Daredevil Epic Collection, Vol. 16: Dead Man's Hand

Daredevil Epic Collection

by D.G. Chichester, Fabian Nicieza, Glenn Herdling

Who will claim the Kingpin’s empire? Wilson Fisk has fallen — and would-be crimelord the Owl sinks his talons into New York City! Meanwhile, the sinister Surgeon General slices her way through unsuspecting victims — and her next “patients” may be Daredevil and Spider-Man! But when Nelson & Murdock roll the dice on a big case in Las Vegas, DD finds a cabal of criminals looking to step into Fisk’s oversized shoes! With Tombstone, Hammerhead, Silvermane and Justin Hammer mingling with representatives of Hydra, the Secret Empire, the Hand and more, chaos is in the cards — and when violent vigilantes Nomad and the Punisher arrive in Sin City, all bets are off! Plus, can Daredevil defeat his own twisted doppelganger?

COLLECTING: Daredevil (1964) 301-311, Daredevil Annual (1967) 8, Nomad (1992) 4-6, Punisher War Journal (1988) 45-47, material from Marvel Holiday Special (1991) 2

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Collections

472 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2021

About the author

Dan G. Chichester

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nocturnal Hunter (Daredevil #301-303) by D.C. Chichester & M.C. Wyman
The Owl returns with a bunch of weird cybernetic enhancements.

34 Hours (Daredevil #304) by D.C. Chichester & Ron Garney
A day in the half of the life of Daredevil. Neat idea for a story.

Surgeon General (Daredevil #305-306) by D.C. Chichester & Scott McDaniel
A woman is luring guys away from clubs so she can steal their organs, playing on the urban legend. Daredevil teams up with Spider-Man to stop her. McDaniel is drawing in Marvel's House-style of the 90's and not his polarizing signature style he develops later. Good stuff.

Daredevil Annual #8 by Greg Wright & M.C. Wyman
Part 2 of The System Bytes that ran through 4 annuals in 1992. It features Deathlok and it's not good. Takes place mainly in cyberspace. There's also some backup stories featuring the Crippler and some skateboard kids that reoccurred in Daredevil in the 90's.

Dead Man's Hand (Daredevil #307-309, Nomad #4-6 & Punisher War Zone #45-47) by D.C. Chichester & Scott McDaniel, Fabian Nicieza & Pat Oliffe, Chuck Dixon & John Hebert
A 9-part crossover set in Las Vegas. The heads of all the criminal organizations in the Marvel universe meet to divide up the Kingpin's holdings. Daredevil, Nomad and the Punisher haphazardly try to stop them. The storytelling between the 3 titles is all over the place with stories not lining up and sometimes repeating parts of the story in multiple issues. This is how not to do a crossover.

Devil Ge Rouge (Daredevil #310-311) by Glen Herdling & Scott McDaniel
Daredevil fights zombies when the voodoo priestess Calypso pops over from Spider-Man. Here you can see McDaniel start to develop his style. I really liked this story, but then again I think voodoo stories are creepy.

The Rapt Lamb (Marvel Holiday Special #2) by Ann Nocenti & Tom Grindberg
Ann Nocenti returns to wipe her stench all over this Christmas story. It's terrible.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this a three but it's not the kind of three I want cluttering up my shelves.

So this collects Daredevil #301-311, Annual #8, three issues of Nomad, three issues of Punisher War Journal, and some material from a holiday special.

The last Daredevil I read prior to Kevin Smith's run was #300 so most of this was new material. DG Chichester and Lee Weeks did the arc prior to this book and it was fantastic. This book was not fantastic.

The three parter featuring the Owl to open the book was fine. I'd never heard of MC Wyman and wished Lee Weeks was still on the book. The crossover between Daredevil, Punisher, and Nomad was good in theory with criminals meeting in Vegas to carve up the Kingpin's empire but ran for too long. Dead Man's Hand lasted for three months in each title. It was fun and the heroes felt fairly natural in the same story, although a gun toting hero like Nomad not wanting to kill anyone doesn't make all that much sense to me. Once Dead Man's Hand wrapped, another writer took over and I quickly lost interest.

There's nothing exactly wrong with this Epic Collection except that it's very much of it's time, the early 1990s, and overstays its welcome a bit. I'm glad I read it but I won't shed a tear when I trade it in for something else.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars. Book opens up with the first three issues having Daredevil take on The Owl. Lots of big action with the flights they get into. We getting a little backstory on The Owl and that third issue having a kind of sad ending. The next few issues has DD team up with Spidey to take on the Surgeon General. Here we have some crazed people in scrubs going around kidnapping people to cut organs out of them to sell on the black market. Some wild stuff. Then we get into a 7 part crossover with Daredevil, Punisher and Nomad. The story weaves throughout their issues. We have all the top criminals, The Hand, Hydra, The Maggia and others meeting up to negotiate splitting up the Kingpin’s empire since he’s out of the picture for now. Nomad, Punisher and DD learn about this and cross paths as they zero in on the happenings with these criminal leaders. Pretty solid.

[Frédéric · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part (full Chichester) is ok. Two street level minor arcs decently plotted. A bit too many captions probably but well written so I guess it’s ok.
Art on the other hand simply stands as bad, pure and simple. A bitter pill to swallow after Lee Weeks in the previous volume.

Annual 8 - as forgettable as any other annual. Forgot it already.

Then the cross over with Nomad and Punisher War Journal relocating our merry goodfellows in Vegas.
If the plot is ok overall- following the Kingpin’s downfall several motley criminal elements reunite in Nevada to share his territory- it still suffers from various flaws: nebulous character’s motivations (Viper), unexplainable character’s reactions (Punisher deals with Viper like any other tuesday), ridiculous 90’s colorful villains (Chainsaw and the Praetorians) and clumsy junctions between the different title’s issues (the worst being the kidnapping of Baby Bucky and its incoherent time sequence).
Art is painfully crappy, very early 90’s.
On the other hand Chichester, Nicieza and Dixon handle their respective characters quite well and despite lacking in execution the idea remains good.

The two last issues are from Glenn Herdling- a guy I had never heard of and wish I never had- with demonic mumbo-jumbo and illiterate french expressions.

I would clearly recommend this book to DD fans like me. The plots redeem flaws in the scripts and the poor visuals but you need the blindness of love to truly enjoy it.

[José Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book where I wish I could add half stars, as my rating would be closer to 2.5 Stars, but it’s not 2 star material.

Anyways, I think my biggest frustrations with this book come from two places: the still very verbose and sluggish writing style of overly detailed narration about nothing and the fact that most of the book is about nothing and it mostly achieves nothing.

So it kicks off with a three-parter focused on The Owl, it’s not too bad I suppose but definitely carried more by M.C. Wyman's art than Chichester's storytelling.

Funnily enough, the biggest highlight of the book comes right after that, with Issue #304 being a fill-in issue telling about the difference situations DD deals with in NYC within a 34 hour period. It’s actually really well told (even if the narration is still rather annoying to get through) but it’s a fun gimmick for a single issue that’s well executed.

Then we get the two parter introducing a villain called "The Surgeon General" a character that surely every Marvel fan loves and recognizes, as she’s appeared in so many awesome stories such as literally nothing else. The Linkara episode is the biggest cultural impact this storyline has had.

And then we get into the titular Dead Man's Hand crossover event, taking place across DD #307-309 and the Nomad and Punisher books, it’s a needlessly drawn out crossover event where NOTHING is achieved. Genuinely, absolutely nothing, which sucks too cause the whole premise behind it sounds cool: after Kingpin's defeat at the end of Last Rites, a power vacuum was created and a whole bunch of evil organizations wanna see if they can take advantage of it and avoid going to war with each other in the process by splitting up the Kingpin's empire amongst themselves, sounds cool; too bad it’s handled so poorly where it just devolves into a bunch of white noise where literally nothing is achieved and this supposed fallout from Last Rites conclusion barely feels like it had any impact at all.

Which sucks too cause I would’ve loved to see and feel the effects of such a massive power vacuum not only on the criminal underworld but on DD himself as well.

After that there’s a two-part tie-in to Infinity War, which was fine I suppose, though not written by Chichester, funnily enough.

Like I said, my biggest frustration comes from this book being, ostensibly, about the direct fallout from Last Rites but it doesn’t feel like that at all and it wastes that opportunity so badly.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daredevil has some absolutely celebrated runs and stories. Frank Miller, Ann Nocenti, Ed Brubaker, Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Waid. Yet one name I never hear is DG Chichester who mostly wrote the character in the early to mid 90s. Which I think is a shame because Chichester’s run is very fun, filled with the attitude and action packed stories iconic of that decade.

Here, DG Chichester continues to explore a NYC without the corrupt grip of the Kingpin as different criminals attempt to fill the void. There’s some fun stories here, the issue “Time Marks a Cry for Help” is a great exploration of the day-to-day heroics of Matt Murdock, “Critical Condition” is a great two part crossover with Spider-Man and the Dead Man’s Hand story really emphasises the power vacuum of organised crime as DD joins up with Frank Castle’s Punisher and Jack Monroe’s Nomad to stop a corrupt organisation.

The art by Ron Garney, Scott McDaniel and more are all stellar and capture that raw energy of 90’s comics. Some great action panelling and as always the flat colours of the early comics really help make it pop.

This is a run that I think deserves more attention. While not as iconic or groundbreaking as writers before or after, but all Daredevil fans need to read it as it helps inform the growth and development of the Man without Fear.

Daredevil: Dead Man’s Hand (Epic Collection) 6/10

[Federico Kereki · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories of the 90's were a bit farfetched, even for comic books...

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 2.5

[Breiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 ⭐