The Jim Shooter Issues
This section covers the brief period where the title was written by Marvel Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter.
Daredevil #150: "Catastrophe!"; 17 pages
Writer: Jim Shooter
Artist: Carmine Infantino, pencils, Klaus Janson, inks and colors
While Matt wrestles with how to protect his secret identity before Matthew Glenn is framed for Killgrave's machinations, he has to contend with Paladin, a mysterious mercenary hired to engage the Man Without Fear for reasons known only to his employer.
And as quickly as it started, it ends.
After less than a year, Shooter finishes his run up with this anniversary issue. He does plot the next two issues, and returns to do a Secret Wars II tie-in during Denny O'Neil's run, but this is his last full script--which is kind of sad, because the quality of Shooter's work is so very high. And his last full script is not a resolution of his major plot threads (even the one he could have resolved is used as a cliffhanger for Roger Stern to tie up), but a side trip that introduces a new character with great promise who quickly sank to D-List Limbo.
Said new character is Paladin, described by Daredevil as a ‘private investigator and gun-for-hire only to the very rich.' Granted, his powers--enhanced reflexes and strength, a special blaster gun and some protective armor--are sort of generic, but Shooter breathes life into him with his personality. This is a man, we soon learn, who sees nothing untoward in literally stopping a fist fight with DD to flirt with the two women from Indianapolis whose hotel room they've just crashed into! Given the way that Daredevil had been subtlely darkening in tone since the end of Gerber's run, I have to wonder if Shooter meant for Paladin to contrast with Matt, representing the kind of hero our Scarlet Swashbuckler once was!
The fight is very brief and, given how Paladin reveals he was hired by a friend of Glenn whose on the trial of Killgrave himself, comes off as a simple ‘we need to have two guys in costume fight' requirement. It certainly bears no impact whatsoever on the true throughline with the plot, as Matt becomes so caught up in what to do about the Glenn family and his identity he has a comic nightmare where he's trying the case and finds out he can't win. This sequence is actually pretty good and astute in what it tells us about how Matt views the other characters (particularly how Heather Glenn punctuates her sentences with ‘tra-la-las'). There's also a very well-handled opening set piece with a child sniper where DD admits how deep he's in. It's moments like this that make me claim Shooter's run is so underrated; everything supports his storyline and its central theme, no matter how tangentially.
The big development--the one Shooter himself ends up being unable to lead to fruition--is the one/two punch of Matthew Glenn's suicide and Matt's decision to reveal his secret ID to Heather. One is treated off-screen and the other is teased as a last panel cliffhanger. This, to me, seems to indicate that the rumor of Shooter leaving so abruptly because he was having problems finding time to write whole handling his newly acquired E-i-C duties were true. I have to wonder if Shooter had intended to go another direction with the Heather Glenn revelation than where it ended up--namely, basically following in the footsteps of Roy Thomas' Karen Page revelation. This could be cited as the start of the slippery slope where Matt seemed to reveal his ID to everyone who asked directly except for Foggy, a development that ended with Bendis' massive outing of Matt during his run. Granted, when we get to that point, his inability to keep his identity secret seems ludicrous, but back then the idea of Matt taking off the mask is still a novelty.
With Gil Kane gone and Gene Colan waiting in the wings, art is provided by the Marvel Designated Fill-In of the moment, Carmine Infantino. During this brief period, Infantino was estranged from his usual publisher, DC, and had fallen into a workman-like, cookie cutter rut. When elevates Infantino's work is the way his pencils interplay with Janson's inks. Janson manages to find those elements of Infantino that made his art unique back in the 60's and brings it to the fore, resulting in a much more vivid art job (compare this to the work Infantino was submitting to such series as Star Wars and Nova to realize just how distinctive this work comes off). And I have to give Infantino credit for his choreography in the jury dream sequence, which has a visual consistency while being totally illogical.
I really wish that Shooter had been allowed to continue with his run; it may have been brief but it had a lot to offer. As it is, “Catastrophe” was a nice little coda to his string of stories.