The End Of My Geekiest Journey

Warning: This may be the most boring post I’ve ever written!! Read on at your peril!!!

Although I haven’t received it yet, it would appear that I have come to the end of one of my saddest and least interesting quests.

When I first got into comics, Frank Miller was the man. He’d just come off the back of The Dark Knight Returns and could do no wrong. He’s done a lot of great works since, and some daft drek as well.

But my favourite work of his was always his late 70s/early 80s run on Daredevil – pretty much the Bronze Age run on any title.

Miller started drawing the comic in 1979 at Issue 158 and began writing and drawing the comic at Issue 168. It was stunning stuff – Miller gave the comic a gritty, nourish edge, maturing the characters and storylines and he introduced a visual dynamism that topped even the old masters like Kirby, Neil Adams and Jim Steranko.

He was also the first comic book creator to introduce elements of Manga to American comics. Miller loved Japanese comics and created a bunch of characters based on his love of the more mystical end of martial arts, his most enduring creation being Elektra.

He also revamped the title in terms of adversaries. Although there were still run-ins with costumed villains most notably Bullseye (an old, rather silly character that Miller revamped into a darkly psychotic assassin) Daredevil’s main enemy became The Kingpin, a brutal local crime boss.

Its difficult to say where modern comic books would be without this most groundbreaking yet faithful-to-the-medium work.

After his first run, Miller returned to the title in 1986, writing “Born Again” for artist David Mazzuchelli and again, made the competition look unsophisticated and silly in doing so.

And now, onto the point.

I have over the years spent a considerable amount of time and money collecting every last one of these comics in original form.

I had them all; the full original run, the one offs, the odds and ends and the full second run. Some of them in great nick, some of them not, but I have them.

All expect one. Issue 161.

It was a sticky one. Y’ see, Miller only drew it. Never wrote it and as such, it didn’t really spoil any continuity by not having it. Plus it’s a rare, expensive comic. It was never originally distributed in the UK and was quite hard to find. It generally went for over a tenner and I could never really justify the expense.

Or was that really it? I’ve wondered over the years as I’ve passed up several opportunities to own it, if there is not another reason. Maybe I just didn’t want to complete the collection because, when I do, the adventure of collecting all the Miller Daredevils will be over. The quest will be complete and I’ll have to deal with the fact that all I’ve really done is collate some sequentially published books. It’s not as if it was some Arthurian quest after all.

But we’ll see how I feel shortly – ‘cos I finally bought it on ebay from a store in Brooklyn for 7 quid postage included.

The end of my geekiest journey is almost nigh.