Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The No. 4 Greatest comic run PART 22 - As per the readers of CBR.com

First I'd like to thank everyone at the CBR especially Brian Cronin for getting all the votes and putting the list together. and to everyone that voted, thanks.

Props Given, Let's take a look:

4. Frank Miller and Klaus Janson on Daredevil – 988 points (12 first place votes)

John B : A masterful sense of action in every panel Miller's stories and art along with Jansen's inks for me created a strange, gritty world like no other "super hero" book at the time and still often imitated by many to this day.

definitely top five material.


Daredevil #158-161, 163-167 (Frank Miller as artist, with Klaus Janson inks), #168-176 (Miller as writer/artist, with Janson as inker), 177-184 (Miller as writer/co-artist with Klaus Janson), #185-190 (Miller as writer, with Janson as artist), #191 (Miller as writer/artist, no Janson as inker)

Frank Miller was already an up and coming artist when he took over the penciling duties on Daredevil, under writer Roger McKenzie, with the book’s inker, Klaus Janson, staying on to give the book some continuity between departing artist, Gene Colan, and Miller.

Soon, the book began to get a buzz around it due to Miller and Janson’s impressive artwork, which managed to give a totally different look to the book despite McKenzie’s fairly standard plots (not that McKenzie was bad, just that his style did not necessarily match the style Miller and Janson were going for). The book soon became popular enough that Miller was promoted to the writer of the book, as well.

His first issue dramatically changed Daredevil, especially the introduction of Matt Murdock’s college love, Elektra, who was now an assassin.

Another change in Miller’s run was that Daredevil was now a lot more like a ninja than ever before, including introducing Stick, the man who mentored Murdock in the ways of being a ninja.

Isn’t that cover cool?

Notable during this time was the fact that Miller and Janson were absolutely amazing on the artwork on the book. They were bringing in a Will Eisner/manga look (specifically Lone Wolf and Cub) that was quite striking.

The Kingpin became a major Daredevil villain during Miller’s run (soon into Miller’s run, by the way, the book went from bi-monthly to monthly, a sign that the book was becoming popular again).

Towards the end of his run, Miller had Bullseye (a character Miller used to great effect) kill off Elektra.

After a few more issues (Janson was totally drawing the book by this time), Miller left with one fairly depressing issue (with inks by Terry Austin).

Marvel has nicely collected Miller’s entire run into three trades, and they smartly split the trades into Vol.1 (only Miller art) and Vols. 2 and 3 (Miller as writer).

Good stuff.

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