Monday, March 11, 2013

Is That a Horse's Head in My Bed? What a Strange Coincidence. 'Tis That, and Nothing More...


If you haven't read the "Born Again" storyline from Daredevil, you're missing out.  It was Frank Miller at his finest, telling the story of a complete dismantling of an iconic hero by a powerful foe.  Poor Matt Murdock got it from everywhere.  I'm not going to spoil everything for you, but it's worth noting that Matt's house was blown to smithereens.

And Pete proves in Amazing Spider-Man  #277 that there's a reason they don't call him "The Particularly Bright Spider-Man."


Your pal is Daredevil, he fights the biggest mobster in New York, his house gets blown up, and Pete thinks this was a fluke accident.

If you're ever charged with a crime, you want Peter Parker on your jury.  That's all I'm saying.

But this was an interesting bit of introspection:



It is kind of odd that a character that goes by the name Daredevil who used to dress up like a circus acrobat became the noir hero that Miller turned into.  Anyway, I found this to be one of those "I never noticed it before, but that's right!" moments, kind of like when Johnny Storm came right out and said that the Fantastic Four were adventurers, not crime-fighters.

And now, it's time for: Well..... Touche! (tm!)



Well.... Touche! (tm!)


That, of course, was the Wraith, proving once again that it wasn't safe to be a D-list badguy in the Marvel Universe back in the late 80s.  I thought that "Scourge" was a great subplot, but it kind of culminated into a non-event, giving the big reveal in the USAgent miniseries, of all things.  Still, it was the journey, not the destination.

See you tomorrow!


4 comments:

MarvelX42 said...

When Pete said "fluke accident" I took that to mean the kind of "fluke accident" that happens to us costumed crime fighters. Like you are fighting a robot with drills for hands and laser beam eyes or fighting a guy who can blow himself up and reassemble or fighting a magic energy being from the distant past sort of "fluke accident". I mean this WAS right around the time that Spidey gets transported halfway across the universe to a planet assembled from bits and pieces of different planets from a destroyed galaxy, has a living being that can disguise itself as clothing try to take over his body AND beats the tar out of a former herald of Galactus, the sole survivor or the previous universe before the big bang. I would think that the LAST thing that would spring to mind would be just an ordinary Earth bound crime lord blows it up. But maybe that's just me?

Adam Barnett said...

I just go with the plain meaning of fluke accident... like a gas main ruptures or you try to deep fry a turkey and the hot oil falls on the propane tank and BOOM! Pete should never assume that ANY hero's crib that blows up is the result of an accident. :-)

MarvelX42 said...

I am just sayin that after all that Pete has been through, including having an omnipotent being urinate in his apartment bathroom, that his or one of his hero friends places being blown up would be sorta par for the course. ::sigh:: my apartment blew up, no time to worry about that cause I have to go fight this 500 foot tall radioactive fire breathing dinosaur. KnowhatImean?

Adam Barnett said...

Well, a "fluke" is an "unlikely chance or occurrence," which is why I think Pete was a little dopey for blowing it off as such. Yeah, stranger things have happened, but I would think that if you've had the omnipotent being urinate in your bathroom, you'd be less likely to think that something was "just a fluke." Not to take anything away from Pete, but I can see why he left the writing to Ben Urich :-)