Daredevil 262 - Inferno

Daredevil is molested by a vacuum cleaner whilst the Black Widow fights a lift.

Daredevil #262

Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciler: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Letters: Joe Rosen
Colors: Max Scheele
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

Daredevil is missing, lying near death after a battle with Typhoid Mary. A vacuum cleaner comes to life and starts attacking his body. Inside his head a dream of his mentor Stick berates him to fight back and live. Meanwhile Karen, the Black Widow, and two of the skateboarding kids' gang the Fatboys, Butch and Darla, search New York amidst inanimate objects coming to life and attacking them. They cannot get police help and so return to the Free Law Clinic which has been smashed up. It soon becomes clear more objects have come to life with a lift trying to consume Butch and Darla until the Black Widow frees them. Elsewhere Typhoid Mary struggles with her different personas. Daredevil comes too and smashes the vacuum cleaner only to realise Typhoid Mary has returned.

This is a series that's in the middle of an ongoing big storyline running headlong into a wider crossover event and it can sometimes be hard to reconcile the needs of the two. The introduction of Typhoid Mary was one of the biggest developments in Ann Nocenti's run and a bold move was made to not have Daredevil recover straight after a battle in issue #260. Instead our hero has been lying unconscious for two issues with the focus being on the search for him.

Inferno brings some weirdness into the scenario with the result that this issue is best known for the vacuum cleaner. Oddly the machine starts looking normal but seems to change into a vaguely scorpion like creature. As it changes it's also drawn and coloured as though it's Warlock from New Mutants (though the cover colours it differently). But it's actually only fairly minor to the sequence which is really about Daredevil finding the inner strength to recover as an image of Stick berates him and for this any animal or passing mugger could have performed the same role. The main signs of the demons come as the others venture though the city with sone gargoyles dropping down on them, subway train doors suddenly closing on them, the equipment in the law clinic going wild and then finally the lift tries to consume the two children. It's all fairly low key stuff but Daredevil is usually a street level series that has often struggled to accommodate some of the wilder elements of the wider Marvel universe.

There are some good character moments for all of Daredevil, Typhoid Mary and Karen as each in their way confronts elements of their past and overcomes them. Mary does so in conversation with herself, Daredevil through a dream struggle and Karen through a real life encounter with prostitutes she used to work alongside.

As an advert for Daredevil at this time this is a rather awkward issue being midway through its own developments and so not giving visiting readers from the crossover the greatest sense of what the book is like. As an issue of its own series it's a stronger character piece with typically good art from John Romita Jr that manages to take the odd situation all around and work it well into the narrative flow.