kirsten has been investigating. She’s thrilled, shouting, “I have my own arch-foe!” while Daredevil rescues her. It’s great. 
• In Issue #14, the Matt/Daredevil identity line really starts blurring. Matt’s now showing up in court in a full red suit with a giant DD belt buckle, handing out Daredevil business cards—subtlety is dead. He’s asked to investigate a “bird-man predator,” which sends him into a team-up with Jubula Pride, the Owl’s daughter. They eventually discover the Owl himself has been kidnapped and wired into a massive surveillance system run by the Shroud, who is spiraling emotionally and spying on everyone through any electronic device. 
• Daredevil and Jubula try taking the Shroud down but get overwhelmed. When they go to the deputy mayor for help, things get worse—Jubula gets mistaken for a child kidnapper because of events going all the way back to Issue #1. So now the cops are after both of them, and Jubula drops the bomb: there’s only one person who can help… Wilson Fisk. 
• Then we get an out-of-order Issue 15.1—a couple of standalone stories from Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Marc Guggenheim—but we’ll save that one for this week’s spotlight. 
• Back to the main story: Matt meets with Kingpin and asks for protection for himself and his friends from the Shroud. Fisk loves every second of this and demands payment. Matt gives him the wildest offer possible: “I offer you the death of Matt Murdock. Interested?”  Meanwhile, Foggy and Kirsten are ambushed and kidnapped by Ikari—the hyper-sensed assassin from Volume 3—now working for Fisk. And Kingpin has also secretly captured Julia Carpenter, the woman the Shroud is obsessed with. 
• Jubula tracks Julia to the airport and tries to hand her over to the Shroud as a bargaining chip for her father, but Daredevil crashes the meeting, Julia refuses to go, and everything explodes. Matt returns to Fisk to negotiate but finds Ikari holding Foggy, Kirsten, and Julia hostage. Fisk wants to ditch their original terms and just watch Ikari kill Daredevil. The fight spills across San Francisco until the Shroud intervenes and kills Ikari—realizing Fisk has Julia. He proposes a truce with Matt to save the people they love. 
• In the big finale, Daredevil disguises himself as Ikari to infiltrate Fisk’s stronghold. The ruse works… for about 30 seconds. Foggy starts fighting a guard, chaos erupts, and Fisk realizes Ikari is dead. But just then the Shroud broadcasts Fisk’s secret business dealings to the world—mirroring what he once did to Matt—and police storm the building. In the chaos, Daredevil gets the hostages free and escapes. 
• The dust settles: Julia Carpenter takes down the Shroud with a poisoned kiss. The deputy mayor rescinds the arrest warrant and helps clean up Matt’s legal fallout. And Foggy and Matt share a grounded heart-to-heart about what it means for Matt to be “living in the light”. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Volume 4, Issue 15.1 July 2015

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Its always dangerous when your hero is happy.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2015 was a turning point for the American comic industry in a number of ways, and seems to be a satisfying place to wrap up our look at over 50 years of American comic books.  This year is in many ways a fulcrum that links the insular comics world that I grew up in with the fast-moving media-entwined and politically-charged environment of recent times. 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 539
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 383 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 426
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 0 (Star Wars would reach 75). Only ASM and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl will make 50 otherwise
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Secret Wars (230), Black Vortex
BEST SELLING COMICS: Star Wars #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Passings: Herb Trimpe
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Jed MacKay

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2015 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2014 saw some sales figures that had not been achieved in decades, and pop culture was filled with comic book related movies and merchandise.  Marvel was dominant again, and along with DC again climbed back to nearly 70% of the total market share in comic shops. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2013.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v3 #33-36, Daredevil #1.5, Daredevil v4 #1-9, Daredevil: Dark Knights #6-8, Daredevil: Road Warrior Infinite Comic #1-4 (or #0.1), Fantastic Four #2 and 5-6, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #200, Origin Sin #2-3 and #3.1, She-Hulk #4 and #8-9, Black Widow #7, Hulk #4, Captain America #25 

Writer: Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (#33), Waid (#34-36 and #1-9) 

Pencils: Jason Copeland (#33), Javier Rodriguez (#34 and #6-7), Chris Samnee (#35-36, #1-5 and #8-9), 

Inks: Jason Copeland (#33), Alvaro Lopez (#34 and #6-7), Chris Samnee (#35-36, #1-5 and #8-9) 

• The year picks up right where we left off in 2012 — Matt Murdock was in Kentucky looking for info on the Darkhold, a ancient mystical book tied to the Sons of the Serpent. He was looking to track down Jack Russell, a.k.a. Werewolf by Night, hoping for answers. But before finding him, Daredevil ends up in the middle of an angry mob attacking some so-called “monsters.” He tries to stop it, gets shot, and the “monsters” — led by Russell — end up saving him. Even using some sort of restoration spell on him. 
• Once he’s patched up, Daredevil learns about missing Darkhold pages connected to a sorcerer named Lucien Sinclair. After a few magical trials, Matt takes Sinclair down, destroys his house, and handed Sinclair over to Russell — but keeps the pages for himself before heading back to New York. 
• Back home, Matt and Kirsten McDuffie go bold — they take to the rooftops and broadcast a live message calling out the Sons of the Serpent. The Jester, who kicked this story off with a fake TV broadcast, is strung up on the side of a building which suggests Dardevil may be walking into a trap. Despite that, Daredevil wipes the floor with them and saves Kirsten from being gunned down by a helicopter for good measure. 
• Meanwhile, Foggy’s cancer takes a bad turn. Two Serpent members step in with an experimental drug that temporarily saves him — but they want Daredevil’s help in exchange. One has a son on death row for a fire that killed twelve people, and they’re hoping Matt can help clear his name. Matt investigates the crime scene with Elektra’s help, fights Mamba and Constrictor, and then surprises everyone in court by admitting under oath that he’s Daredevil. 
• That confession sets off total chaos. The Sons of the Serpent storm the courtroom, a mistrial is called, and Daredevil fights them off. He exposes their infiltration of the Justice Department, but the fallout costs him his law license in New York. Kirsten steps in and says, “Let’s get out of here,” and the two of them pack up for San Francisco. 
• In April, we get a Daredevil 1.5 issue with 3 stories that are celebrating Daredevil’s 50th Anniversary and looking at possible futures for Matt Murdock. In “The King in Red” Daredevil takes on Jubula Pride (the Owl’s Daughter) after the rest of New York is blinded. He takes down Jubula and breaks the machine causing their sight to return. There’s a story from Brian Michael Bendis with art by Alex Maleev the form of a letter to a child from Stana Morgan – a woman who married Matt Murdock/Daredevil and was likely killed by Bullseye. Finally, in “The Last Will and Testament of Mike Murdock” has Matt and Foggy watching a video tape of Mike Murdock from back in the day. Written and Penciled by Karl & Kurt Kesel, Inked by Tom Palmer. 
• In Daredevil Road Warrior – a 4-part limited series released digitally in February and March (and later reprinted as Daredevil #0.1) in which we get the trip from New York to San Francisco for Kirsten and Matt Murdock which was far from ordinary and included several stops and plenty of fighting. 
• In May, we got the start of Volume 4 of Daredevil – with the same creative team that ended volume 3. Matt Murdock and Kirsten McDuffie are in San Francisco and started their own law office and Daredevil is fitting right in by saving little girls from kidnappings and/or bombs.   
• Over the next few issues, Daredevil goes up against SF’s new kingpin of crime – The Owl – with the help of another blind vigilante The Shroud. At times it seems like Shroud and Daredevil are working together, other times they are fighting it out. It’s complicated, I guess. They take down the Owl but Max/Shroud is still looking for Julia Carpenter whom he’s in love with. Meanwhile Foggy, in a wheelchair and fake beard, comes to Matt’s and Kirsten’s new law office.  
• In issue 5, we get a funeral for Foggy Nelson (though he’s not actually dead) after he confessed to wanting to “go out like a superhero” and then jumped into a big green machine Leapfrog used to attack San Francisco and was equipped with a bomb.  His jump allows the machine to explode safely while allowing Foggy to die a hero. 
• In issues 6-7, we get a two-part story as part of the Original Sin crossover event.  Daredevil is back in New York and has a vision of his father hitting his mother while he was a baby. He seeks out his mother for answers and finds out she’s been arrested and is being sent to Wakanda. He investigates and uncovering a potentially illegal plot involving a US General and Wakandan officials, he confronts Queen Shuri about it and secures her release. Finally able to ask about the vision, he learns she left due to postpartum depression. The story ends with a heartfelt reconciliation between Maggie and her son. 
• The year wraps up by setting up the next big arc — Kilgrave, the Purple Man, and his superpowered children — which spills into 2015. Which we’ll need to wait until then to discuss. 
• Lastly, we’ll talk about the Daredevil: Dark Knights limited series. This 8-book collection contains three stories – the first story “Angels Unaware” is write and penciled by Lee Weeks and is about Daredevil braving a snowstorm to get a heart from a crashed helicopter meant for a young girl. The second story, titled “A man named Buggit” written and penciled by David Lapham in which Daredevil follows a 10-inch man who has stolen evidence needed to save a client. The final story is titled “In the Name of the King” and shows a team-up of Daredevil and Misty Knight in the Caribbean written by Jimmy Palmiotti and penciled by Thony Silas. Honestly the less said about the last story the better. 

This Week's Spotlight: No Spotlight This Week! Sorry.

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

From ICv2: Data substantiates the emerging gender parity within geek culture.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2014 saw some sales figures that had not been achieved in decades, and pop culture was filled with comic book related movies and merchandise.  Marvel was dominant again, and along with DC again climbed back to nearly 70% of the total market share in comic shops. 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 489
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 354 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 337
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 1 (Amazing Spider-Man 700.1)
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Original Sin (67), Death of Wolverine (23), Avengers & X-Men: AXIS (56), Spider-Verse (32), Trial of Jean Grey (6) and Inhumanity
BEST SELLING COMICS: 

• Amazing Spider-Man V3 #1
• Rocket Racoon #1
• Death of Wolverine #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Passings: Dick Ayers, Stan Goldberg
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Charles Soule

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2014 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a pretty monumental year in comics, in the opinion of your humble co-host.  2013 is probably the best year for new comics of the 21st century to date, with a ton of variety and quality.  And people noticed! 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2013.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v3 #20-32, Daredevil: End of Days #2-8, Daredevil: Dark Knights #1-5, Avengers #34, New Avengers #33-34, Secret Avengers #34-35, Uncanny Avengers #2, Dark Avengers #187-188, Winter Soldier #13, Deadpool #11, Indestructible Hulk #9-10, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #1, What if? AVX #1-4 

Writer: Mark Waid (#20-31) Waid and Samnee (#32) 

Pencils: Chris Samnee (#20-27 and #30-32), Javier Rodriguez (#28-29) 

Inks: Chris Samnee (#20-27 and #31-32), Alvaro Lopez (#28), Javier Rodriguez (#29-30) 

• The year kicks off right where 2012 left off — Daredevil’s been captured by a villain called Coyote, who has similar powers to the Spot and has literally separated Matt’s head from his body. Still alive, Matt learns Coyote’s been using his portals to smuggle weapons, drugs, and even people for cartels, with his main operation being human trafficking. Daredevil eventually escapes, shuts down Coyote’s control machine, and discovers that the real Spot is another victim of all this. The story ends with both villains vanishing before Matt can find out who’s behind it. 

• Next, Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius in Peter Parker’s body) shows up at Kirsten McDuffie’s request, worried Matt’s losing his grip. The two heroes clash briefly before teaming up to stop an upgraded (with Doc Ock tech) Stilt-Man. Afterward, Spider-Man tells Matt about Kirsten’s concerns, leading Matt to reconnect with Foggy, who reveals he may have cancer. 

• As Foggy’s diagnosis — Ewing’s Sarcoma — is confirmed, Matt continues investigating the group hunting him. Nelson & Murdock gets attacked, Kirsten breaks things off, and Matt’s approached by a mysterious man in an orange jumpsuit offering to take him to his enemies. 

• Turns out those enemies are led by Bullseye, who’s still alive but kept on life support. He’s been trying to recreate the accident that gave Daredevil his powers, creating a single enhanced warrior — Ikari — who nearly kills Matt in battle. The final showdown with Ikari and Lady Bullseye on Bullseye’s behalf ends with a building collapsing and Bullseye drowning in radioactive material that leaves him blinded and badly burned. 

• Next, Matt reconnects with his childhood bully Nate Hackett, now wrongfully accused due to former ties with the Sons of the Serpent. Matt helps him fight back in court, uncovering a Serpent plot and stopping a courthouse bombing in the process. 

• Late in the year we also get a fun one-shot where Daredevil teams up with the Silver Surfer to stop an alien named Ru’ach, who pretends to seek asylum on Earth but is really out to destroy it. During the story, Daredevil does get to ride the surfboard. 

• The year closes with The Jester inciting riots by doxxing jurors after a high-profile trial. Daredevil intervenes, only to discover the Sons of the Serpent are pulling the strings. With Foggy’s help Matt traces their roots to the Darkhold, an ancient spell book, and travels to Kentucky to meet Darkhold expert Jack Russell — a.k.a. Werewolf by Night when Dr. Strange isn’t able to provide much assistance. But before he can get answers, he’s shot while trying to save two so-called “monsters” from an angry mob. Not complete, this story will continue as we move into 2014.  

• The other big story that ran the first half of the year was called Daredevil End of Days. This 8-part limited series by some of my favorite Daredevil creators is absolutely amazing and deserves full attention from this week’s spotlight.    

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil End of Days #1 December 2012 “Part 1” through Daredevil End of Days #8 August 2013 “Part 8”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Sometimes comics are pretty awesome.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a pretty monumental year in comics, in the opinion of your humble co-host.  2013 is probably the best year for new comics of the 21st century to date, with a ton of variety and quality.  And people noticed! 

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 450
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 328 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 316
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 2
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Age of Ultron (19 issues) and Infinity (54 issues)
BEST SELLING COMICS: 

• Guardians of the Galaxy #1
• Superior Spider-Man #1
• Infinity #1
• X-Men #1
• Age of Ultron #1
• Uncanny X-Men #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Al Ewing

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2013 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2012 was a year when the big news in comics all happened outside of shops, with movie theaters and social media dominating the industry.

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2012.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v3 #6-19, Daredevil: End of Days #1 Fantastic Four #600, New Avengers #19-24 and #30-31, Amazing Spider-Man #677, Punisher #7 and 10, Avengers #24, Avengers vs X-Men #1-4 and #7-9, Avenging Spider-Man #6, Hulk #50, AVX Vs #2, Daredevil Annual #1, Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe #4, Secret Avengers #33 

Writer: Mark Waid (#6-19) 

Pencils: Marcos Martin (#6), Paolo Rivera (#7 and #9-10), Kano (#8), Khoi Pham (#10.1 and 13), Marco Checchetto (#11), Chris Samnee (#12, #14-16, and #18-19), Mike Allred (#17) 

Inks: Marcos Martin (#6), Joe Rivera (#7 and #9-10), Kano (#8), Khoi Pham (#10.1), Marco Checchetto (#11), Chris Smanee (#12, #14-16 and #18-19), Tom Palmer (#13), Mike Allred (#17) 

• 2012 Begins with the last couple books of the Omege Drive, MegaCrime Organizations and the Mutually Assured Destruction that allowed Daredevil and friends to get out of a sticky situation but also left a target on Daredevil’s back.  
• In February, we get an award winning 1-shot where after Matt Murdock attends a holiday party, he volunteers to take some blind kids on a ski trip. The bus ends up getting into a crash and Daredevil tries to lead the kids out of the cold – but it ends up being the kids that save Murdock and themselves. 
• In March, we get a two-part story that starts in Amazing Spider-Man #677 called “The Devil and the Details”. In it, we see Peter Parker lamenting his recent breakup with Carlie Cooper, trying to be cool with Black Cat (which goes horrible) and then seeking out Matt Murdock & Daredevil when Black Cat is arrested. She says she’s been frames for a break-in at Horizon Labs.   
• After Black Cat breaks out of police custody, the three locate the inventor of stolen Holographic projector. He’s been poisoned and has little time to live. Spider-Man rushes him to a hospital while Black Cat and Daredevil secure the projector from members of Black Spectre and basically removing them as a threat. As a “reward” for helping, Black Cat and Daredevil passionately kiss with Spider-Man looking on and saying one of the best lines ever “I think this is my super villain origin.” They go back to Matt’s place but before anything happens – he’s called away to the graveyard of his father where some weird things are going on. Specifically, that his and other graves have been emptied. 
• This leads us into the next story that involves heading underground and a confrontation with Mole Man. Mole Man is stealing coffins to try to find the love of his life Lorna whom he loved as Dr Harvey Elder and wants to be with. Daredevil ultimately “saves” the body of Lorna (and some diamonds) and returns to the surface. Upon going home, he reads a note from Black Cat admitting she was hired to steal the Omega Drive from him – but doesn’t and warns him to watch his back 
• After a 10.1 book that acts as a lead-up, we get a 3-part crossover where Spider-Man, Daredevil, and the Punisher team up in order to protect the Omega Drive from the Megacrime organizations with each book getting part of the story titled “The Omega Effect.” This will be our spotlight story this week. 
• Next, we get a 1-shot story showing Matt Murdock and Kirsten McDuffie on a date – which goes well until a Black Spectre agent threatens the pair about the Omega Dive.
• That leads to a giant battle in the middle of Time Square between himself (with the Omega Drive) and the 4 megacrime organizations while the events are broadcast throughout the city. The fight ends with a Black Spectre Agent securing the drive and leaving. Later, Daredevil kicks down the door of Avengers Mansion, where members of the New Avengers - Wolverine, Mockingbird, Spider-Man, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage - are changing out of Black Spectre uniforms and we learn the fight in Time Square was staged and the drive is destroyed.   
• Turns out there are repercussions for losing Latveria a lot of laundered money and Daredevil is next abducted and being held at Castle Doom in Latveria by the Minister of Bank Chancellor Exchequer Beltran. After a failed escape attempt, Daredevil is eventually rescued by the Avengers but not before some nanobots are injected into Daredevil causing his senses to all but disappear.  
• Back in America, Hank Pym shrinks to micro size and enters Murdock’s brain to fight the nanobots with the guidance of Dr Strange.  Despite some weird readings, Pym successfully destroy all the nanobots and Murdock’s senses start to return. Later, Murdock returns to Nelson & Murdock law offices where he’s confronted by Foggy Nelson saying he’s found Matt’s secret – showing him Jack Murdock’s remains and boxing gloves in Matt’s desk. A stunned Matt tries to tell Foggy he didn’t rob his own father’s grave, that he’s been set up, but Foggy will hear none of it. Foggy tells Matt that they’re through until Matt gets the help he needs. 
• After a flashback story involving Stilt-man, we see Nelson and Murdock still at odds over the remains. Foggy’s worries about Matt’s mental state are increased because Matt calls him and says Milla Donovan is in apartment unaware of anything bad ever happening to her. Nelson agrees to go to the hospital where Milla was committed if Daredevil will look into a case involving a drug lord Hierra dying and an innocent nurse accused of murder.  
• The year ends with Foggy telling Matt that he must have hallucinated Milla because he can see her inside her room at the hospital. Daredevil going after one of the drug lords bosses only to suspect Jardeim Salazar himself seemly falls down an elevator shaft trying to escape him. That leads to Daredevil dropping in on the only other Hierra’s bosses as he tries to consolidate power – Anthony Tortino. Daredevil tries to warn the men about their common enemy, but things quickly turn south. Daredevil believes it’s The Spot who’s doing all this and jumps into a circular black portal after Tortino but is knocked out. He awakens to his hands being cuffed behind a post. Daredevil shouts in rage that Spot is a dead man, but the black hands that abducted him pick his detached head and the tormentor introduces himself as Coyote. 

This Week's Spotlight: Avenging Spider-Man #6 June 2012 “The Omega Effect Part 1”, Punisher vol 9 #10 June 2012 “The Omega Effect Part 2” and Daredevil vol 3 #11 June 2012 “The Omega Effect Part 3” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It is getting harder to separate comics from culture, to the detriment of the industry and its readers.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2012 was a year when the big news in comics all happened outside of shops, with movie theaters and social media dominating the industry.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

• The Punisher: Dirty Laundry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAoBsIZ-M3A

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 613
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 450 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 491
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 2
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Avengers vs. X-Men (71 books), Minimum Carnage (6)
BEST SELLING COMICS: 

• Uncanny Avengers #1 at 305,000. 
• Also a lot of AvX

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Francesco Francavilla

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2012 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a quiet year in the comics world, but there were a lot of developments going on behind the scenes, and up on the screen.  Oh, and we did get ONE new character worth talking about… 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2011.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil v2 #512, Daredevil v3 #1-5, Daredevil Reborn #1-4, Shadowland #5, Ultimate Avengers #15-18, Ultimate Spider-Man #150, Bullseye: Perfect Game #2, What if? 200 #1, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #15, Avengers #17, Vengeance #2, Captain America Corps #4-5, New Avengers #16, FF #11, Season One Guide #1 and the Spider-Man Chapter One graphic novel. 

Writer: Andy Diggle (Reborn #1-4), Mark Waid (#1-5) 

Pencils: David Gianfelice (Reborn #1-4), Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin (#1), Paolo Rivera (#2-3), Marco Martin (#4-5) 

Inks: David Gianfelice (Reborn #1-4), Marcos Martin and Joe Rivera (#1), Joe Rivera (#2-3), Marcos Martin (#4-5) 

• 2011 begins with the final few issues of the Shadowland crossover event we talked about a couple weeks ago. In it, Murdock is the leader of the Hand and tries to use them for good in NYC but he’s corrupted by Snakeroot and “the Beast” and threatens to take down all of humanity before Iron Fist, Luke Cage and friends can stop him. Elektra smuggles Murdock’s lifeless body from the scene but who know he survives because Ben Urich gets a recording from Murdock saying he’s sorry for what happened and needs to get away to find the right path again. 
• In March, we learn what happened to Murdock in a 4-part limited series entitles Daredevil Reborn. In it, we learn he’s been wandering the country by foot and by bus and has found his way to New Mexico and proves to be the only story we get outside New York. We’ll cover it as this week’s spotlight story. 
• In September, we get issue #1 of Daredevil volume 3, a double sized issue from a new creative team. In this book we actually get 3 stories – “Here Comes…Daredevil” a 1-page recap of Daredevil history, “Man without Fear” in which Daredevil saves a mob bosses daughter from being abducted by the Spot during her wedding day but then Matt gets removed as lawyer from a case he’s working on because he’s Daredevil. Finally, in “Sometimes, in my dreams… I can See” Matt goes to his father’s grave site with Foggy. 
• As volume 2 continues, Daredevil has a talk with Captain America, Steve Rogers, about what he did in New York during Shadowland and convinces him it won’t happen again. Next Daredevil investigates why no one else was willing to work on the Jobrani case he was removed from. Turns out other lawyers who considered it were being threatened and supposedly Jobrani is hearing voices. After a run-in with the Klaw – who was the one causing Jobrani to hear voices, Murdock decides the best way he can help people is coaching them to represent themselves in court. After working with Jobrani, he wins his court case and Matt decides this is the new way forward for Nelson & Murdock. 
• Meeting with new potential clients under their new business model, Murdock meats with Austin Cao, a blind man who was working as a linguist for Midas Investments before he was abruptly fired. While that initially doesn’t look like much of a case, some men try to murder Austin and Matt while they are talking which causes Matt to take the case as Daredevil. Matt dispatches the mercenaries and he hides Austin at his apartment.  
• There he learns Austin overheard parts of a plot by Midas to broker a deal between Hydra, A.I.M., Black Spector, Zodiac and possibly other crime organizations. Daredevil confronts Austin’s old boss Mr. Randall who tells him he was only trying to protect Austin by firing him. More Midas mercenaries attack Randall who realizes what he’s done, and Daredevil must fight them off including Bruiser, an up-and-coming mercenary with powers trying to make a name for himself.  
• This story ends in early 2012 with a face-off between Daredevil and the 5 megacrime organizations using the threat of mutually assured destruction. He tells them they’re going to let him and his friends go, because in order for one of them to take the Omega drive, they’ll have to kill the other four agents and inevitably start a gang war. The agents lower their weapons and Daredevil walks out with Randall and Austin. He tells the terrorists that if their bosses want the Omega drive, they know where to find him. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil Reborn #1 from March 2011 “Reborn, Chapter One” through Daredevil Reborn #4 July 2011 “Reborn, Chapter Four” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It's time for a reset at Marvel! New characters, new directions, etc. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a quiet year in the comics world, but there were a lot of developments going on behind the scenes, and up on the screen.  Oh, and we did get ONE new character worth talking about…

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 791
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 636 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 640
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 3
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Age of X (11), Fear itself (125), Spider-Island (33), X-Men: Schism (11) and Shattered Heroes (74)
BEST SELLING COMICS: 

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Marvel anoints Bendis, Fraction, Brubaker, Hickman and Aaron as the “Architects” of the Marvel Universe.
• Passings: Gene Colan and Joe Simon
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Jordie Bellaire

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2011 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2010 is an odd year in a lot of ways.  It was quiet, but not in a “before the storm” way.  More in a “putt your head down and get to work” sense.  Great comics were made, and big things were happening mostly under the surface.

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2010.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #502-512, Shadowland #1-5, Shadowland After the Fall #1, Daredevil: Cage Match #1, Daredevil Black & White #1, New Avengers #59-60, New Avengers Annual #3, What If? Secret Invasion #1, Avengers: The Initiative #32, Black Widow: Deadly Origin #3-4, Siege #4, World War Hulks: Hulked-Out Heroes #2, X-Factor #204, Sentry: Fallen Sun #1, New Avengers #1, Atlas #4, Shadowland Bullseye #1, Thanos Imperative #3, Ultimate Avengers #13-15, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #6, Shadowland Elektra #1, Shadowland Power Man #2, Shadowland Spider-Man #1 and Strange Tales graphic novel. 

Writing: Andy Diggle (#502-504, 509-512), Diggle and Antony Johnson (#505-508) 

Pencils: Roberto De La Torre (#502, 504, 508-509, 511), De La Torre and Marco Checchetto (#503), Checchetto (#505-507, 510, 512) 

Inks: Roberto De La Torre (#502, 504, 508-509, 511), De La Torre and Marco Checchetto (#503), Checchetto (#505-507, 510, 512) 

• The year begins the story “The Devil’s Hand” in which Daredevil, White Tiger and Black Tarantula patrolling New York and taking on criminals and corrupt cops with the help of the Hand. Meanwhile, Foggy and Becky win a case against some corrupt cops only to have the judge throw out the verdict which outrages Foggy, and he gets arrested for contempt of court and loses his law license.  
• Daredevil orders the construction of Shadowland – a Japanese Style fortress to be constructed on the site of the building explosion caused by Bullseye that killed 107 protesters in the The List at the end of 2009. It is to be the headquarters of the Hand in NYC.  
• Tensions escalate as Kingpin sends Lady Bullseye to infiltrate and assassinate both police officers and H.A.M.M.E.R. agents to cause chaos and a reaction. Which it does as Norman Osborn responds by deploying a full H.A.M.M.E.R. unit to Hell’s Kitchen, which causes Daredevil to launch a declaration of war against the police, triggering a full-scale battle. At the end of The Devil’s Hand, Matt travels to Japan to deal with important matters involving the Hand, so he leaves Black Tarantula in charge of the city and takes White Tiger with him. 
• Next in story “Left Hand Path” we see Matt in Japan hoping to unite the other leaders of the Hand. However, Bakuto, the Daimyo of South America, causes trouble. The other leaders seem to be conspiring against him. Despite their differences, Matt saves Bakuto from an attack and we learn Snakeroot has co-opted White Tiger to aid in the very intricate plans for Murdock and Shadowland back in New York City.  
• We return back to New York and the start of Shadowland, the big crossover event that goes into the Hand’s plans for New York and Murdock ultimately, falling prey to them. This story was too big for just the Daredevil title and spawned its own limited series that needed to be read to understand what was going on in the Daredevil title. Those books along with a wrap up book entitled After the Fall while be our spotlight for this week. Buckle up everyone, you’re in for a ride... 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #508 September 2010 “Shadowland Part 1” through Daredevil #512 February 2011 “Shadowland Final Issue” plus Shadowland #1 September 2010 “Shadowland Part 1 of 5” through Shadowland #5 January 2011 “Shadowland Part 5” and Shadowland After the Fall #1 February 2011.

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

For the first time in a long while, I am starting to feel that quality and sales are becoming decoupled in the LCS / direct market model.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2010 is an odd year in a lot of ways.  It was quiet, but not in a “before the storm” way.  More in a “putt your head down and get to work” sense.  Great comics were made, and big things were happening mostly under the surface  

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

In many ways these were the darkest days of the Marvel Universe, at least in terms of the stories told in the 616.  Evil was ascendant and heroes were on the run.

TOTAL SERIES: 710
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 547 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 552
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 5
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): The Thanos Imperative (10), World War Hulks (15), Heroic Age (116), Shadowland (31)
BEST SELLING COMICS: Avengers #1, X-Men #1 and the Siege books

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Marvel anoints Bendis, Fraction, Brubaker, Hickman and Aaron as the “Architects” of the Marvel Universe.
• Passings: Al Williamson, American comics artist and inker
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Kelly Sue DeConnick

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2010 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2009 was a tough year for comics, in that sales declined and a number of stores (nearly 50% in some areas) closed their doors.  Closings of Waldenbooks and other book outlets also made getting product into customers’ hands difficult.  We also saw cover prices rise, even as the recession continued to impact fans ability to spend.

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2009.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #113-119, 500-501, Daredevil Noir #1-4, Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil #1, New Avengers #47, Secret Invasion #8, Secret Invasion: Front Line #5, Age of Sentry #4 and 6, Fantastic Four #562 and 569, Might Avengers #20, What If? Newer Fantastic Four #1, What If? Secret Wars #1, New Warriors #20, Amazing Spider-Man #587 and 600, Marvels: Eye of the Camera #2 and 4, Ultimate Spider-Man #132, Astonishing Tales #3-5, Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2-3, Deadpool: Suicide Kings #3-5, Exiles #6, Strange Tales #2 and Marvel 70th Anniversary Collection. 

Writing: Ed Brubaker (#113-119, 500), Andy Diggle (#501)

Pencils: Michael Lark (#113-114, 117-119), Lark, Tony Zonjic and Gaudiano (#115), David Aja (#116), Lark and Gaudiano (#500), Roberto De La Torre (#501)

Inks: Stefano Gaudiano (#113-114, 116-119), Matt Hollingsworth (#115), Klaus Janson, Chris Samnee and Paul Azaceta (#500), Roberto De La Torre (#501)

• 2009 begins with the final three parts of the Lady Bullseye storyline we talked about to finish up 2008. In that we Daredevil, Black Tarantula and White Tiger along with Master Izo trying to take down the Hand once and for all – but the Hand are trying to recruit Daredevil to be their leader. The story ends with Lord Hirochi, Lady Bullseye, Black Tarantula, and White Tiger board a plane to Spain, where Lady Bullseye says they will pursue Plan B. 
• In March, we get the return of another old foe – Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin himself in an aptly titled story called Return of the King. In part one of the story, we see Fisk in Spain where he befriends and falls in love with a woman, Marta, and her kids – only to see Lady Bullseye and the Hand killing them causing him to revert back to his old ways. 
• Kingpin returns to New York and announces his return and his plans to deal with Daredevil. That plan turns out to be working with Daredevil to take down the Hand. Meanwhile, Foggy is upset that Matt constant absence from the firm confronts him and ultimately fires him. 
• Daredevil tries to locate Master Izo without success and begins to doubt his alliance with Kingpin, suspecting that Fisk is using the Hand and the Owl to wipe out his rivals. Fisk, still haunted by visions of Vanessa, meets with the Owl and gives him Lady Bullseye’s next target – Foggy Nelson. 
• The conclusion of this story – is a renumbered issue 500 of Daredevil and the conclusion of Ed Brubaker on Daredevil – will be our spotlight story for this week.  
• In Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil #1 we see Bullseye (now operating under the Hawkeye identity) go after Daredevil at the behest of Norman Osborn. Daredevil pursues him but falls into a trap: Bullseye lures him into a building full of protestors and then blows it up. The blast kills 107 people, leaving Matt devastated and furious—determined to take action. 
• Following that we get the start of a new story from new creative team - Andy Diggle and Roberto De La Torre entitled The Devil’s Hand. In it, we see Matt as leader of the Hand. Since most of this story takes place in 2010 – we’ll save talking about it more until our 2010 discussion.

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #500 October 2009 “Return of the King, Conclusion”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It had been a rough decade for the United States, and the Marvel Universe showed the strain as the decade ended.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2009 was a tough year for comics, in that sales declined and a number of stores (nearly 50% in some areas) closed their doors.  Closings of Waldenbooks and other book outlets also made getting product into customers’ hands difficult.  We also saw cover prices rise, even as the recession continued to impact fans ability to spend.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

In many ways these were the darkest days of the Marvel Universe, at least in terms of the stories told in the 616.  Evil was ascendant and heroes were on the run.

TOTAL SERIES: 681
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 513 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 506
SERIES OVER 100 ISSUES: 7
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): War of Kings (54 issues), Utopia (13), Nation X (21), Necrosha (14)
BEST SELLING COMICS: ASM #583 (530K!), Captain America Reborn #1 (199K), Dark Avengers #1 (136K)

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Kieron Gillen

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2009 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2008 in the United States was a year of war and recession, leading to a bleak short-term outlook for Americans.  Comics and comic book movies reflected that, but also gave fans a lot to enjoy, hopefully taking people’s minds off social and economic issues they were facing. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2008.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #102-#112, Daredevil: Blood of the Tarantula #1, Avengers #36-37 and 39, World War Hulk: Aftersmash #1, Civil War Chronicles #5-6 and 8-12, What if? Civil War #1, Exiles #1, World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1-3, Black Panther Annual #1, New Exiles #0, Ultimate Fantastic Four #52-53, Might Avengers #12 and 16, King Size Hulk #1, Eternals #1, New Avengers #42, Ultimate Origins #3, Wolverine #68, Age of Sentry #2, Secret Invasion #7, Secret Invasion: The Amazing Spider-Man #3, and Thunderbolts #125  

Writing: Ed Brubaker (#102-106, 111-112) Brubaker and Greg Rucka (#107-110) 

Pencils: Michael Lark (#102-103, 107-112), Lark and Azaceta (#104-105), Paul Azaceta (#106), Clay Mann (#111) 

Inks: Stefano Gaudiano (#102, #105, #107-112) Gaudiano and Paul Azaceta (#103), Gaudiano and Tom Palmer (#104), Paul Azaceta (#106) 

• The year begins with the parts 3 through 6 of the Without Fear storyline we talked about in 2007. Daredevil takes down Mr Fear but not before Matt Murdock and Milla Donvan’s life is turned upside down. 
• In May, we get a single story “Sympathy for the Devil” that bridges us to the next big story arch. In it we see Matt Murdock struggling to deal with everything that’s happened to him and Milla. This interesting story will be our spotlight story for the year. 
• Next, we get the 4-part “Cruel and Unusual” story arch in which Matt Murdock tries to help a death row inmate “Big Ben” Donovan who’s unwilling to get help to stay his execution. Murdock can tell there’s more going on here and Dakota North being assaulted, warned away from investigating Big Ben case by her father Samuel North and finally shot all seem to confirm that suspicion. 
• After Dakota is shot, Matt decides to investigate the shooter and, after following the clues, realizes that there had been men watching his law office from the beginning. These men turn out to be federal agents, who explain why Donovan was framed. Apparently, the special units needed crime boss Eric Slaughter to watch over the docks, which is why they protected him. In the end, Matt speaks with Samuel J. North. North tells him how the special units crossed the line, that he didn’t want his daughter caught in the crossfire, that they needed someone to blame, and Donovan fit the profile. Interestingly, this story was billed as a 5-part story that ended after 4. 
• To finish out 2008, we get the return of Bullseye, well kind of. In a story titled “Lady Bullseye”, we see the Hand and their newest assassin – a woman who goes by the alias Lady Bullseye and was inspired by the original Bullseye who tore through the Yakuzi years before. Lady Bullseye frames Murdock for murder to keep him occupied (though he’s arrested the morning after cheating on his wife Milla with Dakota North) while they go after Iron Fist (Danny Rand) and Black Tarantula (Carlos LaMuerto). 
• North provides an alibi for Murdock so he gets released and upon returning home and upon returning home they find Black Tarantula hogtied and an old man rummaging through Matt’s kitchen, who introduces himself as Master Izo and says Matt is going to help him destroy the Hand. Apparently now is an opportune time as the Hand is in chaos as factions are fighting for control after Elektra is revealed to be a Skrull. 
• As the story progressed, we see that the Hand has a series of targets and eventually possesses Tarantula and White Tiger before a finally confrontation with Daredevil. It’s then that Lady Bullseye reveals to Matt her true plan—she wants him to lead the Hand, and her efforts so far have not been to attack his friends and family, but rather to remove them as obstacles. Stunned, Matt strikes her. They fight again and she knocks him out, saying the Hand does not take no for an answer. Master Izo helps Matt up, and assumes he refused the Hand’s offer; Matt says nothing. The story ends with Lord Hirochi, Lady Bullseye, Black Tarantula, and White Tiger board a plane to Spain, where Lady Bullseye says they will pursue Plan B. 
• One side story in the Lady Bullseye story arch, is Milla Donovan’s parents have checked her out of the hospital Matt’s been visiting and are trying to keep him away from their daughter.  
• In the Daredevil: Blood of the Tarantula one-shot, Daredevil helps Carlos LaMuerto face down his cousin, Luis, who is being backed up by his former gang from Argentina as they have arrived in New York to steal the power of the Black Tarantula and return it to its country of origin. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #106 May 2008 “Sympathy For the Devil” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

This is the year that comic book superheroes evolve into billion-dollar movie properties.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2008 in the United States was a year of war and recession, leading to a bleak short-term outlook for Americans.  Comics and comic book movies reflected that, but also gave fans a lot to enjoy, hopefully taking people’s minds off social and economic issues they were facing.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Marvel plunged headlong into the deep end of the event pool, as the summer event Secret Invasion was essentially a reboot of major parts of the universe.

TOTAL SERIES: 541
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 387 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 361
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Secret Invasion (Skrulls, 126) | Dark Reign (Norman Osborn and Dark Avengers, 290) | X-Men: Divided We Stand (disbanding, 40) | X-Men: Manifest Destiny (West coast move, 35)
BEST SELLING COMICS: Secret Invasion #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Joe Sabino

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2008 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

America continues to deal with the consequences of 9/11, and we are not mid-way through the 8 year Iraq War.  Something seems to be changing on the comics landscape, as dark themes, destruction and war get more prevalent, and stories retreat to more conventional and traditional themes. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2007.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #91-#101, Daredevil: Father #6, Daredevil Annual #1, Incredible Hulk #100. Thunderbolts #108 and 110, What If? Avengers Disassembled #1, What If? Wolverine Enemy of the State #1, Avengers Next #4, Marvel Select Flip Magazine #19 and 22, X-23: Target X #1-6, Amazing Spider-Man #538, Spider-Man and Power Pack #3-4, Black Panther #25, Bullet Points #4-5, Civil War: Front Line #11, Fantastic Four: Then End #5-6, Punisher War Journal #4, Civil War: The Confession #1, Ultimate Spider-Man #106-107 and 109-110, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #1, Ms Marvel #14, Wonder Man #5, Hulk and Power Pack #3-4, Marvel Zombies: Dead Days #1, X-Men #200, World War Hulk: Front Line #2 and 6, Civil War Chronicles #1-2, Last Fantastic Four Story #1, New Avengers #34 

Writing: Ed Brubaker (#91-101) 

Pencils: Michael Lark (#91-93, 95-99, and 101), Lee Weeks (#94), Lark, Marko Djurdjevic, John Romita Sr, Gene Colan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Alex Maleev and Lee Bermejo (#100) 

Inks: Stefano Gaudiano (#91-99 and 101), Gaudiano and Al Milgrom (#100) 

• 2007 begins with the final three parts of the “Devil Takes a Ride storyline we talked about in 2006 That involved Murdock going to Europe and confronting Vanessa Fisk for all the trouble she’s been causing him as well as then freeing Fisk from prison. 
• In April, we get a one-shot story called Our Love Story (with a cool cover from John Romita Sr) that talks about the relationship Milla Donovan has with Matt Murdock and Daredevil. 
• Next, we get long story arch titled “To the Devil, His Due”.  Murdock and company are brought in to defend Melvin Potter, the Gladiator, who has been accused of killing inmates in Ryker's Island prison; Melvin claims that he didn't do it, even though all evidence points to the fact that he did. As the story progresses, Potter escapes prison and goes on a killing spree, Milla starts going to a psychiatrist and Lily Luca – the woman who double crossed Murdock in Europe during the Devil Takes a Ride story comes to New York looking for Murdock’s help. 
• When Potter shows up to ruin a dinner date between Milla and Matt, Murdock figures out that someone is behind the Gladiator’s recent behavior and must stop Potter from killing Milla. The story ends with Potter getting arrested and Daredevil turning his sights on the person behind Potter’s behavior change… Mr. Fear. Meanwhile, in a moment of jealous anger directed toward Lily (induced in no small part by Mr Fear’s gas), Milla accidentally kills a man in the subway. 
• That leads directly into a “Triple sized” issue 100 featuring 7 artists and a huge six-part story titled Without Fear that finishes the year and bleeds into 2008. Issue 100 will be the spotlight story this week. For this recap, Daredevil confronts Larry Cranston aka Mr Fear but Fear is able to escape and when he returns home Murdock learns Milla has been arrested for murder.
• As the Without Fear story continues, we see Turk is now in the employ of the Hood who has designs of his own on New York and Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil learns of a chemist who assisted Mr Fear in his latest version of the fear gas who is now dead, and Milla fails her psych evaluation and is sent to Bellevue hospital under protective custody. Milla is eventually allowed to return home with a home health nurse to monitor her actions. But then she attacks the nurse after being visited by Lily Lucca which gets her sent back to Bellevue. Hood and Fear team up for a time but disagree on “the big picture”.  
• Ultimately the story ends with Daredevil confronting Mr Fear and demanding a cure to Milla’s condition – to which fear reveals there is no antidote.  Turning him over to Detective Krutz, Cranston confesses that he is responsible for Melvin and Milla's recent action and claims he did it to Matt Murdock because he does not like him. Lilly Lucca, who went to Murdock’s home because of Mr Fear, has disappeared and Murdock tells Foggy he’s responsible for ruining Milla’s life. 
• Meanwhile, in the Daredevil Annual that was released in December, Carlos Muerto aka Black Tarantula is released on parole, and he looks up his old prison buddy, Matt Murdock, for a job and help in getting his life back in order. And though it works for a time, ultimately, they end up going their separate ways. This is a story by Ed Brubaker with Andre Parks as writer. Leo Fernandez and Scott Koblish on art. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #100 October 2007 “Without Fear: Part One” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

The retrenchment that is going to divide comics fandom over the next two decades may have its roots here in 2007.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

America continues to deal with the consequences of 9/11, and we are not mid-way through the 8 year Iraq War.  Something seems to be changing on the comics landscape, as dark themes, destruction and war get more prevalent, and stories retreat to more conventional and traditional themes. 

Preshow

Where did the podcast go?

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Marvel had a huge year, with stories and events that would resonate into the company’s future, both in the comics and on screen.  As usual they won no awards, but they sold a lot of comics… 

TOTAL SERIES: 470
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 326 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 306
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): One More Day (4), Silent War, The Initiative (80), World War Hulk (52), X-Men: Endangered Species (17), X-Men: Messiah Complex (13)
BEST SELLING COMICS: Civil War #7

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Jonathan Hickman

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2007 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

Last week in the takeaway we talked about how 2005 had elements that pointed to a new golden age for comics, and there were elements that pointed to dangerous days ahead.  Well, if 2006 is any indication, Golden Age it is...  

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2006.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #79-90, Daredevil vs Punisher #6, Daredevil: Father #5, Fantastic Four: The Wedding Special #1, Spider-Man Unlimited #12, Black Widow 2 #4-6, Playmates Toys #1, Spider-Man /Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do #4-6, Marvel Zombies #2-3, Pulse #13, Thing #3  X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl #1, I Heart Marvel: Marvel Ai #1, Marvel Team-Up #17 and 20, New Mangaverse #2, Amazing Spider-Man #530 and 534, Thunderbolts #100/105/107, Doc Samson #4, Wolverine #42, Exiles #83, Cable & Deadpool #31, Fantastic Four #539, New Avengers #22 and 24, Marvel Select Flip Magazine #16-17, Civil War #1-6, Civil War: Choosing Sides #1, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1, Civil War: Frontline #10 

Writing: Brian Michael Bendis (#79-81), Ed Brubaker (#82-90) 

Pencils: Alex Maleev (#79-81), Michael Lark (#82-87 and #89-90), David Aja (#88) 

Inks: Alex Maleev (#79-81), Michael Lark (#82), Stefano Gaudiano (#83-87 and #89-90), David Aja (#88) 

• The year begins with the final three issues of The Murdock Papers from Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. 
• In April, We get a new creative team and a new story arch with three parts centered around Matt Murdock in prison.  The first is entitled The Devil in Cell-Block D and in it, Brubaker and Lark do the unthinkable – while visiting Matt in prison, Foggy and their assistant Dakota are assaulted – with Foggy being stabbed while Murdock is unable to help while bring locked up in solitary confinement. The story ends with Matt Murdock frantically screaming, "His heart is still beating," over and over. 
• As the story continues, we see a funeral for Foggy (which Murdock is able to attend) and we see someone is running around the city in the Daredevil costume on – which does seem to help Murdock’s case for not being our horned hero. In August, we see Fisk and Murdock working together to survive a prison riot and after Murdock escapes from prison with the help of the recently incarcerated Punisher.   
• In the finale of The Devil in Cell Block D, Murdock hunts down the other Daredevil – who turns out to be Iron Fist – who was trying to help keep Murdock’s secret identity hidden. Matt decides to leave the country for Monaco to find the man responsible for having Foggy killed. But Foggy is alive and well and hiding under the witness protection program. The warden believes Matt was truly a helpless victim of Punishers and goes public with this on TV. 
• Next we catch up with the recently revealed to be alive Foggy Nelson in a single-issue story called “The Secret Life of Foggy Nelson. In it we see him try to reach out to Ben Urich and others but he is stopped by the FBI who are “protecting” him. 
• Finally, to finish off the 2006 – which bleeds into 2007 – we travel to Europe (specifically Monaco to start with) for Murdock’s hunt for a lawyer, Alton Lennox, who helped “kill” Foggy Nelson entitled The Devil Takes a Ride. In it, he teams up with a mob bosses daughter who turns out to double cross him. He confronts her (and Tombstone) in Paris and tells her he’s not so easily fooled. Daredevil finally finds out who has been behind everything and it turns out to be the wife of his most hated enemy, Vanessa Fisk. When Murdock confronts her in Zurich, we learn she is dying and he manipulated Murdock to get him to help free Wilson Fisk as her dying wish. Murdock initially refuses, but she knows he’ll eventually agree and sets her plan in motion – killing Leland Drummond, the FBI director going after Murodck.  
• The Devil takes a Ride concludes with Matt finding out Foggy is still alive and also helping release the Kingpin from prison to honor Vanessa's memory. Though he has the Kingpin agree to have his U.S. Citizenship revoked and that Fisk will have to leave the country. Foggy agrees with Matt's idea to move their law firm to a new location as well as changing their business method of accepting clients from referrals only to avoid drawing attention from DD's enemies. It was also decided that Becky Blake will join their firm as a law partner (Nelson, Blake, and Murdock). Matt also moves him and Milla to a new apartment as well since too many of his enemies already knew the address of his previous apartment. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #82 April 2006 “The Devil in Cell-Block D Part One” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

It doesn’t get any better than this.  Comics in 2006 are at the top of their form both in terms of their content and their cultural impact.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

Last week in the takeaway we talked about how 2005 had elements that pointed to a new golden age for comics, and there were elements that pointed to dangerous days ahead.  Well, if 2006 is any indication, Golden Age it is...

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Marvel decided to return to the “event” with a bang, as the universe-spanning Civil War wrecked friendships, unmasked heroes, and generally created chaos all across the Marvel line.  This was another dominant year for Marvel, with increased sales and fan acclaim.

TOTAL SERIES: 499
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 369
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 349
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Civil War (132), Planet Hulk (23), Annihilation
BEST SELLING COMICS: Civil War #1-5 (2 was highest)

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Charlie Huston

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2006 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a great year in comics, and maybe a turning point.  Movies, events and accolades abounded.  But somehow it all worries me a bit, in retrospect. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2005.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #67-78, Daredevil: Redemption #1-6, Daredevil: Father #1-4, Exiles #54, 56 and 62, Marvel Age Spider-Man #15, New Avengers #1-3 and 11, Powerless #6, Ultimate Elektra #4-5, Bullseye: Greatest Hits #4, Marvel Knight 4 #13, What if…Karen Page Had Lived? #1, Wolverine #23-24, Marvel Knights Spider-Man #11, Ultimates 2 #3, Hercules #1, Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects #2-6, Marvel Team-Up #9-10, Daredevil vs Punisher #1-5, House of M #5-7, Ultimate Fantastic Four #22, Black Widow 2 #1-2, Defenders #4, Secret War #5, Weapon X: Days of Future Now #4 along with the Elektra: On the Rise, New Avengers: Pot of Gold, Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Visionaries: Stan Lee graphic novels 

Writing: Brian Michael Bendis (#67-78)  

Pencils: Alex Maleev (#67-78) 

Inks: Alex Maleev (#67-78) 

• The year begins with the continuation of the Golden Age storyline that starts in December. In it, we learn immediately about Alexander Bont (the Kingpin before Wilson Fisk). He was released from prison and plans to get revenge on Daredevil and Matt Murdock for helping him go to prison. Across the 5 issues, we see just how powerful Bont was and how Daredevil got him arrested as well as how Murdock made sure he went to prison for most of his life. Bont enlists the reformed Gladiator to kidnap and beat Murdock before attempting to reveal his now widely known secret on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. 
• Meanwhile, Agent Del Toro of the FBI approaches Matt Murdock asking for help understanding why he and others are superheroes and how to come to terms with her inheriting the White Tiger Amulet from her now deceased uncle Hector Ayala. Murdock as Daredevil does help, helping her to learn to use the Amulet and her new powers – which comes in handy as Del Toro is the one who comes to Murdock’s rescue from Gladiator and Bont.  
• After that, we get one of my favorite Bendis stories to date – Decalogue. In it, we see a support group, the Devil Among Us, trying to come to grips of their re-ins with our horned hero. Things start with a junkie telling how she started going straight after seeing her boyfriend and his enlisted help Bullet get taken down when they had designs for taking over for Kingpin after Daredevil’s proclamation, he was the new Kingpin. We get a story from another group member about failing to honor his father’s wish from prison to have Foggy Nelson killed.  
• From there, the stories and the group take a turn. The DD support group continues and the wife of a super-powered serial killer tells how DD tracked down her husband but refused to let him fall to his death; The killer's last intended victim whom DD saved turns out to be a member of the group and doesn't take kindly to the story of a troubled man plagued by demons.  
• The DD support group continues with the tale of one of Milla Donovan's friends who went to her wedding with Matt Murdock and whose daughter later killed herself after surviving a bank robbery by the Jester. A goading and mysterious member of the group pipes up and promises there are deep dark secrets in all these tales and points out that Matt Murdock is there in the group with them; And he is. 
• The story ends with Murdock confronting the Demon that had possessed the Jester (and is currently inhabiting the mysterious member of the group) and interfered with so many lives after which he tries to explain to the group why he does the things he does; For the first time, Matt Murdock publicly admits to outsiders that he is DD. 
• After that, we get one last story from Brian Michael Bendis that spills over into 2006 – The Murdock papers. In it, we see the Kingpin attempt to use the knowledge of Murdock’s secret identity to leverage a pardon for all his crimes from the FBI all with Ben Urich unwilling assistance. Claiming he has physical evidence proving Murdock is Daredevil, he gets Urich to write a story saying Kingpin is willing to tell all – forcing the FBI to decide to pursue a case against Murdock rather than their very weak case against Fisk.  
  • At the same time, Milla Donovan has a change of heart and wants to be with Murdock again – which he happily wants as well. 
• This leads to Elektra and Black Widow (along with the recently fired Agent Del Toro) trying to help Daredevil get the papers before the FBI does from Fisk’s lawyer’s office. There’s a big confrontation that includes Bullseye and in which Daredevil gets shot and is briefly presumed dead. Fisk reveals that the papers were a lie and meant to flush Daredevil out so the FBI could arrest him.  
• The conclusion of this epic storyline (and the Bendis run on Daredevil) will be our spotlight for this year… 

This Week's Spotlight: #80 February 2006 “The Murdock Papers Part 5” and Daredevil #81 March 2006 “The Murdock Papers Part 6”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

The beginning of an Golden Age? Or the harbinger of future problems?

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a great year in comics, and maybe a turning point.  Movies, events and accolades abounded.  But somehow it all worries me a bit, in retrospect.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Marvel steamed ahead in 2005, with Joe Quesado taking on additional responsibilities, and Brian Bendis in charge of Marvel’s first big event in years.  New stories with new characters by some of the best young talents in the industry made for a spectacular year! 

TOTAL SERIES: 449
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 331 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 304
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): House of M
BEST SELLING COMICS: New Avengers, House of M

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Bendis is credited 77 times this year. The equivalent of over 6 books a month! 
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Ed Brubaker

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2004 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2004 was a relatively quiet year in comics, but there were some critical developments that made waves into the future.  Big movies, heroes back from the dead, and some important new faces!

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2004.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #54-66, Daredevil: Father #1, Daredevil 2099 #1, Punisher #35-37, Exiles #39 and #43, Spider-Man Unlimited #1, Elektra #35, Marvel 1602 #8, Secret War #2-3, Powerless #1-5, Ultimate Elektra #1-3 

Writing: David Mack (#54-55), Brian Michael Bendis (#56-66) 

Pencils: David Mack (#54-55), Alex Maleev (#56-64 and 66), Maleev, Michael Golden, Greg Horn, P. Craig Russell, Phil Hester, Chris Bachalo, Jae Lee, David Finch and Frank Quitely (#65) 

Inks: David Mack (#54-55), Alex Maleev (#56-64 and 66), Maleev, Michael Golden, Greg Horn, P. Craig Russell, Phil Hester, Chris Bachalo, Jae Lee, David Finch and Frank Quitely (#65) 

• The year begins late in 2003, as we noted two weeks ago with our 2003 discussion, with the return of David Mack to writing and art and Maya Lopez in the book itself. She’s returned to New York and is looking to reconnect with Daredevil. After he shares he’s now with someone else, she instead visits with a chief her father knew and goes on a vision quest. There, with the help of a man shaped in the form of a wolverine, helps her understand a story her father used to tell her and helps her realize who she is. She goes back to Daredevil and bids him goodbye with a kiss. 
• From there, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev return with a story called The King of Hell’s Kitchen. We learn it’s been a year since the confrontation between Kingpin and Daredevil and according to Ben Urich – Daredevil has been very busy cleaning up the kitchen while also taking some flack about his methods from other superheroes.  
• His latest dealings have been against the Yakuza and after a large battle Daredevil’s gone missing. Milla Donovan reached out to Urich to find him and during their discussion we learned that 4 months ago she and Murdock got married. Urich finds Murdock and reunited the married couple – but not before suggesting the events of the last year are all his way coping with the death of Karen Page. With a little help from some super powered friends, Daredevil puts a stop to the Yakuza plot to take over Hell's Kitchen. Milla confronts Matt about his problems over the death of Karen Page and before leaving her husband. 
• Next we get storyline featuring another of Matt’s love interests, the Black Widow, in a story called “The Widow”. Black Widow gets “called in” be SHIELD and realizing it’s a trap – instead goes to visit Matt Murdock in New York hoping she can hide in plain sight. The pair take down Jigsaw and upon making bail – he goes back to Murdock asking permission to run crime through Hell’s kitchen (since he’s the new Kingpin). Matt isn’t amused. 
• Turns out the hiding in plain sight didn’t work as the two get shot at by a hired assassin while having lunch. The pair go after the assassin and after that Natasha finally shares the reason for her visit. Though the conversation is cut short as Jigsaw and his men have entered Murdock’s home and Matt can’t fight them as daredevil and revealing his lie. In the end, we learn a Bulgarian minister and Natasha’s ex-husband were behind the ordeal and Matt begrudgingly gives Milla the annulment to their marriage. 
• In November, we get a HUGE 40th Anniversary Special issue. This story backtracks over the 1 year time period that Matt Murdock was outed as Daredevil that Ben Urich told us about during the King of Hell’s Kitchen story earlier this year. To do so, the Bendis and Maleev called on a host of other artists to tell the story. This seems like the perfect book for this week’s spotlight. 
• There is one more book this year, But it starts another storyline – so we’ll save that for our 2005 discussion. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #65 November 2004 “The Universe”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Reading Marvel is great, but when you see Jean Grey die for the second time, Marvel has told you its story, and its time to start looking into other publishers.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

2004 was a relatively quiet year in comics, but there were some critical developments that made waves into the future.  Big movies, heroes back from the dead, and some important new faces!

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 292
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 197 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 173
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Avengers Disassembled (34 issues) and Secret War (starts)
BEST SELLING COMICS: New Avengers #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Greg Pak

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2004 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a crazy year in America, with the Gulf War and the Patriot Act in the news, and over a billion dollars spent on comic-based movies.  But in the actual world of American comics, 2003 was that most beautiful to things – a stable, productive year filled with fantastic and influential stories.   

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2003.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #39-53, Daredevil: The Target #1, Ultimate Daredevil and Electra #1-4, Daredevil: The Movie #1, Paradise X #7-11 and X, Exiles #20 and #25, Alias #18 and #24, Marvel Universe: The End #1-6, Ultimate X-Men #36, Captain America #19 and Punisher #33-34 

Writing: Brian Michael Bendis (#39-50), David Mack (#51-53)  

Pencils: Manuel Gutierrez (#39), Terry Dodson (#40), Alex Maleev (#41-50), David Mack (#51-53) 

Inks: Manuel Gutierrez (#39), Rachel Dodson (#40), Alex Maleev (#41-50), David Mack (#51-53)

• The year begins with the named story that started at the end of 2002 “The Trial of the Century” but this isn’t the trial we’ve had story leaning up to. Instead, Luke Cage urges and eventually convinces Matt Murdock to defend Hector Ayala aka the White Tiger who recently get back into the costume and in a failed attempt to stop a robbery get arrested for a police officer who was shot and killed. 
• The trial doesn’t go particularly well despite the fact Ayala is innocent. Murdock’s defense included calling superheroes like Reed Richards, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones before Ayala himself takes the stand. During cross examination, Ayala loses his cool and lashes out in anger and frustration about how no one understands (superheroes).  
• This story tragically comes to an end with Hector Ayala convicted of murder. Dismayed over the conviction and assurances by Murdock he will go free, Hector attempts to flee the courthouse rather than being taken into custody and is gunned down by police on the stairs of the courthouse. 
• Starting in March, we get the storyline Lowlife in which The Owl has taken over part of the Kingpin’s old territory and is selling a drug MGH (Mutant Growth Hormone). He’s also trying to get incriminating evidence on Matt Murdock/Daredevil. Also, in this story we meet Milla Donovan, a blind woman Daredevil saves from get hit by a truck – who falls for the hero and befriends Matt Murdock (since he’s Daredevil) 
• Uri Rosenthal, the Globe newspaper owner whom Matt Murdock is suing is found dead at home and Murdock is taken into custody for questions during his date with Milla. Matt tries to apologize to Milla for their interrupted date, takes down the Owl as Daredevil and learns that the Kingpin is back in town. 
• This then leads directly into the story “Hardcore” and the return of Typhoid Mary. Kingpin is amassing power again and needs a distraction for Matt Murdock / Daredevil so he pulls Mary for her “normal” life as a soap opera star. Her distraction, it turns out, is showing up during Milla and Matt’s walk for lunch and setting Matt on fire. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage help Matt subdue Mary while keeping Milla safe. With Mary in jail, Bullseye talks Kingpin into giving him another shot at Daredevil which turns out to be a shot at Milla. Daredevil saves her (and carves a crosshair tattoo into Bullseye’s forehead) and angrily turns his sights on Kingpin. 
• This culminates in another epic showdown between Kingpin and Daredevil in issue 50 of Daredevil worthy of our spotlight this week. 
• The year ends with writer/artist David Mack along with character Maya Lopez’s Echo returning in the first three parts of the Echo storyline that we’ll be saving for next year. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil volume 2 #50 October 2003 “Hardcore Part 5”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Even as we leave behind the grimdark of the ‘90s, Marvel’s Supreme Power, DC’s Red Son and Image’s Invincible lead us from an age of sex and violence into an age of cynicism and moral ambiguity.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

It was a crazy year in America, with the Gulf War and the Patriot Act in the news, and over a billion dollars spent on comic-based movies.  But in the actual world of American comics, 2003 was that most beautiful to things – a stable, productive year filled with fantastic and influential stories.

The Year in Comics 

Comics in Other Media

DC Comics

Other Publishers

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 219
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 147 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 119
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): None!
BEST SELLING COMICS: Ultimate Fantastic Four #1, Avengers/JLA #1 and #2, Wolverine #1, ASM 500, Marvel 1602 #1-5.  Wolvie #1 was 9th and #2 was 66th

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Olivier Coipel

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2003 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

The world was a dangerous and frightening place, and America was trying to come to terms with how to move forward, both internally and on the world stage.  And comics showed a lot of that anxiety.  But even so, 2002 was a big year for all involved in the comics world, as sales of actual honest to goodness comic books actually rose 10% this year to 230 Million dollars, the first time that the industry had seen that occur since 1993, when comic sales had peaked at around 850 Million.  And even as traffic in stores was increasing, Hollywood was starting to understand how to make comic properties work on the screen, both small and large.   

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2002.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #27-38, Daredevil: Yellow #6, Paradise X: Heralds #1-2, Elektra #6, Giant Size Mini-Marvels: Starring Spidey #1, Marvel Knight: Millennial Visions #1, Peter Parker: Spider-Man #39 and 41, Essential Marvel Team-Up #1, Paradise X #0-5, Marvel Knight #2-6, Marvel Knights Double Shot #1 and 4, Amazing Spider-Man #2, Ultimate Spider-Man Special #1, Order #5-6, Spider-Man/Daredevil #1, Marville #2 along with Marvel Masterworks: The Submariner #1 and Daredevil: Yellow, Fantastic First, Life and Death of Captain Marvel graphic novels 

Writing: Brian Michael Bendis (#27-38)  

Pencils: Alex Maleev (#27-37), Manuel Gutierrez (#38) 

Inks: Alex Maleev (#27-37), Manuel Gutierrez (#38) 

• The year for Matt Murdock and Daredevil begins with a 6-part story called Underboss that began in December 2001. In that story we see a bombing attempt on Matt Murdock’s life just outside of the courthouse and we see Sammy Silke and several of the Kingpin’s other bosses repeatedly stab the kingpin leave him dying on the floor. 
• So, who put a hit out on Matt Murdock and who is this Sammy Silke who rallied Kingpin’s underlings against him? We start to get answers about this over the next 5 books through flashbacks while the story continues forward. Silke is the son of a crime boss in Chicago who needed to get out of town. He came to New York and went to work for the Kingpin – but when the Kingpin wouldn’t let him put a hit on Matt Murdock – He caught wind of Murdock’s seemly open secret within the Kingpin network and set in motion a plan to take out Murdock and Kingpin with the help of Kingpin’s son – Richard. 
• Vanessa Fisk finds out her husband has been stabbed and in critical condition (and not killed as reports claim). She goes to New York and despite objections from his doctor, wants Kingpin taken to the airport and flown out of the country. She also orders those that betrayed Kingpin to be killed -including her son Richard whom she visits and kills herself.  
• Underboss ends with Silke, fearing for his life, turning himself into the FBI and asking for protection. When the FBI refuse, he tells them Murdock’s secret identity.   
• From there, things start to really go crazy for Matt Murdock. An FBI agent, needing some cash, sells Murdock’s secret to the Daily Globe (the Bugle’s rival paper) and it’s ran as a front-page story and a media circus descents on Murdock’s brownstone.  
• Ben Urich and Peter Parker tell J. Jonah Jameson the DD secret identity story is a hoax but both refuse to tell him who DD really is; Foggy tries to get Matt to give up his life as DD. Seeing the story, Mr. Hyde shows up and starts destroying Murdock’s house before Daredevil and Spider-Man can intervene. 
• After some time away, Matt Murdock holds a press conference denying he’s Daredevil. We’ll jump into more detail about that during this week’s spotlight. 
• After a rooftop chat with Elektra at the urging of Black Widow, it looks like things will be settle with the Daily Globe after Daredevil visits the FBI agent who gave up his secret, but then the Globe owner Rosenthal nixes the deal because Murdock was being so smug about the agreement. 
• The year ends with part 1 of the next named storyline, The Trail of the Century, which we’ll talk about in 2003. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil volume 2 #36 October 2002 “One Hundred Percent Untrue”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Big Box Office does not necessarily translate to big bucks at the comic shop.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

The world was a dangerous and frightening place, and America was trying to come to terms with how to move forward, both internally and on the world stage.  And comics showed a lot of that anxiety.  But even so, 2002 was a big year for all involved in the comics world, as sales of actual honest to goodness comic books actually rose 10% this year to 230 Million dollars, the first time that the industry had seen that occur since 1993, when comic sales had peaked at around 850 Million.  And even as traffic in stores was increasing, Hollywood was starting to understand how to make comic properties work on the screen, both small and large.   

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 219
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 167 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 149
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Infinity Abyss. 
BEST SELLING COMICS: Ultimates #1 was the best selling book of the year.  X-Men and Spider-Man books also did well

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Jason Aaron

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2002 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episode 9 that was released on Disney+ on April 15th. 

Initial Thoughts

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 9: Straight to Hell (9.2 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: Mayor Fisk becomes Mayor Kingpin, and Daredevil is unleashed as chaos takes over the city.

Dan’s Non-Wikipedia, Non-AI Recap

Discussion Topics

Frank is back!!

Violence is visceral, and not idealized

Hard to watch sometimes, because of current real-world parallels

Fisk is a monster corrupting everything around him

Many dual scene moments

Safer Streets Initiative

We need an army

No Foggy Nelson revival

Big Question:

Was it worth the wait?

Next Week:

The year in comics - 2002

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episode 8 that was released on Disney+ on April 8th. 

Initial Thoughts

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 8: Isle of Joy (9.2 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: At his inaugural Black and White Ball, Mayor Fisk tightens his grip on New York City.

Dan’s Non-Wikipedia, Non-AI Recap

Discussion Topics

Double Agent BB Urich

Empathize with Dex?

Fisk and Vanessa

Use of Color - Blue, Red and White

What good men do

Big Question:

Is Daredevil a good guy this week? 

Next Week:

Daredevil Born Again Episode 9 - Season Finale

Releases on Disney+ on April 15th

Podcast Release on Friday, April 18th

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episode 7 that was released on Disney+ on April 1st. 

Initial Thoughts

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 7: With Interest (8.2 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: Daredevil is back and races Fisk to stop Muse from killing again.

Dan’s Non-Wikipedia, Non-AI Recap

Discussion Topics

So many lies. "All feels fake."

Fight Choreography

The "Thin Dark Line"

Did Vanessa betray Luca or try to betray Wilson?

The Powers Act next? 

David Mack art

Big Question:

Are we already done with Muse?  And if so, what was the point? 

Next Week:

Daredevil Born Again Episode 8 

Releases on Disney+ on April 8th

Podcast Release on Friday, April 11th

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episodes 5 and 6 that were released on Disney+ on March 25th. 

Initial Thoughts

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 5: With Interest (8.3 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: A day in the life of Matt Murdock gets intense, forcing him to team up with a familiar face.

Episode 2: Excessive Force (9.0 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: When a serial killer terrorizes the streets of New York, the city needs a savior.

Dan’s Non-Wikipedia, Non-AI Recap

Discussion Topics

Yusuf and a Bank Heist

Bottle Episode

Matt Murdock, lawyer who does everything

D'Onofrio is on his game

Returning to their nature

Next Week:

Daredevil Born Again Episode 7 

Releases on Disney+ on April 1st

Podcast Release on Friday, April 4th

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episodes 3 that were released on Disney+ on March11th. 

Initial Thoughts

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 3: The Hollow of His Hand (8.8 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: The trial of Hector Ayala begins. Fisk’s old business associates seek to claim his vacant mantle.

Dan’s Non-Wikipedia, Non-AI Recap 

Discussion Topics

Matt the Lawyer

The Big Swing

The Police Punisher Cult

The White Tiger, Vigilantism and Community Power

The Corruption of Vanessa Marianna-Fisk

Punisherment 

Big Question: 

What were the changes?  Did Episode One Even Matter?

Next Week:

Daredevil Born Again Episode 4 

Releases on Disney+ on March 18th

Podcast Release on Friday, March 21th

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

Welcome to a special edition of the Comics Over Time podcast. We'll be discussing Daredevil Born Again episodes 1 and 2 that were released on Disney+ on March 4th. 

Initial Thoughts

Daredevil Recap from IGN: https://youtu.be/afubQp0VeKc?si=YwvKjyTyFHx0Lhau

1:00 Recap and Blurbs 

Episode 1: Heaven’s Half Hour (8.8 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: Matt Murdock gives up the mask. Wilson Fisk has his sights set to new heights. 

Episode 2: Optics (8.7 rating on IMDB) 

The Disney+ blurp: Matt Murdock gets a new client who’s more than he claims to be. Fisk learns the power of optics.  

Discussion Topics

Disjointed From Season 3

New Support System

Fights look Different

A Line was Cross - Violence

Music Choices

Devil's Reign - Mayor Kingpin

Disney+ with Ads

White Tiger Story and Memoriam

Daredevil even out of Costume 

Next Week:

Daredevil Born Again Episode 3 

Releases on Disney+ on March 11th

Podcast Release on Friday, March 14th

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

The year 2001 has a dark shadow over it, and there are elements of this year that are pretty rough, because as the year closed comic books were trying to make sense of and deal with 9/11 just like the rest of America.  But the start of the year brought a lot of great entertainment and for the first time in years sales held steady (mostly)  

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2001.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #14-26, Daredevil / Spider-Man #1-4, Daredevil: Yellow #1-5, Daredevil: Ninja #2-3, Marvel Knights #7-9 and #11-15, Black Widow #2-3, Spider-Man and Mysterio #1-3, X-Men #109, Big Town #4, Deadpool #52, Black Panther #31, Elektra #1, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #7-8, 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time #1 and 4, Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #2 and Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor #3. 

Writing: David Mack (#14-15), Brian Michael Bendis (#16-19 and #26) Bob Gale (#20-25) 

Pencils: Joe Quesada and David Ross (#14), Ross (#15 and #23-25), David Mack (#16-19), Phil Winslade (#20-22), Alex Maleev (#26) 

Inks: Mark Morales (#14-15) David Mack and Morales (#15) Mack and Pond Scum (#17) Mack (#18-19), James Hodgkins (#20-22), Hodgkins and Mark Pennington (#23), Pennington (#24-25), Alex Maleev (#26) 

• After the wrap-up of the Parts of a hole storyline that included a trail of Kingpin before he’s eventually blinded by Maya Lopez aka Echo, we get our first story from Brian Michael Bendis with David Mack moving over to art. The 4-book story, Titled Wake Up, is a fantastically told and beautifully brought to page by the creative team. It doesn’t really have any action and is really only loosely about Daredevil. Interesting, right? This is, without a doubt, worth spotlighting this week – so we’ll talk more about it then. 
• The other main story we get this year is called Playing to the Camera in which Daredevil is sued by rich philanthropist Samuel Griggs and wants to retain Nelson and Murdock (specifically Matt Murdock) as his lawyer. Matt reluctantly agrees as he knows he wasn’t involved with destroying the man’s greenhouse and plants and wants to figure out who’s behind it. As Daredevil, he hires a lawyer and they have their days in court surrounded by a media circus.  
• The trial ends with 3 daredevils in the courtroom - Murdock as himself holding a video tape of himself as Daredevil earlier that morning, Peter Parker in a Daredevil costume with the defense attorney and a third Daredevil who crashes a window, admits to the property damage, offers the $50k needed to fix it and then reveals his true identity as Terrance Hillman. Confused? So is Murdock and Nelson. Apparently, Hillman decided on his own to dress up as Daredevil and crash the courtroom. He then used the reveal and announced retirement to swing fame and fortune (and help out the real Daredevil). We also learn that Hillman didn’t destroy the property either and that the Ringmaster was behind everything. He was testing his ability to implant false memories in people.  
• One interesting side note about the first issue of the Playing with Camera storyline. A second story appears in the issue “My Brother’s Keeper” written by Stan Lee and Kevin Hall with art by Gene Colan. In the short story, we see Daredevil and Spider-Man during a night out. 
• We did get one more book in December from Brian Michael Bendis but we’ll save that for next year’s discussion. 
• Finally In Daredevil: Yellow we get a 6-book story in which Matt is writing letters to the late Karen Page about the early days of Daredevil and the Nelson and Murdock law firm as a way to find forgiveness for everything that happened between them. The story, by Jeph Loeb, artist Tim Sale and colors by Matt Hollingsworth, is another retailing of the first handful of issues from Daredevil volume 1 that ends with the Purple Man story and Matt finding the forgiveness he needs.   

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil volume 2 #16 May 2001 - #19 August 2001 “Wake Up”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Writers are the key.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

The year 2001 has a dark shadow over it, and there are elements of this year that are pretty rough, because as the year closed comic books were trying to make sense of and deal with 9/11 just like the rest of America.  But the start of the year brought a lot of great entertainment and for the first time in years sales held steady (mostly) 

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 176
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 127 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 117
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Eve of Destruction (A cure for the Legacy Virus has been released, providing Magneto with a brand new army of healthy mutants ready to wage a final battle against humanity)
BEST SELLING COMICS: Heroes Special, Wolverine: The Origin, Amazing Spider-Man #36.  Outside those,  31 of the top 39 issues for the year had an “X-“ in their title, including 8-27.

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: J. Michael Straczynski

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2001 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

The new millenium started with some big endings, and comic book sales kept slipping this year.  But 2000 featured some big developments that would point the way to the future of comics.  Welcome to the Oughts, everyone! 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 2000.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #10-13, Earth X #10-12 and X, Fantastic Four #27, Avenger #27, Essential Fantastic Four #3, Marvel Knights #5-6, Daredevil: Ninja #1, Maximum Security #1, and Nick Fury: Agent of Shield graphic novel.   

Writing: David Mack (#10 – 11 and 13), Quesada and Palmiotti (12) 

Pencils: Joe Quesada (#10 – 11 and 13), Rob Haynes (12) 

Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti (#10 – 11), Rob Haynes (12), Mike Morales (13) 

• A very light year for Daredevil as the main run only released four books this year – all part of the Parts of a Hole storyline started in December 1999. The story would continue until March 2001 when Parts of a Hole conclusion called Vision would reach stores. Visions will be our spotlight for this week. 
• Issue 12, Gun Play, feels like a fill-in story covering a series of vignettes about Hell’s Kitchen residents (featuring some very adult themes) while Echo and Daredevil fight rooftop-to-rooftop that was written by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, with art by Rob Haynes. Although it was well written, it does stall the pacing of the story for an issue. 
• Outside of the main title, many of the Daredevil appearances this year were reprints including the Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller collection that was released in October which included 10 stories from the Frank Miller era and a second printing of the Punisher kills the Marvel Universe graphic novel.  
• One other original story was started in December and spilled over into 2001 - Daredevil: Ninja which was a limited series written by Brian Michael Bendis and Rob Hayes that saw Daredevil dealing with the Hand and reuniting with Stone in Japan. When the scene shifts back to New York, Baby Karen (From Daredevil Vol.2 #1-8) turns out to be the next great hero of Japan. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil volume 2 #15 March 2001 “Parts of a Hole Conclusion: Vision” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

A lot of great work can get done when expectations are low and no one is watching. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

https://www.manwithoutfear.com/daredevil-interviews/Mack

The new millenium started with some big endings, and comic book sales kept slipping this year.  But 2000 featured some big developments that would point the way to the future of comics.  Welcome to the Oughts, everyone! 

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Beginnings & Endings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

2000 was a year of big changes at Marvel Comics.  Bill Jemas was promoted to President, and replaced Bob Harras with Joe Quesada.

TOTAL SERIES: 170
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 121 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 120
HIGHEST ISSUE NUMBER: 387 (UXM)
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Apocalypse: The Twelve, Maximum Security
BEST SELLING COMICS: X-Men and Uncanny X-Men

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Brian Michael Bendis

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 2000 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History 

DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_English-language_comics 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_superhero_debuts 

https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/event-timeline/ 

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipients-1990s/ 

https://www.manwithoutfear.com/daredevil-interviews/Mack

Last week we closed the curtain on the first volume of Daredevil, and now we are reaching the end of the millennium itself, as comics continue to barrel towards their own version of Y2K.  Sales keep dropping and more publishers leave the field, but signs of life start to show if you look in the right places.  It's 1999, and comics still are not dead. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1999.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #3-9, Earth X #0-2 and 5-7, Mutant X #6, Avengers #15-16, Avengers Forever #8, Black Widow #1-3, Spider-Man: Chapter One #9 and 12, Fantastic Four #21 and 23, Uncanny X-Men #370, Wolverine/Punisher: Revelations #3, Deathlok #1, along with Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #1 and the Avengers 1999 and Contest of Champions graphic novels

Writing: Kevin Smith (#1-8), David Mack (#9)

Pencils: Joe Quesada (#1-9)

Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti (#1-9)

• The year for Daredevil actually began in November 1998 when the first book of the Guardian Devil storyline hit comic book stores. We briefly touched on what happened during the first two books a couple weeks ago, but with this storyline taking up half the year – we’ll be looking at the story in-depth as our spotlight story this week. 
• After the guardian Devil storyline ended in June 1999, we didn’t get another book in the main Daredevil title until December. When we get the start of another multi-book storyline called Parts of a Hole with a new writer in David Mack. We won’t go into much detail on this until we look at Daredevil in 2000, but it starts with The Kingpin sends a hitman after a stoolie being questioned by Nelson and Murdock. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil volume 2 #1-8 November 1998 – June 1999 “Guardian Devil” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Setting up the foundation to the future.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Last week we closed the curtain on the first volume of Daredevil, and now we are reaching the end of the millennium itself, as comics continue to barrel towards their own version of Y2K.  Sales keep dropping and more publishers leave the field, but signs of life start to show if you look in the right places.  It's 1999, and comics still are not dead.

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Marvel continued to contract and retrench, as it reduced the number of books it published, and concentrated more and more on proven creators and characters, especially the X-Men. The company also sold off their remaining trading card companies at a catastrophic loss and tried to undo some of the damage that had been inflicted on fans and characters in the last few years. 

TOTAL SERIES: 142
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 101 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 89 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S): Earth X
BEST SELLING COMICS: X-Men

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: David Mack

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1999 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Things continued to be grim in the comic world, but it seemed as though the freefall might be over.  Marvel had escaped bankruptcy without missing even a single month of publishing, most of the other companies still in business made it through the year (but not all) and some very interesting new players entered the scene. 

This is part 3 of the podcast. that will feature the Takeaway for 1998 - which is a look back at volume 1 of Daredevil.

The Takeaway

Daredevil Vol 1 is an interesting journey. 

Age 

Issues 

Writers 

Artists 

Silver 

1-50 

Stan Lee 

Ditko, Wood Colon 

Bronze 

51-157 

Thomas, Conway, Gerber 

Colan, Brown 

(Black Widow) 

(92-107) 

(Gerber) 

(Colan) 

Miller 

158-234 

Frank Miller 

Miller, Mazzuccelli 

Nocenti 

237-291 

Ann Nocenti 

John Romita, Jr, Lee Weeks 

Chichester Era 

292-342 

DG Chichester 

Scott McDaniel, Weeks 

The Long Goodbye 

343-380 

Various 

Various 

Things continued to be grim in the comic world, but it seemed as though the freefall might be over.  Marvel had escaped bankruptcy without missing even a single month of publishing, most of the other companies still in business made it through the year (but not all) and some very interesting new players entered the scene. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story. The Takeaway for 1998 - which is a look back at volume 1 of Daredevil - will be released next week as it's own episode.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #371-380, Marvel Knights: Daredevil #1-2, Uncanny X-Men #351, Thunderbolts #10, Unlimited Access #2, Shadow & Light #1, Cable #55, Ka-Zar #15, Spider-Man Made Men #1, Nighthawk #1-3, Avengers #10-11, and Bring Back the Bad Guys graphic novel. 

Writing: Joe Kelly (#371-373) Kelly and Jonathan Barron (#374), Kelly and Chris Claremont (#375), Scott Lobdell (#376-379), Dan G. Chichester (#380) 

Pencils: Ariel Olivetti (#371-372, #374), Richie Acosta (#373), Cary Nord, Olivetti, John Paul Leon, Tom Lyle, Brian Denham and Rick Leonardi (#375), Cully Hamner (#376-379), Lee Weeks (#380) 

Inks: Pier Brito (#371-372, #374), Bud LaRosa (#373), Mark Lipka, Brito, John Paul Leon, Robert Jones, Chis Carlson and Scott Hanna (#375), Jason Martin (#376-379), Robert Campanella (#380) 

• The year begins with Black Widow and Daredevil discussing their recent run-ins both professionally and personally. Meanwhile Karen goes shopping with Rosalind. Matt and Karen do make up despite Daredevil leaving for a bit 
• Next Mr. Fear pops back up after we learn something weird happened during the prison riot he planned last year. DD tries to talk to the warden, but Ghost Rider beats him to it. Fear and DD play cat and mouse for a couple issues before things come to a head. Meanwhile, we are introduced to Charlie, a likely cop whose working for Fear, who first tries to kill Fogy’s sister Candice before going after Karen. 
• In a double sized issue #375, We learn Charlie has been killed and Karen is awaiting trial for his murder. Mr. Fear is trying to manipulate things so that she will go to jail and DD will suffer a breakdown as a result. Matt is Karen’s lawyer and while the case slowly slips away from him, he continues to search for Fear as Daredevil hoping it will save his case. We won’t spoil the ending, as this is the spotlight story for the week. 
• And just like that, the story quickly shifts to France... 
• In the final named story arc of volume 1, Flying Blind, we meet Laurent Levasseur whom very much seems like our man without fear – though he thinks his just an artist. Turns out Murdock is working deep undercover for SHIELD and had his memory reprogrammed. Murdock is there to stop the sale of agent information to international buyers of the Kingpin. After spending most of the story trying to remember who he is and save the doctor who initially treated him at the start of this tale, Murdock gets his memories back from a mutant named Synapse just as SHIELD locates him and busts in as the cavalry.  
  • One side effect of the reprogramming was Murdock was able to actually see. He loses it after getting his memories back but he’s able to see his friend Foggy for the first and only time. 
• In November, Volume 1 ends with one last issue – issue #380 – and the return on Dan G Chichester and Lee Weeks for “a tale from Daredevil's past” dedicated to Archie Goodwin. A pretty straight-forward story though told non-sequentially in which the Kingpin tries to frame a Middle Eastern man for terrorism so he can get his hands on a shipment of weapons; Matt defends the patsy and wins in court; Meanwhile DD takes on several of his deadliest foes to foil the Kingpin's scheme. (The Hand/Bushwacker/Bullseye) 
  • The final page sees Murdock and his mom Maggie walking and having ice cream with narration “You want to know the truth? The good guys don’t always win. But because of who they are, they never stop fighting. There’s always a Daredevil willing to take a risk on our behalf. And in a city that never sleeps, we can all rest easy knowing we have that to protect us.” 
• That same month, Volume 2 begins under the Marvel Knight branding begins with a new creative team – Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti. In the first 2 books of the Guardian Devil storyline, we learn Karen left Matt and NYC for LA 6 months ago and Matt has been trying to move on with his life. A teenage girl brings a baby to Matt that she claims is the new Messiah and leaves the kid in his care but then Murdock is approached by a mysterious old man claims the same child is the Anti-Christ and a curse to those around it. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #375 May 1998 “With a Little Help From My Friends” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway - Next week

The Takeaway was a recap and discussion of volume 1 of Daredevil. It ended up running long so we will be releasing that separately. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Things continued to be grim in the comic world, but it seemed as though the freefall might be over.  Marvel had escaped bankruptcy without missing even a single month of publishing, most of the other companies still in business made it through the year (but not all) and some very interesting new players entered the scene. 

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 188
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 139 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 141 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Identity Crisis (Spider-Man)
• The Gathering of Five (also Spidey)

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• Passings: Archie Goodwin
• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Joe Casey

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1998 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

We’ve got a pretty quiet week in comic terms, partly because everything has gone completely to the dogs, and there is a lot less happening than there was a few years ago.  Still, I was surprised to find that 1997 had some pretty great things going on under the surface! 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1997.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #360-370, Daredevil #-1, Adventures of Spider-Man #10, Bug #1, Code of Honor #2-4, Punisher #17-18, Venom: On Trial #1-3, Marvel Valentine Special #1, Silver Surfer #128, Essential Spider-Man #2, Electra #-1, Ka-Zar #5 and 8, Uncanny Origins #13, Elektra #10-11 and 13, Marvel Heroes & Legends 1997 #1, Spider-Man El Hombre Arana #30, Spider-Man Unlimited #18, Thunderbolts #8 along with Daredevil/Batman, Untold Tales of Spider-Man ’97, Kingpin, Origin of Marvel Comics Revised Edition and Son of Origins of the Marvel Comics Revised Edition graphic novels 

Writing: Karl Kesel (#360-364), Joe Kelly (#365-370 and #-1) 

Pencils: Cary Nord (#360-362, 364-365), Gene Colan (#363, -1, 366-368, 370), Ariel Olivetti (#369) 

Inks: Matt Ryan (#360-362, 364-365, -1), Cam Smith and Paul Neary (#363), Al Williamson (#366), Bud LaRosa (#367-368, 370), Pier Brito (#369) 

• The year begins with Daredevil taking on the Absorbing Man as he tries to take down NYC with no Avengers to stop him. While that’s going on, we learn why Foggy was so keen on partnering with Rosalind Sharpe – she’s his biological mother. 
• And it’s Sharpe who thinks Foggy and the firm need to play up Foggy’s “best bud” status with Daredevil – which leads to work for the firm as Molten Man (Mark Raxton) seeks help with break-ins at Osborne Chemicals. Daredevil is reunited with the Black Widow as the pair take down the Grey Gargoyle. 
• We learn a bit about Rosalind’s Sharpe’s past after Daredevil saves her from an armed man in the firm’s lobby then follow’s her to visit the gangster responsible.  
• Next we get a multi-book story involving a new villainous, Insomnia – he’s try to keep Daredevil and the rest of New York up at night. We eventually learn she’s working for Mr Fear – who himself is causing trouble by enlisting a friend of Molten Man to release a gas during a Osborn Chemicals boardroom meeting which causes Raxton to freak out and start tearing the place apart. 
• Before we can get a resolution to Mr Fear, we get a Flashback issue of Daredevil (Daredevil #-1) in which Jack Murdock is taking his son Matt to college. This story, from writer Joe Kelly and art by Gene Colan and Matt Ryan is a lot of fun and will be our spotlight story of the week. 
• Returning back to present time, Daredevil must, once again, deal with Mr Fear’s plotting – this time on Ryker’s Island when Fear releases a gas to start a prison riot. Daredevil must then take on new and improved Gladiator. (what happened to fear???) 
• The year ends with a multi-book storyline called “widow’s Kiss” that starts with Daredevil helping a firm client who’s facing a hostile takeover by the Russians – only to have to tangle Omega Red. Black Widow comes to the aid of Daredevil only to then shoot him herself. She tries then save DD by bring him to Karen for help, before returning to meet with a Russian general we eventually learn she’s trying to take down. Despite just being shot, Daredevil goes after Widow and gets the pair captured. The story ends Daredevil escapes and convinces Ursa Major and Vanguard that they are being used by the General – and that he’s being running experiments on Vanguards sister – Darkstar. 
• One other secondary story that ran through much of the year involves Foggy and Liz Osborne. Rosalind Sharpe isn’t pleased with their relationship and continually tries to undermine it – with other women. In the final book of the year Foggy and Liz's attempt to have a romantic evening together is derailed when he receives a constant stream of phone calls from other women. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #-1 July 1997 “A Time to Say Farewell” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Marvel messed up more than their own fortunes with their unwise expansions. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

We’ve got a pretty quiet week in comic terms, partly because everything has gone completely to the dogs, and there is a lot less happening than there was a few years ago.  Still, I was surprised to find that 1997 had some pretty great things going on under the surface!

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

As harsh as 1996 had been, 1997 was in most senses even worse.  Sales continued to plummet, Marvel had to dig out from a messy financial mess, and other publishers felt the pain as well.  Once again, as they had before in the 50s and in the 70s, people were asking if this was the end for American comic books. 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

It was a rough year to be Marvel.  The line continued to shrink, sales plummeted, and fewer and fewer series seemed to last more than a few issues.  Plus, both the sticker company and the distribution company had to go.  

TOTAL SERIES: 179
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 120 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 126 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Operation: Zero Tolerance
• Unlimited Access (with DC)
• Heroes Reborn: The Return
• Flashback

BEST SELLING COMICS: Uncanny X-Men 345, Heroes Reborn #1

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Leinil Francis Yu

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1997 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Well, here we are, Duane.  At the End of Days.  I have been promising you that everything was going to explode eventually.  And finally we have arrived.  Welcome to the fateful year 1996, when Marvel came crashing down. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1996.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances:  Daredevil #348-359, Punisher #4, What if…? #83, Marvel versus DC / DC versus Marvel #2-3, Green Goblin #6 and 12, Doom 2099 #40-42, Over the Edge #6 and 10, Wolverine #103-104, New Warriors #73, Spider-Man Unlimited #13, Essential Wolverine #1, Essential X-Men #1, Spider-Man #74, Elektra Megazine #1-2, Essential Spider-Man #1 and Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man, Spider-Man’s Greatest Team-Ups and Elektra Lives Again graphic novels 

Writing: J.M. DeMatteis (348-350), John Rozum (351), Ben Rabb (352), Karl Kesel (353-357), Joe Kelly (358-359) 

Pencils: Cary Nord (348-349, 353-357), Ron Wagner (350), Shawn McManus (351-352), Pasqual Ferry (358), Nord and Larry Hama (359) 

Inks: Bill Reinhold (348, 350), Al Williamson (349), Shawn McManus (351-352), Matt Ryan (353-357, 359), Pasqual Ferry (358) 

• The year begins with Matt trying to reconcile his recent identity crisis while Foggy is angry about the secret he’s finally learned. Matt tries visiting with his mother Maggie, but it’s his old Mentor Stick that helps him – though in the process he ends up taking on the Chaste. 
• Foggy and Matt begin practicing law together again. From there, things return to normal (or at least what’s normal for Daredevil or Matt Murdock), He takes out Agent Vice who’s extorting money from other criminals. Daredevil must take on Mastermind who is also Matt Murdock’s client.  
• In June we get a new creative team that was teased at the end of issue 352. Karl Kesel and Cary Nord. We also get a re-imagined Mr. Hyde from John Romita Jr. Hyde seems to be totally unhinged (with an equally terrifying look). Daredevil confronts Hyde in an old Osborn warehouse where a woman has been murdered. Hyde continues to act crazy and is ultimately arrested.  
  • During this issue Foggy and Matt (mostly Matt) are asked to partner with hotshot lawyer Rosalind (Razor) Sharpe. Sharpe tells Matt privately that the two are a package deal. She doesn’t just want Foggy. Foggy seemed weirdly eager to join her so Matt accepts. 
• And as a first case under the new partnership, Sharpe was Murdock to represent Mr. Hyde. At first, Murdock doesn’t want to do it, but after meeting with Hyde – Matt doesn’t think he killed the girl. The leads to Daredevil taking on Pyro and looking for clues at the warehouse – with the help of Misty Knight – which leads to a secret tunnel and a group of criminals called the Enforcers and their newest member the Eel – who captures our hero. The story ends when Daredevil escapes and captures the Eel and presents the Eel to the courtroom waiting for the trial of Mr. Hyde to start. 
• The year ends with two standalone stories that have a much different look and feel from the rest of the year. In the first, Daredevil takes on Mysterio who’s working on a super-hero insurance scam. This fun story will be our spotlight story for the week. In the second, we see a night of Daredevil fighting crime while Karen Page talks to people of New York about their thoughts on Daredevil (now that the Fantastic Four and Avengers are gone) during her late-night radio call in show. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #358 November 1996 “Aftermath” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Stick to what you are good at. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Well, here we are, Duane.  At the End of Days.  I have been promising you that everything was going to explode eventually.  And finally we have arrived.  Welcome to the fateful year 1996, when Marvel came crashing down.

Preshow 

The Year in Comics 

As usual, there was a lot of great stuff going on in comics this year.  There was also a lot of junk, though, and 1996 is the year we start seeing that problem sort itself out. 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Passings

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

The year at Marvel started rough and just got worse, with fans, industry insiders and the stock market all seeming to be against them.  Layoffs, failed storylines and an end of year bombshell made this a year to forget at Marvel comics. 

TOTAL SERIES: 232
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 155 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 169 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Onslaught Saga
• Heroes Reborn

BEST SELLING COMICS: 

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: David Finch

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1996 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

It was a tough year in comics, especially for the big two.  Comic shops were having trouble, readers seemed to be moving on to other things, and corporate overlords continued to demand ever higher profits.  1995 was a bit of an…apocalypse. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1995.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #336-347, Elekrta: Root of Evil #1, Marvel Super-Heroes Megazine #4 and 6, Spider-Man: Power of Terror #2 - #4, Sabertooth Classic #11, Marvel: Portraits #2 - #4, What if…? #73, Ghost Rider #61, X-Universe #1 – #2, Ruins #1, Incredible Hulk #434, Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe #1, Over the Edge #1, and Double Edge: Omega graphic novel   

Writing: Gregory Wright (336-337), Alan Smithee [actually Dan G Chichester] (338-342), Warren Ellis (343), J.M. DeMatteis (344-347) 

Pencils: Tom Grindberg (336-337), Alexander Jubran (339-340), Keith Pollard (341-342), Pollard and Arvell Malcolm Jones (343), Ron Wagner (344-347) 

Inks: Don Hudson (336-337), Andre Parks and Hudson (338), Parks, Hudson Bud LaRosa and Rodney Ramos (339), Parks, Hudson and Marie Severin (340), Art Nichols (341), Tom Palmer (342-343), Bill Reinhold (344-347) 

• The year begins with the final 2 chapters of the Fathoms of Humanity story arc that started last year. You’ll recall that story stared with Daredevil following a homeless man into the sewers and coming befriending him and a whole group of people who live there. He battled the King of the Sewers and defeated him again. And we also saw the kingpin attempting to slowly grow his power back. In these final two chapters we learn the homeless man Daredevil followed was once a superhero himself – peacekeeper – in order to help Daredevil and his community against the Sewer King’s attempts to take back control of the community and defeat Daredevil.
• From there, we get the story of Victor “Kruel” Krueller and the Ghost of a Chance diner in flashbacks to explain why Kruel is going after those near and dear to Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Foogy, Glorianna, DA Malpher, Ben Urich). Seems he double crossed Wilson Fisk and at the diner, Fisk caught him and nearly killed him – then covered it up by drugging those same people to wipe their memory. Now Kruel is bent on revenge and is seeking out the witnesses to help him remember what happened. During the quest for information, Kruel kills Glorianna which causes Fisk and Daredevil to team up to locate and confront Kruel. When they do, Fisk ends up killing Kruel.  
  • There’s a side story going on in this story as we see Karen Page trying to get information about some troubling images, she saw on a CD given to her by her former adult movie producers.  
• After a stand-alone book that was part of the Over the Edge event that didn’t really make a lot of sense involving the Punisher. We get the start of the Inferno story arc. In it, we see a second Daredevil in the original red and yellow costume and a bonding around the city and talking with Foggy and Karen (as well as leaving taunting messages with Matt). We also see a villain names Sir who’s attacking and killing women.  
• At one point, the two meet and Sir beats up Daredevil so badly, Sir is able to take his costume. 
• This leads to a very confusing confrontation in which Sir as Daredevil fights the red and yellow daredevil – who happens to be Murdock as an alternate personality. In the end, Batlin as Daredevil defeats Sir as Daredevil and Karen and Foggy come to realize that Batlin is actually Matt Murdock! 

Elektra: Root of Evil 

• Daito of the Snakeroot kills himself with the Sakki sword and makes it impure. So the rest of the snakeroot need to kill three specific people to purify the blade again. (not sure how they know who). There’s a brief cameo by Daredevil is issue 1 where he stops Elektra from killing some random mercenaries who are after her. 
• Elektra wants to form her own Ryu (ninja group like the Chaste) and works with Nick Fury to get recruits.  We briefly meet Target, Lynch, Impact, Masquerade, Niko and Salvo before most are killed in their very first battle against the snakeroot (like the X-force in Deadpool 2).  
• Via flashbacks, we learn Elektra has an older brother, Orestez who saved Elektra when she was a child and whom killed their mother for seemly cheating on their father. Though Elektra did turn out to be their father’s daughter 
• Other flashbacks show Elektra was a member of the Snakeroot and fell in love with Tekagi – whom she ends up killing at the end of this series with new sais covered in poison before they could kill all 3 purity people. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #347 December 1995 “Inferno Part 3” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Sometimes the crossover is actually cool.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

1994 was a crazy year in the comics world, with both DC and Marvel continuing to crank out new books, even as other companies tried to claw their way into the market.  Retailers and fans were nearly helpless as the onslaught of comics overwhelmed them, leading to one of the worst years in the history of modern comics. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1994.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #324-335, Daredevil Man without Fear #4 and #5, Daredevil Annual #10, Real Heroes #3, What if…? #58 and #64, Marvels #2-4, Marvel Comics Presents #150 - #151, Marvel Tales #285, Spider-Man Unlimited #6, Marvel Super-Heroes Megazine #1- #3, Spider-Man Megazine #1, Spectacular Spider-Man #218 and #219, Guardians of the Galaxy #54, Amazing Spider-Man #396 plus Death of Captain Marvel novel, Punisher Ashcan Edition novel, Marvel Limited: Fantastic Firsts novel and Marvels novel

Writing: Dan G Chichester (324-327, 329-332), Gregory Wright (328, 333-335) 

Interviews:

Chichester: https://www.manwithoutfear.com/daredevil-interviews/Chichester

Wright: https://www.manwithoutfear.com/interviews/ddINTERVIEW.shtml?id=Wright

Pencils: Scott McDaniel (324-327, 329-332), Sergio Cariello (328), Tom Grindberg (333-335)

Inks: Hector Collazo and Michael Avon Oeming (324), Hector Collazo (325-327, 329, 331-332), Ariane Lenshoek-Pinharo (328), Collazo and Rich Rankin (330). Ray Kryssing (333) Don Hudson (334-335) 

• The year begins with the final 2 installments of the Fall from Grace story arc. In it we see the ACTUAL return of Elektra (in an all white outfit) who fights alongside Matt Murdock to kill the ninjas and the Erynys that has part of her essence inside – which see does and absorbs the essence back into herself. Murdock ends up fighting the Hellspawn and after taking the weird virus to become human, it dies in the final fight with Snakeroot. Murdock uses the body to fake his death and become Jack Batlin. Ben Urich realizes his intern Sara Harrington was the one that hacked his files and shared Murdock’s secret identity (hence Murdock faking his death). 
• Next, we jump right into another multi-book story called Tree of Knowledge. This 6-part story with an extra interlude book (by a different creative team) starts in March with issue 326 and shows Daredevil and Captain America taking on a gang of hackers called System Crash which is being led by Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker of Hydra. Since this is the only full story this year, this will be our spotlight story for the week. 
• The year ends with the first half of another named storyline Fathoms of Humanity that will end in February 1995. Written by Gregory Wright and Penciled by Tom Grindberg while Chichester and McDaniel work on Elektra: Root of Evil (which was promoted extensively at the end of these books). In this story we see Daredevil follow a homeless man into the sewers where a tribe of people are living including their “King” whom Daredevil rescued Wilson Fisk’s wife Vanessa from back in the original Frank Miller days. Daredevil defeats his old foe – which endears him to the rest of the community (and causes the King to seek out an altar to summon some creature to enact revenge). We also see him take on Bushwacker (another old foe with a gun for an arm). During this story we also see Kingpin who’s working out of an abandoned subway car as he slowly starts working towards regaining his power and influence. 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #326 March 1994 “Tree of Knowledge Part 1” through Daredevil #332 September 1994 “Tree of Knowledge Finale” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

A great year if you can get through the junk

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

It was a tough year in comics, especially for the big two.  Comic shops were having trouble, readers seemed to be moving on to other things, and corporate overlords continued to demand ever higher profits.  1995 was a bit of an…apocalypse.

Preshow 

Daredevil Born Again coming March 4, 2025

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

It was a crazy year at Marvel, with pressures to increase sales leading to massive cuts and layoffs, even as the company continued to acquire other businesses and expand its plans.  Get ready for a bumpy ride.

TOTAL SERIES: 289
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 191 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 215 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Age of Apocalypse
• The Crossing

BEST SELLING COMICS: X-Men, Spider-Man

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Mark Waid

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1995 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

1994 was a crazy year in the comics world, with both DC and Marvel continuing to crank out new books, even as other companies tried to claw their way into the market.  Retailers and fans were nearly helpless as the onslaught of comics overwhelmed them, leading to one of the worst years in the history of modern comics. 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

It was a pretty rough year at Marvel, both creatively and in terms of sales.  New corporate sales mandates drove a wedge between the staff, and overproduction meant too many books by less talented creators.  Even so, there were some bright spots! 

TOTAL SERIES: 336 
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 195 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 234 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Phalanx Covenant (Generation X Debuts)

BEST SELLING COMICS: Marvels

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Mike Deodato

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1994 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1993.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #312-323, Daredevil Annual #9, Daredevil: Man without Fear #1-5, Fantastic Four #373 and #378, Slapstick #4, What If…? #47, #48 and #55, Ghost Rider #36, Marvel Comics Presents #129 and #136, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #55, Thor #464, Punisher War Journal #57 and #58, Web of Spider-Man #106, Alpha Flight #127, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #57, Infinity Crusade #1-6, and Marvel Masterworks #25 

Writing: Dan G. Chichester (312-323) 

Pencils: Scott McDaniel (312-315, 317-323), Kevin Kobasic (316) 

Inks: Bud LaRosa (312-317) LaRosa and Greg Adams (318), Hector Collazo and Harry Candelario (319), Michael Avon Oeming (320), Hector Callazo (321), Collazo and Rich Rankin (322-323) 

• The year starts with a mysterious fire at a Hell’s Kitchen pizzeria in which a young man “Marky” is killed and his girlfriend Lisa Rizzo needs to be rescued. After, she gets arrested and goes to court as an apparent arsonist – so Matt Murdock volunteers to be her lawyer. With Lisa not talking, Daredevil looks into the various patrons the day of the fire to figure out what really happened. In the end we find out Lisa is pregnant with Marky’s child and the pizza shop owners set fire to their own store to get the insurance money. 
• In Daredevil Annual #9, We get 3 different stories. In devouring madness, we see Daredevil break up a museum robbery. On the clock shows a typical day in the life of our fearless hero and Resurrection shows Calypso resurrect a zombie to fight Daredevil. 
• Next, Daredevil takes on a new incarnation of Mr. Fear… Shock who is Alan Fagan’s (the original Fear) daughter. The story, however, turns a bit weird as Shock enlists Taskmaster, the Wildboys and Stiltman to go after Daredevil – with the ending in issue 318 that’s played off as silly more than anything. The issue itself has a weird “That’s it folks! The last issue of Daredevil Before… Daredevil #319” on the cover. I had no idea what that meant until… 
• Issue 319 starts the final story arch of the year… Fall from Grace. This year we get a prologue and the first 4 chapters of the story (which appears to go through issue 325 – February 1994). We’ll speak in more detail about this story during our spotlight. 
• In Daredevil: Man without Fear we get a thorough retelling of the Daredevil origin story as well as his relationship with Elektra. This 5-book story was written by Frank Miller and penciled by John Romita Jr (Al Williamson on inks). This story goes into far more detail than what we got originally. We also see how Kingpin came into power as well as introduced to a few new characters (Mickey/Lars). Despite knowing the story well, I really enjoyed this series. It looked amazing. 

This Week's Spotlight: #319 August 1993 “Fall From Grace Prologue: Temptation” through Daredevil #323 December 1993 “Fall From Grace Chapter 4: Conflict”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Garbage in, Garbage out.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

There are arguments to be made that this was the best year in the history of comics.  There are also a number of ways in which it may have been the worst.  In any case, it was not boring.  Welcome to 1993, the year everything that has been building for the last decade or so comes to a head. 

Announcements

Show Tweaks

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

TOTAL SERIES: 313 
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 198 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 170 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Maximum Carnage
• Bloodties
• Fatal Attractions

BEST SELLING COMICS: Uncanny X-Men, Cable, ASM, SM Unlimited, X-Men 2099

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Salvador LaRocca

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1993 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1992.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #300-311, Daredevil Annual #8, Punisher Annual #5, Web of Spider-Man Annual #8, Infinity War #1-4, Death’s Head 2 #4, Fantastic Four #367-368 and #370, Alpha Flight #111, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #41 and #43, Marvel Comics Presents #113, Spider-Man Special Edition #1, What if…? #44, Daredevil Gangwar and Infinity Gauntlet graphic novels and Marvel Masterworks #21 and #22 

Writing: Dan G Chichester (300-309) , Glenn Herdling (310-311) 

Pencils: Lee Weeks (300), M.C. Wyman (301-303), Ron Garney (304), Scott McDaniel (305-311) 

Inks: Al Williamson (300), Chris Ivy (301-303, 305), Bud LaRosa (304, 306-311),  

• The year begins with the huge double issue that concludes the Last Rites storyline that began late in 1991. Daredevil has been enlisted by SHIELD to take down Kingpin and by extension Hydra who is bankrolling his media empire. Last week we saw the pieces get put in place and during our spotlight this week, we’ll see how this terrific story ends. 
• Next, we see Daredevil take on one of his oldest foes, the Owl, in a solid 3-book story arc.
• Outside of the spotlight book, “34 Hours” from May 1992 is one of the best single-story books in the last few years. In it we see Daredevil saving lives across a 34-hour timeframe.  
• We are then introduced to a new villain, Surgeon General, who’s picking up men in clubs, drugging them and then operating on them to steal body parts for the black market. To set a trap for the Surgeon General, Daredevil sets a trap using Peter Parker as bait. Fortunately for Peter, the trap worked with the help of Parker’s secret identity, Spider-Man. 
• Next, we get another multi-book story arc involving the Nomad and Punisher called Dead Man’s Hand. This 7-part story arc that takes place in Las Vegas shows various crime factions all trying to get a piece of the Kingpin’s empire now that he’s not there to lead it. During this event we also see what has happened to the kingpin. Among the groups fighting for Kingpin’s empire include – The Hand, Yakuza, the Maggia, Hydra, Hammer Industries, Andreas and Andrea Strucker (Known as Fenris?). This story was hard to follow as several parts of the story appear in other books (parts 3&4 were in Nomad & Punisher books) and part 6 was somewhere else but was communicated to the reader.  
• After Vegas, Matt Murdock returns to New York and we finish out the year with a multi-book story arc with Calypso, the Nameless One and a Daredevil doppelganger known as Hellspawn from the Infinity War Crossover. This story centers around a Haitian refugee named Yves Chapoteau who is seeking asylum in the U.S. During the story Calypso performs a voodoo ritual on Daredevil and enslaves him to her. He is able to escape by destroying her magic soul-possessing jars which also free some other zombie refugees who attack her. In an epilogue of this story, we see two people digging up someone's grave. 

New Powers, Toys or Places: Back in Vegas for the Dead Man’s Hand story arc.

New Supporting Characters: Yves Chapoteau (Haitian refugee who seeks out Matt Murdock for his asylum case)

New Villains: Surgeon General (woman seducing men and then stealing organs for the black market), Hellspawn (Daredevil doppleganger from Infinity War crossover who’s killed by Calyspo)

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #300 January 1992 “Last Rites Part 4: Long Live the King”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Writers still matter!

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

Well, here we are.  Image starts a new creator-owned era, even as the man who created the superhero sensation dies, along with one of his creators. 1992 was a very big year for changes.

The Year in Comics 

Comic books managed to make it into the news and public consciousness in different ways in 1992, as movies, TV shows, new companies and a massive character death kept things interesting! 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Trends

Beginnings and Endings

Memorials

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

1992 is a weird year, in that as it begins nothing seems to have changed from the heady days of 1991.  But the Image artists no longer are present as the summer rolls around, and the Marvel Universe itself moves into darker territory.  Here begins the anti-hero turn of the 90s, with dark futures and truly irredeemable villains. 

TOTAL SERIES: 246 
TOTAL NEW SERIES: 149 
TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 129 
THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Operation Galactic Storm (Avengers and Quasar in a Kree/Shiar war)
• X-Cutioner’s Song (X-Men fight Stryfe) 
• BEST SELLING COMICS: Death of Superman, Spawn and all the Image books 

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Chris Bachalo

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1992 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1991.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #288-299, Daredevil Annual #7, Marvel Comic Presents #69-72, #75, #81 and #91, What if…? 24 and 26, Avengers #332-#333, Excalibur #39, Darkhawk #6, Incredible Hulk: Ground Zero, Very Best of Marvel Comics, Very Best of What If, Amazing Spider-Man: The Wedding graphic novels and Marvel Masterworks 

Writing: Ann Nocenti (288-291) Dan G Chichester (292-299) 

Pencils: Lee Weeks (288, 291-295, 297-299) Kieron Dwyer (289-290), Ron Garney (296) 

Inks: Al Williamson and Weeks (288) Williamson and Fred Fredricks (289), Fredricks (290-292), Williamson (293-299) 

• The year begins with Matt Murdock having dreams of Elektra and Stick and the Kingpin orchestrating a similar ultimatum to throw a boxing match to save Nyla whom he’s kidnapped. Matt refuses to do so, wins the fight and saves Nyla with the help of Ben Urich 
• Meanwhile Bullseye continues to pretend to be Daredevil and ruin his reputation, but is confronted and defeated by Murdock who’s disguised as Bullseye.   
• After taking on Bullet for one last time, Matt Murdock reunites with his friend and law partner Foggy Nelson – who’s been working on getting Murdock’s law license reinstated. 
• As Daredevil and the Punisher deal with Taskmaster and Tombstone causing trouble, we see Kingpin and Typhoid Mary enter a deal with a General Strang, an investor who agrees to fund Fisk’s media enterprises but secretly hopes to infiltrate Fisk’s finances from within. 
• Halfway through the year we see the Hand returns to New York and we learn they were the ones behind setting lose Taskmaster and Tombstone on the city.   
• What follows is a multi-book story arc involving Daredevil attempts to take down the Hand. This includes a cameo by the Ghost Rider and some of Stick’s old students (including Stone) showing up to help Daredevil in the final showdown – which is our spotlight story this week. 
• The year ends with the first 3 of 4 parts to the Last Rites story arc. In it, we see Daredevil causing division between Kingpin and Typhoid before having her committed. Then we see Nick Fury bring Matt Murdock into SHIELD and ask him for help taking down Kingpin and Hydra who’s bankrolling his media enterprise. We then see the chess pieces put in place for a final showdown. The finale of this story is a giant double issue #300 we’ll talk about in 1992. 

New Powers, Toys or Places: None

New Supporting Characters: Maltese (Kingpin’s right-hand man), Danny Ketch aka Ghost Rider, Kathy Malper (US District Attorney looking to take down Kingpin) 

New Villains: Taskmaster (big time Marvel baddie), Tombstone (another Marvel baddie), General Strang (Kingpin’s media investor that turns out to be more than he bargained for – Lieutenant Garotte). Jonin (head of the latest version of the Hand in New York), a new Izanami (large female enforcer of the Hand)

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #296 September 1991 “Balancing Act” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Writers matter!

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Don Slott

Dan's Favorite

Due to the time it took to get through this and to fully cover Daredevil, we've split 1991 into 2 podcasts. Next week you'll hear the rest of this episode - which will discuss the year for Daredevil and Dan's takeaway. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1990.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #276-287, Wolverine #21, Captain America #368, 374 - 376, Count Duckula #10, Punisher Magazine #8 and 15-16, What if…? #13, 15, 17, 20, Marvel Comics presents #49 and Daredevil: Marked for Death and Elektra Lives Again graphic novels 

Writing credits: Ann Nocenti (276-287)  

Pencilers: John Romita Jr (276, 278-282), Rick Leonardi (277), Mark Bagley (283), Lee Weeks (284-285, 287), Greg Capullo (286) 

Inks: Al Williamson (276-282, 284-285, 287), Williamson and Tom Morgan (283), Doug Hazlewood (286)

• As the year begins, The Acts of Vengeance event continues with Ultron looking to take Number Nine as a bride and Daredevil must try to save her. 
• Next, we get an out of timeline story involving Daredevil and a psychologist whose star patient is his wife.
• Back to the current timeline, The Inhumans are set to leave for Pottersville in search of Black Bolts' son and it turms into a road trip for them, Daredevil, Number 9 and Brandy. Meanwhile, Blackheart and Mephisto discuss the finer points of evil and Blackheart is tasked with making Daredevil and the others do evil. 
• In Pottersville, the team finds a boy, Pope, with powers who the town is scared of and wants to kill him. They save the boy, but in the aftermath fall into a crack in the earth caused by an earthquake. We then see Daredevil and his companions experience different versions of Hell before a final showdown with Mephisto in which they are aided by the Silver Surfer. 
• Next, we get a single (what I assume is out of timeline) story in which Captain America and Daredevil are trying to help an inventor whose fantastic invention could change the world. This social issue focused book will be our spotlight story this week. 
• Daredevil finally returns to New York, but his memories are scrambled by the recent trip to Hell. Not knowing who he really is, he assumes the identity of Jack Murdock. Bullseye finds out about the confusion and decides to take advantage of the situation by impersonating the horned hero. 
• The rest of the year we see Matt Murdock meet a homeless woman, Nyla, who takes him in and the two become close. Murdock becomes a boxer, like his father, at Fogwell’s Gym and Bullseye continues stealing from the rich and beating up police to ruin the reputation of the once great hero. Ben Urich returns and seems to realize things don’t add up and goes looking for Matt Murdock.  
• In the final panels of the year, we see Wilson Fisk at a “Jack Murdock” boxing match and he too recognizes his former adversary.   

New Powers, Toys or Places: Still in upstate New York to start the year, we see the team head to Hell/Mephisto’s realm across several books before returning to familiar New York City.

New Supporting Characters: Daniel and Vivian (psychologist and his wife), Pope (Boy in Pottersville’s with powers that the townsfolk want to kill), Victor Cieszkowska (Inventor disillusioned by the US and their people), Nyla (homeless woman that befriends Matt Murdock while he’s going by Jack Murdock, becomes a love interest)

New Villains: 

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #283 August 1990 “The American Nightmare”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Marvel has won.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Tom Brevoort

Dan's Favorite

Due to the time it took to get through this and to fully cover Daredevil, we've split 1990 into 2 podcasts. Next week you'll hear the rest of this episode - which will discuss the year for Daredevil and Dan's takeaway. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation.