The Roger McKenzie Issues
This section covers the issues written by Roger McKenzie, both with and without the collaboration of Frank Miller.
Daredevil #153: "Betrayal"; 17 pages
Writer: Roger McKenzie
Artist: Gene Colan, pencils, Tony DeZuniga, inks
Daredevil arrives at Heather Glenn's apartment just in time to get his head handed to him by The Cobra and Mr. Hyde.
Let me state this right up front: I'm very aware that I'm giving a fairly high mark to what is an extended fight scene. But I always claimed the Orange level for stories that may be average but have some historical significance that makes them worthwhile reading...and “Betrayal” has quite a few significant things about it--starting with the first page, and the first full script by new writer Roger McKenzie (the previous two issues were dialogued by him over Shooter and Gil Kane's plots) and the first major role in the series for the soon-to-be incredibly major character Ben Urich.
(Thanks to regular reader Robert Orme, who pointed out that the figure that's officially identified as Urich in this issue is seen lurking around the graveyard scene in the previous issue. That issue would count as Urich‘s first appearance; this issue is the first one where he‘s acknowledged as a player in the series.)
The impact of Frank Miller on Daredevil is so great that many fans forget that McKenzie wrote the first chunk of issues that Miller would write. McKenzie was more interested in standard comic super-heroics, and those people who follow the issues sequentially will see how the book starts out as business as usual until, slowly but surely, it becomes more crime oriented until Miller comes aboard and eschews silly costumes for the bulk of his run. Not surprisingly we're at the very start of McKenzie's run--a start that required him to wrap up Jim Shooter's massive Killgrave storyline--so it's all about DD fighting off two of his old foes.
The temptation, of course, is to write this off as another ‘plug in' issue, where Cobra and Hyde could easily be substituted for, let's say, Frog Man and The Man-Bull with little effect. Where McKenzie succeeds is in using the fight to say something about Cobra and Hyde...and what he's saying is that, stripped of their bickering, they're two relentlessly nasty sons of bitches. This is a downright brutal portrayal of Marvel's Odd Couple, with Cobra coming off as a sadistic schemer who cheerfully uses his partner to distract Daredevil to set the hero up for a poisoning and Mr. Hyde being a near-feral monstrosity who just won't go down. When Daredevil remarks--as he seemed to do in every encounter he had with Hyde--that he's ‘more bestial--or more dangerous' than he's ever seen him, the reader believes him this time. McKenzie does a great job in capturing the sense of desperation in The Man Without Fear as he struggles to avoid being overwhelmed by the two.
This issue also marks a brief return to pencils for Gene Colan. The big significance is that this is Colan at the height of his power, where he is using all the tricks he developed to work on Tomb of Dracula . It is a very kinetic, very startling entry, especially in light of the somewhat lackluster work Carmine Infantino had been submitting in the last few issues. His Hyde is magnificent, as expected; what's not expected is his portrayal of The Cobra--the few panels that comprise page 14 accentuates the reptilian qualities of the character, turning him into as much a monster as Hyde. If I have one complaint, it's a hindsight one--namely, that the younger, much scruffier version of Urich Colan creates is very jarring to those of us used to seeing Ben as gaunt, older man on the verge of cancer.
It may not seem like much, but “Betrayal” is a very readable issue in the ‘full-on action mode.' It's also a very unpretentious herald of what would be the major sea change in the book's history.