Daredevil (1964 series) #217

On a busy street, a police officer pulls a young boy out of the way of a speeding car, right before it crashes! He and another officer see a bunch of people stumbling about and realize everyone on the block seems to have gone blind! Back in Brookyln, Daredevil questions Glorianna about why she was helping terrorists as the Old Woman of Beare. She clarifies that the Irish Republican Army are not terrorists and all she was doing was helping them get safely in and out of the country. Daredevil calls a cab for Glori and rushes back to where he left the Gael to find that he’s already escaped! Realizing it’ll be impossible to find the Gael, Daredevil decides to focus on investigating Glorianna to see if she was telling him the truth earlier, not wanting to take any chances with someone he’s romantically involved with after what happened with Elektra. Given the matter has to do with international espionage, he decides to go see if the Black Widow knows anything.

Meanwhile, at Nelson and Murdock, Foggy ends a call with Debbie and reveals to Becky that Debbie wants him to move back to the apartment with her. Foggy admits that he feels apprehensive about it, given that he doesn’t feel that he can trust her anymore. Elsewhere, Daredevil arrives on Natasha’s block to discover the crowd of blinded people below. Inside her apartment, a similarly blinded Black Widow confronts a man called the Cossack, who throws her out of the window! She lands hard in the water below and Daredevil dives in to rescue her. Later, Black Widow explains that the Cossack is also a former Soviet spy like her but went freelance in a darker way. He got ahold of a device that blinds everyone within a small area and ended up testing it on Natasha and the people on her block. Daredevil checks the roof for the transmitter of the device but finds it gone already.

He heads back to Nelson and Murdock where he, Foggy, and Becky catch a news radio broadcast where the Cossack announces that he’ll cause a second blindness disaster if he isn’t paid fifteen million dollars. Daredevil heads back to Black Widow who confirms that the Cossack is just crazy enough to go through with his plan. Unsure what the Cossack meant by “death raining down on New York”, Daredevil decides to continue his investigation of Glorianna. He heads to her apartment to find it completely empty and abandoned, with a note from Glorianna expressing worry that the Gael will continue to come after her. Daredevil feels an impression on the note from the page above that one about a flight out of the U.S. that Glori got for that night. This gives Daredevil the realization that “death raining down” means the Cossack is planning to strike at an airport!

Just then, the Cossack and his men pull up at the airport, with plans to install their device in the air traffic control room. Everyone in the planes above and all the air traffic controllers will be blinded, resulting in catastrophic crashes, forcing their ransom to be paid! The Cossack walks through the airport, right past Glorianna, and quickly takes control of the air traffic control room, deciding to test the device once more before they hook it up. At that moment, Glorianna is grabbed by the Gael and taken into a closet where he plans to kill her before he boards his flight. However, before he can, he and everyone else in the vicinity is blinded by the Cossack’s device! Daredevil arrives at the airport and books it to the air traffic control room. He takes out the Cossack’s men and stops the Cossack right in the nick of time! Daredevil finds Glorianna and the Gael both stumbling around and captures the Gael, this time for good. With the crisis averted, Daredevil meets with Black Widow back at her apartment. She confirms that Glorianna has never had a hand in any terrorist activities as well as the fact that her sight has returned, along with the sight of everyone else who was blinded! The time of darkness has passed.