Daredevil (1964 series) #225

The Vulture perches atop a high building, reflecting on his many failures and defeats in life. Feeling he must now survive off the dead, he flies off to do a little graverobbing! Elsewhere, Matt Murdock decides to head to the cemetery to visit Heather’s grave, feeling the gloomy graveyard is a good representation for how his life has been going lately. As he nears Heather’s grave, he discovers the Vulture attempting to loot the valuables she was buried with! Matt changes to Daredevil and tackles the Vulture and ends up getting surprised by his strength! Daredevil maneuvers the Vulture into flying headfirst into a gravestone before grabbing onto his legs. Daredevil wraps his legs around another gravestone to try and prevent the Vulture from taking off but the Vulture ends up just ripping it right out of the ground and whips Daredevil into another headstone. Daredevil makes one last effort to keep the Vulture from escaping by wrapping his swingline around the Vulture’s legs, but the Vulture quickly shakes him loose by slamming Daredevil into a tree.

With his pride wounded, Matt heads to the offices of Nelson and Murdock to discover that their names are being removed from the door! Matt questions Foggy about it, and Foggy tells him that they’re being evicted after not having had a single case in months! When Matt seems surprised, Foggy frustratedly informs Matt that he’s been telling him about this for months but Matt was always too preoccupied with his own ventures to notice. Foggy feels like Matt’s let him down and heads out to clear his head. Matt is reminded of something Stick once told him, about how his mind that let him do so well in law school is just as important as his fighting skills. Feeling that that part of his life is now in jeopardy, Matt decides to go after Foggy and realizes that he went up to the roof!  Foggy vents about his crumbling life, with his marriage and business both failing, and wonders if life still has meaning. A voice from the shadows tells him that death is the only meaning, and Foggy tries to dispute that, growing more despondent by the second.

Daredevil makes his way to the roof to confront the mystery voice, who turns out to be the Vulture. The Vulture had been staking out the Nelson and Murdock law offices due to all the death that has been connected to it, from Heather to her father to Elektra. The Vulture notes the same stench of death on Daredevil and tackles him out into the sky before dropping him to his seemingly certain death! DD snags a fire escape with his swingline and swings back up to grab onto the Vulture. He notes that one of the nearby birds seems oddly intelligent as he and Vulture tumble through a window into an office. They fight through the building, until Daredevil has the idea to take the elevator down to the basement, hoping it’ll give him the advantage against his aerial foe. The Vulture follows Daredevil down to discover that Daredevil has doused the lights. Now in his element, Daredevil takes the Vulture down, while denouncing his theory that DD had a death wish. Daredevil clarifies that he never gives up while stopping the emotional decay that the Vulture represents. His foe defeated, Daredevil steps out into the sun one more.

In an epilogue, the strangely intelligent bird from earlier makes his way to a remote country. He is revealed to be Black Crow and announces to a mysterious voice that Daredevil is worthy and that they’ll meet again soon!