The Denny O'Neil Issues
This section looks at the problematic run of former Batman writer Denny O'Neil, which was beset by strange characters, frequent fill ins and the odd interjection of stories written by some guy named Miller....
Daredevil #220: "Fog"; 22 pages
Writer: Denny O'Neil
Artist: David Mazzuchelli
In the midst of one of the worst fogs in New York history, Matt has to come to grips with the apparent murder of his former fiance', Heather Glenn. Unfortunately for him, it may not be murder no matter how unscrupulous the man Matt blames for her death is...
I simply don't understand why this issue is not remarked upon more. I suppose it's because it occurred smack dab in the middle of Denny O'Neil's highly uneven run of the book (which in turn could be seen as a dry run for O'Neil's magnificent Question series for DC), a run riddled with fill-in issues, weak and/or silly villains (Micah Synn, anyone?) and two interruptions by Frank Miller. It probably also didn't help that the run was bookended by Miller on one side and Ann Nocenti on the other, two authors who put very distinctive marks on the series. Whatever the case may be, O'Neil is more or less forgotten as a DD writer--his run on Iron Man seems to be the more fondly remembered one--which is a shame.
This is a very significant issue, in that it puts paid to the character of Heather Glenn. Glenn was created by Marv Wolfman as a party girl socialite (I always suspected she was visually patterned after Liza Minelli), a love interest for Matt who was in contrast to the staid, demure (at the time) Karen Page. She was never really a good addition to the supporting case, and ended up floundering throughout the subsequent Shooter and Stern issues before Frank Miller decided to drag her into Hell, slowly turning her into a cloying, pathetic figure during his run. By the time O'Neil gets a hold of her, she's so sad a character that he decides to write her off once and for all, and use her death to explore Matt's feelings about that time in his life.
What's particularly interesting in this issue is the fact that O'Neil never presents Heather's ultimate fate as anything but what it is; it's Matt's mindset, obsessively fixating on the one clue that could indicate it's not what it seems, and the reader's, who knows supporting characters just Don't Do Things Like That who make the assumptions. O'Neil masterfully sets up a corridor that isn't there and stands back to let his hero run down it into a realization that he's still to blame--just not in the way he thought. It's hard pressed to tell if some of the comments are a critique of Miller's handling of Heather or a comment on it, but I don't think he was more interested in the repercussions of her actions than digging up the past.
The artwork is by David Mazzuchelli, who is still in his 'imitate Miller' phase--not surprisingly, as O'Neil's run always smacked of being constrained by the tenet to 'Be More Like Frank.' There are still some hints of what he would become when the 'Born Again' issues start rolling out, but you can certainly tell he's trying his best to ape Miller, especially in the opening sequence.
There is a lot in the O'Neil run to mock--and believe me, we're going to get to mocking sometimes real soon--but this is one issue that really deserves to be read as an example of what the writer was capable of doing.