Cluttered Like My Head

 And so we come to the final issue of The Daredevils. Behind a cover of the Fury clobbering Captain Britain, there's an editorial from Bernie Jaye, revealing both that the title is going to merge with the (recently relaunched) Mighty World of Marvel, and that she is going to be moving on as well. I haven't read any issues of the latter title, but it's clear that a lot of credit for the approach of the Daredevils has to go to the editorial team and the lead they provided to the creatives - it's notable that there's a short Moore / Davis strip wishing her well.  The Captain Britain strip rounds off the story. It's a bit rushed but Alan Moore and Alan Davis perform an effective job of corralling all of our main players together to see of the Fury, with one particularly striking double page sequence by Davis featuring a sequence of full height wordless panels, ending with the Fury buried under tons of rock. The Special Executive take their leave and the story promis...

 We're in the home stretch now - I think it's fair to see that the creators knew the end was coming, as the Captain Britain story is coming close to wrapping up. The Fury meets with our assortment of heroes, and has the upper stakes in the battle that kicks off, ending with a shocking fade to black for the final page. As ever, it's wonderful stuff, Moore and Davis working wonderfully as a team, and with an opening triptych that plays to Davis's strengths. I know I'm forty years after the curve, but I'm glad to have finally got around to reading this,  As an extra this month, we have a strip called The Crusader by Davis and Paul Neary, apparently Davis's first professional work. It's another amusing parody of comic book tropes with our hero having been disturbed by the death of his parents, and deciding to become a superhero to avenge them. II'm not sure how it would have fitted originally in the pages of Rampage but it's an effective filler here,...

 Now we are up to September 1983. There's no sense here of a title that knows its on its last legs and going through the motions. I reckon this is probably one of the best issues of Daredevils - it knows exactly what it's doing and its doing it brilliantly.  Firstly - we've got the instalment of Captain Britain where Moore is literally lining up the chess pieces in the story and bringing them into play. It's a treat to see, and its nice to see supporting characters from the US comics (Shaw and Gyrich) appear - it helps to sustain the conceit that the stories are taking place in one big shared universe.  The art by Alan Davis is immaculate - he really has come on in leaps and bounds since the first issues and the twist on the last page, as the Fury make his return to this universe, is spectacular.  Then we've got Daredevil which this month includes the first appearance of Elektra. It's a marvellous piece of continuity mangling, Miller managing to convince us that...