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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 29, 2018 0:11:51 GMT -5
The ninja stuff was the time period, even more than Miller. Eric Van Lustbader had a series of bestselling ninja books, which had more than a little influence on Miller's take; plus a ton of ninja movies from Japan and Hong Kong (Shaolin vs Ninja and the like), plus the tv show The Master, the US ninja movies and a ton of other garbage. It was also hot in the martial arts magazines, like Black Belt, with tons of BS articles about ninja "techniques". 99% of it was totally historically inaccurate, starting with the black clothes. That actually comes from kabuki theater, not history. Of course, the whole TMNT phenomena was set off by Daredevil, as Laird and Eastman riffed on the ninjas and look of the thing (and Ronin) and ended up doing Miller one better.Miller also has a short piece in Bizarre Adventures #31, "The Philistine," with a whole samurai/ninja theme (Denny O'Neil was the writer). I always wondered what was the original inspiragion for TMNT, as Kitty Pryde in the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries was literarily a teenage mutant ninja. The look and the ninja element was from Daredevil, which had been the hot commodity. The debut issue's cover is an homage to Ronin. The Teenage Mutant part of the name was a spoof on the X-Men, and the turtle part just came out of a joke cartoon, that grew into a second and then 4 turtles, with martial arts weapons, ala Elektra.   The Tick also parodied Daredevil, in issue 3 of the original comic....  That's Oedipus, on the cover (as in Oedipus Complex, instead of Elektra Complex). |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Dec 29, 2018 4:15:20 GMT -5
I love Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. It's really the first time in the comic's history that it becomes essential reading. I mean, I liked some of the Silver and early Bronze Age issues too (and disliked a whole lot of them as well), but Miller's run is the moment where Daredevil really "clicked" as a character and as a comic series.
I didn't read these comics at the time though. I got the Omnibus back in 2009 or something.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 29, 2018 4:29:39 GMT -5
Also of help back then was this issue that I received eagerly as part of a comic trade I made with another kid in my neighborhood:  An in-depth interview with Miller and Janson on their work on DD overall, their influence(s) and their lasting impact. Not to jack the thread, but I have to say - I *loved* this book, and all of the other 'chronicles' (X-men, Spider-man, FF, Avengers) published at around the same time by a company called Fantaco. I discovered these through the Lone Star Comics (now mycomicshop.com) catalogue back in the early 1980s and bought them all. Being in a rather out-of-the-way small town in Oregon, I had never seen fanzines before that, and was fascinated by all of the serious analysis and commentary on superhero comics. I ate up everything in those from cover to cover. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 29, 2018 15:51:29 GMT -5
Not to jack the thread, but I have to say - I *loved* this book, and all of the other 'chronicles' (X-men, Spider-man, FF, Avengers) published at around the same time by a company called Fantaco. I discovered these through the Lone Star Comics (now mycomicshop.com) catalogue back in the early 1980s and bought them all. Being in a rather out-of-the-way small town in Oregon, I had never seen fanzines before that, and was fascinated by all of the serious analysis and commentary on superhero comics. I ate up everything in those from cover to cover. I never had the Daredevil one but I had FF and X-Men ones. I liked the Raoul Vezina comic in the one about not buying a case of X-Men #94. I did have a couple of Comics Journals with a lot of content on Miller Daredevil, still have one with a DD & Elektra Miller cover...  P.S.: What small town in Oregon? I've been to many of them... you could private message an answer to that if you want.  Back to the visually elantastic Daredevil discussion... |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 29, 2018 16:38:22 GMT -5
P.S.: What small town in Oregon? I've been to many of them... you could private message an answer to that if you want. The place where I actually grew up was (well, is, it still exists) an unincorporated community called St. Louis - about 3 miles west of the nearest town, Gervais, and 5 miles southwest of the nearest small city, Woodburn - which is 30 miles due south of Portland on I-5. |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Dec 29, 2018 17:35:23 GMT -5
The look and the ninja element was from Daredevil. . . More than that, it's heavily implied that the radioactive isotope that transformed the Turtles is the same one that gave Matt Murdock his powers in Daredevil #1. I mean literally the same canister that struck Matt across the eyes, or am I misremembering? |
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 29, 2018 22:15:52 GMT -5
The look and the ninja element was from Daredevil. . . More than that, it's heavily implied that the radioactive isotope that transformed the Turtles is the same one that gave Matt Murdock his powers in Daredevil #1. I mean literally the same canister that struck Matt across the eyes, or am I misremembering? I only skimmed that first issue, some years later; but, yeah, I believe you are right. |
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Post by brutalis on Jan 3, 2019 13:30:08 GMT -5
Artistically Miller was allowed to do with DD what Colan had been denied and that was for utilizing more black in the costume at times which helped create a darker more intense visual and characterization. Colan has stated that Stan liked and wanted the costume being full on glaring red where Colan always felt there should be more black to the suit, so the red was darker and would stand out stronger almost as if doing it as highlights. Miller proved Colan was correct in that respect as with black tones and musculature DD looks much more threatening, as someone to fear or be wary of rather than some guy in a garish Christmas red outfit who was cracking jokes swinging around the city. Now DD was truly a city creature, roaming through the nights and neon chasing after the bad guys.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2019 17:32:53 GMT -5
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 3, 2019 21:24:57 GMT -5
It was Wally Wood who made him all red from a yellow-black-red outfit... although you can see there was a lot of black from his first new costume issue...  |
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Post by Randle-El on Jan 3, 2019 22:04:24 GMT -5
I always wondered what was the original inspiragion for TMNT, as Kitty Pryde in the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries was literarily a teenage mutant ninja. The look and the ninja element was from Daredevil, which had been the hot commodity. The debut issue's cover is an homage to Ronin. The Teenage Mutant part of the name was a spoof on the X-Men, and the turtle part just came out of a joke cartoon, that grew into a second and then 4 turtles, with martial arts weapons, ala Elektra. The Tick also parodied Daredevil, in issue 3 of the original comic.... That's Oedipus, on the cover (as in Oedipus Complex, instead of Elektra Complex). Don't forget the enemy of the Turtles is a clan of ninjas called The Foot -- clearly a reference to The Hand from Daredevil. And I'm also pretty certain that their sensei Splinter is named in homage to Stick. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 3, 2019 23:28:53 GMT -5
The look and the ninja element was from Daredevil, which had been the hot commodity. The debut issue's cover is an homage to Ronin. The Teenage Mutant part of the name was a spoof on the X-Men, and the turtle part just came out of a joke cartoon, that grew into a second and then 4 turtles, with martial arts weapons, ala Elektra. The Tick also parodied Daredevil, in issue 3 of the original comic.... That's Oedipus, on the cover (as in Oedipus Complex, instead of Elektra Complex). Don't forget the enemy of the Turtles is a clan of ninjas called The Foot -- clearly a reference to The Hand from Daredevil. And I'm also pretty certain that their sensei Splinter is named in homage to Stick. It is; it is. Casey Jones is also a bit of a take off of the Punisher. That was the difference between the Turtles and most of the imitators that followed; they used the parody as a starting point, but created their own world and stories. Most of the rest never rose above parody and most weren't that funny to start with. The Tick was the same way. It made fun of Superman and Elektra and the ninjas, and Dick Tracy; but, it evolved into something more. It created personalities for Tick and Arthur and a whole world of superhero tropes, taken to absurd levels (more in the cartoon than the comics, though the comics had plenty of that). |
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Post by berkley on Jan 4, 2019 2:58:02 GMT -5
At the time, Miller's DD felt like a breath of fresh air to me. The Wolfman era was decently written but at the same time nothing really stood out to me about it, even though I was always fan of the character and still prefer the swash-buckling DD to Miller's angsty guilt-ridden Robert Redford look-alike. It was also held back by inconsistent artwork and to my taste hadn't risen above the level of standard Marvel superhero series since back in the Gene Colan days.
Those personality changes seemed to make themselves clear only over time, or maybe I was just slow to catch on, but I enjoyed the series from the early Mckenzie/Miller issues up to the famous #181(?), where Bullseye kills Elektra. Even though that was one of the best issues of the run, it was the last I read, having tired of Miller's version by then (to my mind the issues was memorable mostly because of the villain, Bullseye, skilfully written by Miller as a hard-boiled PI investigating the mystery of DD's secret identity).
So I missed all the ninja stuff with The Hand, and so on. From the little I've seen, I don't think the Japanese martial arts stuff was a particularly good match with DD's superhero world, and the Hand soldiers come across as faceless cannon fodder. That impression is based on very little exposure, though.
I will read the rest of the Miller run sometime, though. After all these years, even some of the comics that didn't interest me at the time are starting to look pretty good compared to what came afterwards, so my expectations have been lowered drastically.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 4, 2019 9:33:28 GMT -5
I think what made Millers DD run a winner was making the Kingpin his main opponent. He was a foe that he couldn't defeat with just a kick. He eventually had to outsmart him. I re-read this run every year in the TPB version I own.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2019 21:17:55 GMT -5
I think what made Millers DD run a winner was making the Kingpin his main opponent. He was a foe that he couldn't defeat with just a kick. He eventually had to outsmart him. I re-read this run every year in the TPB version I own. I do that too ... great minds think alike and that's why I like Miller on DD ...  |
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