Episode 41 - Murdock and Marvel: 1995 Part 2

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.

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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.