Debbie Nelson | ![]() ![]() |
Foggy Nelson | ![]() ![]() |
Debbie Nelson | ![]() ![]() |
Appearing in "Blast from the Past"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Foggy Nelson
- Deborah Nelson
- Johnny Squarejohn (First appearance; dies)
Antagonists:
- Sterling's Robot Drones (Destruction)
Other Characters:
- Death-Stalker (Phillip Sterling) (Only in flashback)
- Elizabeth Dawes Sterling (Only in flashback)
- Micah Synn (Mentioned)
- Fran Squarejohn (First appearance)
- Snake-Eyes
- Larry
- Bill
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
- a garbage truck
Synopsis for "Blast from the Past"
Daredevil is jumping across the rooftops of New York City and is suddenly caught by an explosion. He falls and recovers but knocks out a man he sees running and blames for the attack. Upon inspection, he recognizes the man as Johnny Squarejohn, a man he knew from years past.
Later, after a lunch at a restaurant with an argumentative Foggy and Debbie Nelson, Matt walks to the courthouse while being trailed by a robot drone similar to the one he encountered prior to his encounter with the booby-trapped Sterling Mansion. Unaware, he enters the courthouse and encounters Johnny Squarejohn, who beseeches help from Murdock to defend him against the accusation of causing the explosion. A flashback ensues in which Murdock reimagines the past relationship between the two in which Squarejohn was a friend of his but eventually got caught up in gang activity and failed to intervene when bullies picked on a childhood Matt. Despite that, a then blind Matt Murdock intervened when a group of men sought repayment from a short-handed Squarejohn. Murdock refuses helping him and doesn’t believe Squarejohn is completely innocent but recommends to his public defender that he might be able to provide valuable information.
After leaving the courthouse, Matt begins to encounter numerous more of Sterling's exploding girl robot drones. He easily tricks most of them and avoids being injured but later in his Daredevil guise and overwhelmed by the volume of drones, he seeks to lure them all to the ruins of the Sterling mansion to be finally rid of them. Johnny Squarejohn, without a place to hang his hat due to his legal troubles, begins tailing Daredevil to try to get damaging information to potentially blackmail him. He witnesses Daredevil's numerous encounters with the robot drones and other nefarious actors and eventually realizes that Daredevil is Matt Murdock based on their similar mannerisms.
Squarejohn follows Murdock to the Sterling mansion ruins where Murdock is surrounded by numerous robot drones. He manages to escape from their death trap right as they all simultaneously explode. However, one drone, despite being damaged in the blast, had not yet exploded and seeks to kill Daredevil. Daredevil, failing to see the remaining robot, is saved by Johnny Squarejohn as he jumps in front of the drone right before she explodes and kills him. Murdock promises a dying Squarejohn that he’ll ensure his children are taken care of.
Solicit Synopsis
Notes
- As seen on page one, this story is "From an idea from Harlan Ellison".
- This issue contains a letters page, Devil's Advocate. Letters are published from Donnie Schick, Kevin Hall, Glenn Campbell, George Audis Williams, Jason Judd, Bruce McCarthy, Sarah Hardin, and Timothy Doran.