DAREDEVIL #8 (6Oth Anniversary issue) + CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES #1 + Immortal Thor #9 + Spider-Punk: Arms Race #2
A constant in my life, a classic Horror gem, plus two whatevers
DAREDEVIL #8 (6Oth Anniversary issue)
A nice chunky issue to celebrate the title being 60 years old, which means I started reading this when I was six. I wasn’t buying it then, simply picking it from the revolving racks outside the local post office, taking it home and reading it, then returning it in exchange for something else later. I treated the post office like an alternative library without realising anything was right or wrong. Daredevil had vision problems like me, and we shared the same initials, so of course I was drawn to him.
Over the years this comic has been consistently good I’d say, with some minors ups and downs, and we’re currently on the up with Daredevil now a priest and mainly active at night, with Elektra also working the streets as Daredevil, in a different (superior, I’d say) costume. In this issue they’re together, drawn into an ambush by Bullseye, then learning that Kingpin is about let loose an army of thugs on Hell’s Kitchen. Adding some potential trouble into the mix Alice, a girl Elektra has been bringing up, has heard a commotion locally and gone out to fight trouble seeing as Elektra isn’t around.
They throw in some bonus stories, Daredevil giving some idiot hoodlums a second chance, Daredevil preventing Punisher taking out a bloke making illegal substitutes for medicines to dispense freely to locals who can’t afford the real thing, and Elektra reuniting an owner with a dog the Heat baddies had stolen. There’s also some very cute cartoon strips from the Daily Bugle showing out heroes in antique form.
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES #1
I don’t recall much about the Creature From The Black Lagoon, as it never got the attention on tv that the other Universal monsters did, so I was interested in this, and as a purely modern tale it works well. We have an investigative journalist staying somewhere in Peru, trying to track down a killer who has already made one attempt on her life. Bodies having been turning up, drowned, and she’s convinced it’s his work, while the locals insist it’s a creature in the river, providing death for those most in need.
She’s bribing the local mortician to provide her with info but he says someone else has paid him more this time, and the latest corpse is being collected that afternoon. She stakes out the rear of the building then follows the men who collect the body, into the forest, at which point she falls into the water, contemplates her own watery demise from the depths, only to be rescued by the creature.
Dun dun durr…..
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES - FORBIDDEN PLANET
And then a couple of comics which got my attention because of their covers
The Immortal Thor #9
Thor spends some lecturing what appears to be a living skeleton called Minotaur who has plans for world domination/decimation, who rudely sets both Skurge (who nicks Thor’s axe) and Amora against him, Thor somehow weakened in some sort of dream-state, because it turns out he’s been hypnotised by being in a comic. Pretty naff.
THE IMMORTAL THOR - FORBIDDEN PLANET
Spider-Punk: Arms Race #2
The band continue their fight against Otto Oktavius, who has been cleaning house, murdering those who were assisting/funding him, but with Spidey and his Wakanda-fuelled associates not doing any band type stuff, just gearing up to fight Rhino, it’s all rather boring.