Gene in January, Day TwentyDaredevil #124, page 3 by Gene Colan and Klaus
Jansonhttps://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1696155
Before the time of the plague, I was browsing tables at the NJ Comic Art
Convention. Amid the knot of sudoriferous misanthropes set up at the show (not
counting Will), I came upon a table with a gorgeous Colan/Palmer Daredevil #91
page. Secondary to the aspirational pricing barrier, the page was stickered as
"DD/Black Widow break-up page." I nodded indulgently at such perfidious
mendacity, and held my peace. My scathing 35 page dissent is available upon
request.
There can be only one.
The Black Widow breaks up with Daredevil on this DD #124 page from the twilight
of Gene Colan's long and fruitful association with both characters.
Natasha Romanoff and Matt Murdock met in DD #81, paired up in DD #84, and their
partnership lasted for forty issues, from 1971 until 1975. The Black Widow
reappeared in the Daredevil comic over the coming decades, but never in a
co-starring role again.
If Stan and Jack's Fantastic Four run of 102 issues (plus six annuals) is the
Mt. Everest of history's greatest comics, and their Thor stretch is K2, then
Gene The Dean's nearly unbroken, 81-issue string of Daredevil comics from
#20-100 (Sept. 1966 - June 1973) deserves its own peak in the Himalayas, as
well. Colan returned to pencil a handful of issues between 1974 and 1979 (this
is one of them), and a final eight-issue gift to the fans in 1997.
Gene had many years of fine work ahead of him in 1975 when he returned to draw
the Widow/DD split. It's not even his final instance drawing Natasha and Matt,
but this page does seem like an affectionate window on a lost time, never to be
repeated.
Oh yeah... underneath the art correction in panel four is another Daredevil
figure that looks pretty identical to me. Maybe writer/editor Len Wein asked
Klaus Janson to portray more melancholy in DD's glutes via an art correction.
Pax,Sean
