InsaneJournal

Yeah, that's the first time they met.  (Daredevil 196, vol. 1.  Uncollected and difficult to find in back issues.  Denny O'Neil writes.  Larry Hama and Klaus Janson on art. )  And there is frickin' tension there, amirite?  Too much murky stuff going on underneath what was, frankly, a fairly mediocre book.  I swear, the single panels I can crop out are far more interesting than a whole page.  This is where slash writing comes from--to flesh out that monster under the surface.






Anyways.  I just wanted to show that O'Neil could actually write sexy. 

This post is actually to prove that Daredevil slept with Lady Deathstrike.  Scans prove it did happen, so judge for yourself! (Scans are from Daredevil 197-9, vol. 1.  O'Neil writes, art by William Johnson, Mike Mignola, and Danny Bulanadi.)

A guy called Lord Darkwind who actually designed the process by which adamantium is grafted to bones has stolen Bullseye's paralyzed body from the hospital.  Wolverine got word from a friend and looked into it; Daredevil was there to hunt Bullseye.  They teamed up and, predictably, parted ways over crimefighting methods.  Bullseye escapes in Lord Darkwind's hands on a ship to Japan.

Darkwind wants Bullseye to assassinate somebody; in return, Darkwind cures his paralysis with a few adamantium parts.  He knows more about the bonding process than anyone, so he's not worried that Bullseye doesn't have a healing factor.  Lord Darkwind makes up for it with magic herbs and prayer!






Apparently, Zemo Lite got major facial scarring when he suicide bombed a ship during WWII and survived.  He now worships an ugly, scarred head, I guess.

After landing in Japan, Daredevil boards the ship.  Bullseye is gone but he finds his first Asian cliche--a chick in chains.





Yes, Lord Darkwind chained up his daughter and handed her over to the ship's crew.  She is, understandably, remarkably helpful to Daredevil.  He helps her escape and she provides shelter, information, and guidance to her father's sekrit island.  Daredevil suspiciously asks why she keeps covering the side of her face.  So she shows him.







Lord Darkwind also put nasty facial scar symbols on all his kids, too.  Daredevil says big whoop, he don't care.  She immediately warms to him and stops covering her face in public.




Matt avoids answering directly.  In fact, he never introduces himself, as either Daredevil, or Matt Murdock.  When he meets her in civilian clothes, he says "I'm the one who rescued you on the ship."  He mentions that he is sometimes called 'the man without fear' and that Bullseye killed his girlfriend. 

Lord Darkwind knows who he is, though, because Bullseye tells him.  A wierd, never explained part of this story is that Bullseye and Daredevil suddenly have a telepathic bond.  Matt thinks it's a hallucination from a head injury.  Bullseye seems to get more information out of it , knowing Matt's intentions and distance.  Darkwind insists it's probably because their mutual hate and fear.  I'd blame the herbs and mystic hoojoo, personally.  It is never referred to after this story arc.









Well, okay, then.  Seems like a pretty straightforward character, so far.  Why, she's almost a nice girl.

O'Neil then pulls out hurt/comfort cliche #1:  the lonely cabin in a snowstorm.





Yow.  Wow, that's...I'm burning over here.  No, really.  That is how you write sexy, O'Neil?  Seriously.  Go reread the Wolverine/Daredevil panels.  I've read this cliche in about 20 different variations and even the bad amateurs made het sex fun.  This is arousing as a wet noodle.

They're woken by an earthquake (portrayed as common here) and continue on their way.  Eventually, they refer to Last Night.







You can believe IT didn't happen.  That Matt was about to say, "The things we said and did, when we were cuddled together for warmth, and we platonically shared sob stories about our bad childhoods.  You know I never meant anything, right?  I mean, you're in love and I haven't even told you my name!"

I love Matt, but he ain't no saint.  And sex is his weakness.  Girlfriend timeline-wise, this occurs after Elektra was murdered and after Foggy and Natasha conspired to make Matt think Heather turned down his marriage proposal.





They never explain what that damn symbol actually means.  Again, not a girl you'd think would later go off and obsess over honoring her father.





This was needless worrying, because by this time she'd already realized that Daredevil doesn't kill and they'd started arguing about it together.

(Why was Matt wearing traditional kimonos off and on with his costume?  To keep the artist from getting bored  Because Darkwind insisted on traditional everything and it made them not stand out from a distance.)





(Would you consider Matt a ronin because he serves no master, a samurai because he serves Justice, or some kind of sohei/shukenja priest type because he serves a higher authority?) 

Part of me wonders if his words preyed too much on her later.  If she went "hmm, that American guy served an abstraction that brought him honor.  My father put an abstraction on my face.  I will totally feel just like him if I serve the abstraction on my face!"


MEANWHILE!  Bullseye uses his completely not deus ex machina telepathic bond to escape Daredevil, leaving Darkwind to face him.  Darkwind assigns his lowest level punk to row the invalid to mainland.  Guess who it is?





The punk goes over the side into the drink.  Bullseye belatedly realizes that now he has to row himself.

Lord Darkwind fights Daredevil and is abouuuuuut to KILL him--when suddenly Darkwind is stabbed in the back!





Yayyy!  The stupid punk boyfriend survived!  Bullseye's throw was too weak because he was still recovering!  Everything is great now, so Matt goes home.

It was Chris Clarement who went, "Hang up.  You got a Japanese chick who has a tie to Wolverine?  With a severely traumatic childhood?  OH FUCK YEAH!  Transfer her to X-men Editorial right now!"

She shows up in Alpha Flight 33 later as Lady Deathstrike, samurai-type who is obsessed with her father's work in adamantium, and fights Wolverine and Heather Hudson as Vindicator-whatever-she-called-herself-that-week.  Apparently, dumb boyfriend survived long enough to commit suicide because he failed his master.  Forever traumatizing that nice girl Daredevil slept with into becoming a full on Crazy Bitch.  She gets stomped.

Crazy next shows up in X-men, where she's decided to upgrade at Spiral's Body Shoppe.  The full makeover special gives her a cyborg body and fingernail claws--also gets rid of that pesky facial scar!

This puts another psycho killer on Matt's list of ex's.  (Also, according to Wolverine Saga, makes it another of Matt's ex's to bump into Logan:  Typhoid, Elektra, Echo.  Natasha used to be one, but she's been retconned into knowing Logan first.)   Somehow, they don't seem to have run into each other EVER over the years.  Daredevil is a fairly self-contained title, and the mutants have their own world.   Unless she was on the ground during the Central Park battle with the Skrulls, its perfectly possible that Matt has no clue.   Lady Deathstrike probably does, but why would she care?