The Steve Gerber Issues
This section covers the issues written by Steve Gerber, following the end of the San Francisco era.
Daredevil #112: "Death of A Nation?"; 18 pages
Writer: Steve Gerber
Artist: Gene Colan, pencils, Frank Giacoia, inks
The Mandrill's plan to overthrow the United States is moments from completion--and before he can be stopped, Daredevil has to go through Nekra, free the mind of Natasha, and free himself and Shanna The She-Devil.
Steve Gerber was never what you'd call a conventional super-hero writer. During his two-years-and-change run on Daredevil (a book he cheerfully called his ‘comedy book' in interviews), he spent the first year wrapping up Gerry Conway's plots in a whacked out, Jim Starlin science fiction bow before launching into this massive espionage storyline that saw DD return to New York and battle an all-female terrorist army flanked by two hot redheads. And after that, DD took a trip to the swamp to meet what would be one of his most memorable foes of the 70's.
This issue is the finale of Gerber's second arc, the ‘Black Spectre' tale that saw Matt take on The Mandrill and Nekra, two super-villains who migrated from the very short-lived Shanna The She-Devil series. Even though the story as a whole is a fun tale that temporarily remakes DD into a James Bond action movie hero, the ending is a bit of a let down.
I think a large part of this is that so much is crammed into this issue that it comes off as both rushed and unsatisfying. I wonder if Gerber received any pressure to wrap up the story, or if he got sidetracked in previous installments, because there's a definite sense of two issues worth of story being jammed into a single issue. There are moments, such as the climatic fight on top of the White House or formulation of the plan to destroy Black Spectre's aerial base of operations which are assigned either too few panels or (in the later case) shunted off into throwaway lines of dialogue, and the impact of those scenes suffer for it. Perhaps the most mangled scene involves Daredevil trying to force the Widow out of her Mandrill-induced trance; it's given exactly two panels, and the sudden way Natasha becomes Natasha again blunts the drama of what should have been a key moment in the story (It also doesn't help that Natasha isn't given the room to express her anger at being subjugated; she gets a single line that makes her sound more miffed than outraged).
And the weirdest thing of all, the thing that practically demands more space, is the takeover itself. Gerber chooses to let the mechanics of the plan play out in caption boxes and dialogue boxes, which robs it totally of the scale we're promised in the opening scene of destruction. A large part of why there's no sense of urgency in this climax rests on the fact that the monstrosity of what Mandrill has done is never fully conveyed.
...which is a pity, because there are a ton of cool moments that could have been more fully exploited if Gerber and Colan had room. The fight outside the aircraft between DD and Nekra as the Empire State building's antenna crashes to the streets below is wonderfully choreographed by Colan. While his portrayal of The Mandrill as a monkey in cut-off shorts is lacking, Colan also does a magnificent job on Nekra, making her all sharp edges and angles as befitting a creature powered by hate. The idea of someone redecorating the White House lawn while soldiers can do nothing is a compelling one. And the very rare moment of a member of DD's New York and San Francisco cast interacting comes off much better than it had to be.
(Okay, and Gene Colan draws not one, but two hot redheads in this issue...and I like redheads. Sue me.)
This was pretty much it for the San Francisco cast save for a return appearance in Gerber's last issue. Shanna pops up in that story to sink into obscurity for a long time, only retrieved from oblivion in the 80's Ka-Zar series. And The Mandrill pops up again periodically, most significantly in a story arc of the David Anthony Kraft penned Defenders...guest starring Daredevil.
“Death of a Nation?” could have been better--and it should have been. That it's prolly as low as the Gerber run gets (okay, maybe not as low as some of the middle-act stuff in the Terrax storyline) is a sign of how good Gerber actually was.