"Wait, I've Seen This What If? Before", in Daredevil #297, by D.G. Chichester (writer), Lee Weeks (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Max Scheele (colorist), Jack Morelli (letterer)
D.G. Chichester took over as writer on Daredevil after Ann Nocenti's run concluded. He joined Lee Weeks, who had taken over as penciler on Nocenti's last story arc after John Romita Jr. left the book, and Al Williamson, who had been the main inker on the book for maybe the last 50 or so issues. Chichester wrote the book for about 40 issues, although Weeks and Williamson both left at the conclusion of the Last Rites story that ended in #300.
Last Rites is the only part of Chichester's run I still own. His time on the book might be better known for being the part where Matt fakes his own death and assumes the alias Jack Batlin, while Daredevil sports a new armored costume that's mostly black. Because it was the Nineties, and that's what you did.
As for Last Rites, it's basically Matt putting the Kingpin through his own Born Again, stripping away everything he can from Fisk. Fisk has his own TV station by this point (established right at the end of Nocenti's run, when Fisk concludes the media is important enough he should have his own company to massage the message to suit his purposes), which is financed at least partially by HYDRA. SHIELD tries to use Matt against them, Matt instead pits Fisk and HYDRA against each other. Which ends as badly as you'd expect for a crime boss going up against a decades-old, international terrorist organization with all kinds of crazy super-science. Fisk is basically pushed until he breaks, and makes a public spectacle of himself in a brawl/chase with Daredevil that covers several blocks.
Fisk ends up on the bottom, Matt gets his license to practice law back for the first time in 70 issues. of course, in less than two years, Matt's "dead", and Fisk is clawing his way back up before this story is even done. So neither of them is any good at destroying the other.I don't know what it's supposed to say that the only way Matt could "win" against Fisk is to use Fisk's own tactics against him. I kind of preferred his way of winning at the end of Born Again, which was to pick up the pieces he could and go forward from there. That still lets Fisk take away Matt's ability to (openly) practice law and help people that way, though. So maybe it was necessary to undo that to take away the last vestige of that win.
The part of the story that always sticks with me is from the issue above, when Matt removes Typhoid Mary from the picture. By responding positively to her flirtations, which throws her enough Mary reemerges. At which point, Matt gets her committed. And yes, Typhoid is a murderer, and Mary needs psychiatric help, but I'm really leery of Matt forging judge's and doctors' signatures on the paperwork to expedite the process of getting someone put in an insane asylum. Or whatever you want to call it.
There's a page at the end where Mary is confused and freaking out, and the guy from social services says if she doesn't calm down, they're gonna use the straitjacket. Then in the next panel, they're putting the straitjacket on her already.
But hey, Matt threw up in Foggy's toilet the next morning, so he feels really bad about it, guys. Look, I have this whole thing about someone else declaring you nuts, and then you're basically screwed. Because who's going to listen to you if you complain about your treatment? You're crazy, after all.
