Daredevil and Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1

Nov 2008
Tito Faraci, Claudio Villa

Daredevil and Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1 cover

Story Name:

DAREDEVIL & CAPTAIN AMERICA: DEAD ON ARRIVAL


Synopsis

Daredevil and Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 3 stars

As Daredevil winds his way across the city, investigating a series of mysterious kidnappings and the murders of the witnesses, Captain America is briefed on a new assignment by Nick Fury. Seems that Daredevil’s old enemy the Death-Stalker, who had the ability to pass between dimensions and wore gloves that gave him the touch of death, may be alive despite having been killed in DD #158 when he materialized into a tombstone. SHIELD scientists have discovered that a hole has been ripped in time; now people are dying by the death touch. Cap’s mission is to locate the temporally displaced Death-Stalker and return him to his own time before there is a disaster in the continuum.

Meanwhile, DD learns from the police, by a woman whose son has been kidnapped by the Death-Stalker, that his old foe is mysteriously alive. The villain, however, having been hurled into the future and learning of his demise, has taken several hostages as bait in a trap for his killer Daredevil. The Man without Fear arrives at the cemetery and is sprayed in the face with a hallucinogenic drug which makes DD "see" everyone as monsters. DD, determined to end this evil once for all, intends to beat his enemy to death but Cap arrives and stops him. But DD, thinking Cap is some sort of fiend, attacks him. The two heroes fight, with Cap trying his best not to hurt his opponent, finally injecting him with a drug intended for Death-Stalker. This cures DD of his madness but the villain has an ultimatum. To prove that Daredevil is no real hero, Death-Stalker demands that he allow the Stalker to touch him or the hostages, starting with the boy Sean, will die. DD calmly walks up to the villain and extends his hand. As Death-Stalker reaches out, Cap slings his shield, DD leaps up and the baddie is flattened. Cap warns DD about the temporal disaster that might happen if Death-Stalker died here. The madman, hearing this, touches himself with his deadly gloves—and vanishes, leaving the universe intact. The heroes release the captives, and the villain finds himself back in his own timestream unable to comprehend why he feels defeated.


 

Review / Commentaries


Daredevil and Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1 Review by (February 15, 2010)
It's a reprint.


Daredevil and Captain America: Dead on Arrival #1 Review by (December 6, 2014)
Review: An okay adventure first published in Italy; the story is rather conventional—nothing happens here that couldn’t have been presented in 1978 at half the page count, despite the Mature rating. The ending is a real cop-out, though: as we worry “if Death-Stalker dies out of his real time, the universe will dissolve from the temporal paradox!!!” in the climax the villain indeed “dies”—and nothing happens. Looks for all the world as though the writer gave up. Even though Stan Lee could have gotten away with some silly sci-fi doubletalk to cover it, it is quite disappointing to see it in something which was intended to be taken seriously. The art has a very solid realistic look to it, with some very nice sequences, including the opening where we see the two heroes in separate adventures, the blind Daredevil fighting a street gang and the blindfolded Cap mixing it up with training androids. DD’s psychedelic visions are also handled well, though it’s more the triumph of the colorist. As I said, an okay project, which would have seemed better had the thing not been hyped so heavily.

Comments: Translated from the Italian by Alexandra Hain Cole and adapted by Larry Hama. Issue includes a pin-up of Cap and DD by Claudio Villa and a profile of the creators. Rated Mature for, well, I don’t know why.


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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Claudio Villa
Claudio Villa
Claudio Villa
Claudio Villa (Cover Penciler)
Claudio Villa (Cover Inker)
Claudio Villa (Cover Colorist)


Characters

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Captain America
Captain America

(Steven Rogers)
Daredevil
Daredevil

(Matt Murdock)
Nick Fury
Nick Fury

(Nicholas Fury)


Thor

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