Showdown of the Century.....

Check out the sweet John Romita Jnr cover to Daredevil #263. Sure it's fantastic but it fails to mention the five words that would've guaranteed that this book would've sold by the case:

Blind lawyer versus demon train!

You heard me right people, it's the showdown of the century. You've got to see it to believe it.

Daredevil starts this issue lying in a hospital bed all busted up from a recent scuffle with his crazy bit on the side Typhoid Mary. What better time for squillions of demons to invade Manhattan?

Matt notices that something is up when the walls of his hospital room turn to blood and a bunch of little snaky demons start talking about eating his eyeballs:

Is Matt listening to Devo?

Realising his beloved Hell's Kitchen may be in trouble Matt breaks out of the demon encrusted hospital. Still half dressed and covered in bandages, he heads for home.

Unfortunately the subway he goes to catch is having minor technical difficulties:Being a hopelessly over matched blind lawyer armed with a stick, facing a huge living demonic subway train Matt does the sensible thing - he jumps on board as the train begins to burrow it's way down into the depths of hell.

It's only Matt's selfless, heroic attempts to stop it and save the passengers that turns the horror back towards the surface.Surprisingly once out of hell Matt is able to dispatch the enormous fire-breathing demon with - well a big stick actually.

Giant demon slaying sticks aside this a great little done in one issue. It's actually a tie-in to the big X-Men event 'Inferno' (hence all the demons and stuff). It has no real relevance to the ongoing stuff happening in the DD title at the time. It does however give Ann Nocenti the opportunity to wax poetic about evil, demons and how we're all going to hell in a handbasket which is a real treat.

I always loved her purple prose style of narration - it was a perfect fit for the grimy, street-level feel of the DD book. You felt like you needed to go shower off the Hell's Kitchen dirt after you were finished reading an issue.

Well that's it for for this entry, but next time on Showdown of the Century: an arthritic nun with a wooden leg takes on a rabid werewolf with an AK-47! It'll be the comicbook adventure of the decade.