Writer Blocks – Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volume 2 (part one)

Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volume 2 collects the entire Elektra Saga, Daredevil #168 through #182, originally published from 1981 to 1982.  This is a large volume and can be broken into two parts: the introduction of Elektra and rise of the Kingpin as the primary antagonist in Daredevil’s life, and the Elektra Saga’s endgame.



Elektra was a revelation in 1981 – a strong, independent, deadly female character in a comic book. Daredevil’s equal in physical ability, it is revealed, through an almost entire issue flashback, that they knew each other and were lovers while in college.  Before the flashback, Elektra is introduced to the reader by saving Daredevil’s life.  This was a new concept in the early 1980’s, a time when most female characters were regulated to the “damsel in distress” role, what would later be termed “women in refrigerators”. Frank Miller broke that mold, and Elektra became the focus of the book, supplanting Daredevil as the character a reader truly cared about.

The influence, almost reverence that Miller has for Will Eisner can be seen in the splash-page innovations within Daredevil, incorporating the issue title and creator credits into the panel itself. 



This is an art almost completely lost in today’s world of movie-like credits pages. The last time I remember seeing this was in the New 52 Flash by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul.



As a writer, these issues taught me about the use of time as a tool to tell the story. Miller would alternate between tight, multiple paneled pages to create tension and evoke mood to wide-screen panorama shots for dynamic action and fight sequences. But it was his use of silence – the way he’d couple that silence with a cinematic frame-by-frame depiction of events – that was the true way Miller created the passage of time to build tension. The best example of this, from the first half of Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volume 2, is the penultimate page of Daredevil #169, appropriately titled Devils.



Daredevil, our hero, is contemplating leaving his hated rival, Bullseye, to die on the train tracks. Of course he won’t do it, but the last eight panels, beginning with Daredevil’s thought of “I hate you”, with their use of time and light to create tension, makes the reader wonder –

“Is this hero starting to go over the edge?”

Next Week – he will!