Daredevil 163, page 02 (Volume 1)

While there is no Daredevil here, this issue shows how Frank Miller was starting to break from Roger McKenzie as his writing (plotting and scripting) mentor. In fact, by issue 165, Miller had started to receive plot credits. Issue 166 was the same. By issue 168, Miller owned Daredevil.

What is also interesting here with this issue is that two inkers worked on Miller's pencils. Pages 1 and 2 were Janson. The rest of the book was Josef (Joe) Rubinstein. This is the page with Janson's inks. The creative team brought the suspense in the first three pages of this issue where the reader would eventually have Daredevil confront the Incredible Hulk. You can see Murdock using his radar sense to pick up the Incredible Hulk's heartbeat in the alley below.

I purchased this page from Saul Zimmerman when he used to live in Connecticut. It was at the 2000 Legends show in White Plains, NY when I took the middle weekend off from my military training for the Transportation Advanced Officer Course (TOAC). I drove from Norfolk, VA up to NYC. I went there primarily to meet and talk to Dave Cockrum, but it was a fruitful show as I picked up other pages at this show and had a chance to meet many other legends. Moreover, this was my first time meeting other fellow collectors/competitors and putting names and faces to their eBay IDs. As an aside, I have been unsuccessful for years trying to purchase page three (3) from this issue in order to have that comparison and definition between Janson's inks and Rubinstein's inks. I have been the underbidder twice as others have had just a little more in their bank account. It is now no longer a quest as this just will not happen, but it is an interesting to story to relay here.