Sounds like it's more inline with how the Dick Tracy strip was than how the concurrent Batman comic books were. Dick Tracy in the '30s and '40s has quite a bit of fairly gruesome violence in it. I mean it's not really graphic either, but it's gruesome enough to raise a modern reader's eyebrow.

I read the Daredevil Epic Collection vol. 19: Root of Evil TPB reprinting Daredevil #333-344 and Elektra: Root of Evil #1-4.

The are basically four parts to this TPB. First, there's the Fathoms of Humanity arc from #333-337. D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel are off working on the Elektra miniseries, so Gregory Wright (a friend of Chichester) and Tom Grindberg fill in as the creative. We also get some back-up stories and articles to seed interest for the Elektra mini. Anyway, the arc concerns a group of people (not the Morlocks) living in the sewers, a former hero who lives among them, some dude who wants to become the new head of organized crime, the Luther Manning version of Deathlok (renamed the Demolisher), Bushwacker, some guy named Blackwulf (who I guess might have something to do with Godwulf from Deathlok's timeline), and a monster from an annual I haven't read. We also see a bit of Kingpin trying to work himself back up from the bottom and a sewer-dweller who looks a lot like Wilson Fisk named the King. According to the Afterword by Ralph Macchio, the King dates back to Miller's run, but for the life of me I can't remember him.

The story is okay. There are a lot of moving parts. I didn't really get how the big plot works out. It's a big contrast from Scott McDaniel's new style to Tom Grindberg's work on this art. On the other hand, the art is much less striking and distinctive than what McDaniel was doing. On the other hand, what is being depicted is a lot clearer from Grindberg than from McDaniel.

Then, we get to Elektra: Root of Evil, a mini from the old DD team of Chichester/McDaniel. DD isn't involved, but I see the logic of including this as an outgrowth of the Elektra/Snakeroot plot that started in Fall From Grace. McDaniel continues to try some funky visuals. At times, he seems to be trying to channel Miller or even John Romita Jr. But I'm not a huge fan of the whole Snakeroot thing. Ninjas that dress is bright colors and wear super-villain costumes just don't seem like ninjas. It was released under the Marvel Select label. I guess that a "mature readers" thing, because Elektra gets called a whore several times.

Third, we have an arc in #338-342. McDaniel is no longer on art. Instead, it's Alexander Jubran and then Keith Pollard. Chichester is back as writer, but credited as "Alan Smithee" so I can't say how much is Chichester and how much is the editors changing his work. I'm not too keen on this one. It's got an unnecessary retcon where a bunch of supporting cast members where at a Pennsylvania diner years ago for a showdown between the Kingpin and a minion named Kruel (Victor Krueller). This is long before some of the characters met each other, but the excuse is that the Kingpin's minions shot them full of drugs to give them amnesia. Kruel is disfigured but escapes, but apparently Pollard didn't see Jubran pages. Jubran depicts Kruel just with some scarring to the side of his face, while Pollard makes him truly horrific. We get a memorable yet disturbing murder of a former supporting cast member. It's a shame to bring someone back for a couple issues just to off them. Kruel attacks the people who were at the diner to try to restore his memory. It would be one thing if the story treated this like the demented notion of a deeply insane manner, but the story actually seems to treat the concept seriously. Some of the subplots seem to be set up for a new direction. The Kingpin arranges the murders of people who have the goods on him in the Witness Protection Program, which I think is pretty lame that he could figure that out and get away with it, but it suggests a return of the old Kingpin status quo. Also, Matt assumes the attacks on his friends was due to their connection to Matt Murdock. This sows doubt in his ongoing faked death/new Jack Batlin identity (the social engineer/conman identity Matt has assumed since his real identity is "dead")/pretend he's a new Daredevil plan. The bright spot in the dialogue are the subtle vibe that prosecutor Kate Malper doesn't actually believes it's a new Daredevil. Is she the only one who gets that guy in a mask they've talked to for years is still the same guy just because the voice and mouth and body is in a new costume?

Which brings us to #343-344, two issues that suggest the Jack Batlin era will soon come to an end. The first is written by Warren Ellis. I've only read some of Ellis's mainstream superhero work. At the risk of being criticized mercilessly, I've never seen anything special in that. In this issue, Matt starts blacking out. He gets beat up or beats other people up during his blackouts. There's no real explanation for it. Also, the title of the issue is "Recross" and the captions do this thing with Matt talking to himself. Apparently, this is supposed to be a like a recross (the new round of cross-examination after the other lawyer does his redirect). I have no idea how the dialogue is supposed to fit that concept; it just seems like a pretentious fitting of a square peg in a round hole. On the other hand, the good part of the writing is Matt punching holes in how stupid the "Jack Batlin" master plan has been. I do feel like Ellis is verbalizing the frustration I've felt while reading this, so kudos to him for that. J.M. DeMatteis writes #344. Daredevil is still flipping out, but it's tonally different. I wonder if Ellis was supposed to continue, because the arc of his mindset doesn't quite fit. This is part of a crossover event where the Punisher kills Nick Fury (who apparently stayed dead for a few years), but the TPB only has the DD chapter. So the issue has a lot of Nick Fury in it (and some of his son), and consequently less Daredevil. On the last couple of pages, we end up with Matt (or someone else) in the old red and yellow costume looking pissed and saying the old DD is back. He has the old cane on a grappling hook style club. One thing I did like about the new DD look is the versatile of a two-piece billy club that would transform into a quarterstaff or a pair of nunchucks.

I'll probably continue on to the next Epic Collection, which has the Kesel run that I enjoyed back in the day.

I bought the recent Marvel Masterworks volumes for the Captain America stories in Tales of Suspense. Volume One is TOS #59 to TOS #77 and Volume Two is TOS #78 to #94.

I had all these issues of TOS in the late 1970s. They were so cheap! But I sold a lot of my comics about 2000 and my Tales of Suspense collection went with it.

So I haven’t read these stories for a long time. And I love this stuff! To be honest, my favorite Captain America stories of all time are in this run, mostly the Red Skull stories. (And my number one Cap storyline is the cosmic cube epic that began about #75 and ended in #81.)

So it’s been a very long time since I read my favorite Captain America stories. I’ve only had it for a few days, so I’ve only read from #59 to #62. I haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet. But the next issue is the retold origin of Captain America, and then two issues after that is the first Silver Age appearance of the Red Skull!

It gets really good really fast!

Uncanny X-Men #209-220, or the mutant massacre and its aftermath. This arc deeply altered the status quo for the X-Men, a really gutsy move (although failed attempt, in my opinion).

The story aged better than I remembered. The opening chapters, with the Morlocks being all but exterminated, was very gripping; it felt a little gratuitous but certainly dramatic. Kitty, Nightcrawler and Colossus all end up incapacitated for the foreseeable future, and are eventually replaced by Psylocke, Dazzler, Longshot and Havok. The team also changes its core mission (allying with the Hellfire club, among other things).

As said above, this change in a formula that had made the book one of Marvel's top sellers was pretty daring; I'm sure that writer Chris Claremont meant to rejuvenate the title before it risked becoming stale. The problem is that Psylocke was a sympathetic but rather bland charater, Havok never really grew into his own, Longshot was ill-suited for a superhero team and Dazzler was downright annoying. Furthermore, unlike earlier steps in the evolution of the X-Men, this one didn't feel organic; those new characters felt imposed. Making matters worse is that a lot of major plot lines were dropped in one go. What will happen to Kitty and Nightcrawler? You need to read other comics to find out. What about the entire supporting cast? Never mind them. What about Colossus? Oh, he'll be back... except that when he draws melancholy pictures of the team he means to rejoin, it's all about Psylocke, Dazzler et al... It's as if the old team never existed! That's very jarring to old readers.

For my money, the most interesting character from that period is Madelyne Pryor. Too bad she would eventually be sacrificed to the reborn Phoenix/X-Factor nonsense.

Strictly sticking to the story, a problem I had was with how the new bad guys, the Marauders, seem unduly successful in killing the Morlocks and crippling the X-Men. They're clearly aided by the greatest of superpowers: the writer's fiat. Remember: at the time, Magneto had replaced Xavier as the school's headmaster; why would the X-Men rush to the Morlocks' aid without that incredible asset? ("gotta stay at the school to pritect the New Mutants", yeah, right). The Marauders consist of a strong woman, a guy who scrambles powers, a dude who throws taser-like harpoons, a fellow who shoots a gun and a vertigo-inducing woman. Plus Sabretooth, a bit later. Magneto could easily trap them all in a big ball of girders, the Morlock Leech could deprive them of their powers, Kitty could phase most of them through the floor and so on and so forth. Our poor heroes didn't think this one through!

Art-wise, this run also saw the transition between John Romita Jr and Marc Silvestri as regular penciller. Alan Davis, Bret Blevins, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith and Jackson Guice held the fort honourably, but rotating artists are never good for a title.

And boy! Do I notice Claremontisms nowadays!

The Dazzler/Longshot/Havok/Psylocke X-Men we’re my first X-Men team. One man’s jumping off point is another man’s jumping on point. I actually think it was fairly ballsy for Claremont to send them all through the Siege Perilous and forget their previous lives. There was a lengthy period where the book was selling bucketloads without there being an actual team anymore. Of course, there were all of the typical flaws with Claremont’s writing, and a million dangling subplots, but to a certain extent it was more interesting than when the team reunited and divided into two groups. I would have loved to have seen it play out under Claremont’s previous editors. Having said that, I can understand why people didn’t like it. It was incredibly self-indulgent and a tad pretentious. It reminded me of Five Years Later except that was more of a direct market book. It’s insane to think that Claremont had that level of freedom on a mainstream book even if his grip was rapidly loosening. 

I had some spare time and, needing a bit of a palate cleanser from comic strip reprints, decided to peruse Dennis The Menace vol. 2.  A fun nostalgic blast from the past. Back in the days before I bought my own (superhero) comic books, there were comics around the house. They were usually a mix of Archie's, funny animal books and other humor books. There were definitely a number of issues of Dennis the Menace in there. Now none of those books were as old as the comics from which these stories were culled, but Fawcett/Halliden reprinted a lot of stories over the years. I definitely remembered a handful of these short stories from perilously close to 50 years ago at this point. These are short punchy little stories that are a little look at a time that gets further away all the time (whether it ever really existed is another issue).