Daredevil 258 page 13 by Ron Lim & Jim Sanders III

This one is for my friend Landon. A great artist in his own right, Landon may be Ron Lim's most devoted fan. He basically confessed that he learned so much just by looking at Ron's art. Hope you love it as much as I do, man ;)

Now onto the art.

Before exploding on Silver Surfer and all things cosmic at Marvel as a super star of the late 80s/90s, Ron Lim drew many great fill ins issues on many series (Marvel Comics presents, Excalibur, What if come to mind) but this particular issue of Daredevil was burned into my teenage mind. To me this remains one if not Ron Lim's best fill in ever, introducing Bengal.

The story by Fabian Nicieza was great and emotionally intense, the art as well and Bengal's design really appealed to my young ninja-loving mind. And simply put, it is a great design.

The frensy of the fight is really well conveyed as is the difficulty DD is experiencing against his foe.

I especially love the second panel with Lim managing to show us how angry Bengal is just looking at his eyes,

The last one with Bengal using his saï to slide down the rope is another panel I love and that was burned in my memory.

In between, we also have great shots of DD including that fifth panel with him performing the great mandatory aerial acrobatics but for me, the page is all about Bengal.

The page is not perfect of course, an overlong leg on DD or the fact that he seems a bit small somehow in panel 4 but that's nitpicking.

A word on Jim Sanders III's inks on that issue. While early in their collaboration, I always felt like he complemented Ron's art tightly, more so than Christopher looser inks at the end of their Surfer run for instance.

Delighted to add this one as pages from that particular issue are scarce. My first page by Ron Lim as well. Now I really wouldn't mind a nice early Surfer or a Cap A page but I will have to fight for one (and/or be lucky).