The Man Without Super-Senses

 

At first glance, you'd think the question that this 1978 cover of What If poses was dealt with on that very cover, asked and answered:

We could also presume that the world wouldn't necessarily care one way or the other about Daredevil's sight or lack thereof--it's really a matter of anyone going up against him knowing that he's sightless, and coming to the conclusion that some other form of perception is at work that makes him such an effective fighter. A well-laid trap sprung later by an enemy, and that's that.

But how did such a secret ever get out, and when? We find the answer in Daredevil's second issue, just as the nascent crime-fighter is getting out of the gate in his red and yellow togs, and facing Electro in the Fantastic Four's deserted Baxter Building headquarters. This time, however, Spider-Man's unexpected entrance into the fray prevents Electro from taking Daredevil by surprise--and when Electro is consequently forced to defend himself from the charging DD, he takes note of something he otherwise would not have picked up on.

The conclusion that Electro jumps to is very selective on writer Don Glut's part, considering that Electro doesn't make the same observation when Spider-Man would later dodge a hurled electric bolt in similar fashion and, like Daredevil, is also unaffected by its blinding brightness. Regardless, a little quick thinking on DD's part, where he could mention, say, special eye slit lenses which shield him from such attacks, is all that would be needed to head off Electro's train of thought. (Artist Alan Kupperberg even has DD pointing to his mask as if to accommodate Glut heading in that direction, though for the sake of the story Electro isn't deterred from making his point.)

And so we return to the world now knowing of Daredevil's condition--and with the exception of the news media capitalizing on such a surprising development, it appears the man on the street is hardly fazed.

The Owl, on the other hand, is another matter.

Feast Your Eyes Again on... The Blood Brothers!

 

It's a disturbing trend that we've seen developing in regard to the bruising, bloody threat of the Blood Brothers, who first appeared in 1973 as enforcers of the will of Thanos of Titan--but even more disturbing concerning the invincible Iron Man, who in consecutive battles has needed to be paired up with additional muscle from a second party in order to hold his own against these brutes. First, in responding to a telepathic distress call, he joined forces with Drax the Destroyer against their mutual foes; and in a second encounter with the pair later that year, he and the Thing successfully derailed their threat, after which a wrathful Thanos used the Cosmic Cube to (presumably) eliminate his thralls.

But in mid-1976, the Blood Brothers resurface, having escaped whatever fate Thanos had consigned them to when he met defeat himself at the hand of Captain Marvel--only to now find themselves acting in accordance with the commands of the Controller, who needs their assistance in freeing his trapped form from tons of rubble he found himself beneath at the site of his own clash with Mar-vell. Fortunately for the Blood Brothers, securing transportation isn't much of a problem, after stopping for a quick bite.

k

And so these two head for New York, and a third encounter with Iron Man (who, coincidentally, goes way back with the Controller), crashing their way through police blockades en route. The prospect of Iron Man finally heading into a battle with the Blood Brothers on his own could certainly be a clash that we readers would be down with--after all, writer Archie Goodwin wouldn't have him being forced to enlist the help of another hero, right? Right?

WRONG!

In The Night Comes... Nighthawk!

 

The story of Nighthawk--erstwhile member of the Squadron Sinister and, later, would join the dynamic Defenders--really begins at the point when he's conscripted to take part in a deadly game of life and death engaged between the alien Grandmaster and Kang the Conqueror which would decide the fate of the Earth. It was the Grandmaster who formed the Squadron to serve as his own "players" who would individually face Kang's chosen team of Avengers in battle--and while the latter team fought for the survival of their world, Nighthawk and his partners had more self-serving ends in mind.

As we'll learn, the Grandmaster had a direct hand in bringing Kyle Richmond's identity as Nighthawk to life--and while it may seem odd that the Grandmaster would bother with providing Nighthawk's mode of transportation, it appears to be the key to Nighthawk proving victorious against his opponent, despite what we may have assumed in regard to victory being achieved by the defeat of the player.

We'd have to look at the fine print of this game's terms to be certain, but here it seems that Nighthawk would win his match against Cap if his plan to destroy the Statue of Liberty had succeeded, rather than defeating Cap personally; otherwise, the Grandmaster would have declared Nighthawk the winner when Cap was caught by the villain's rope and slammed into unconsciousness against the statue's stone base. Regardless, since Cap came out on top by defeating both plan and opponent, the point is rendered moot.

In the end, the Grandmaster would ultimately be the losing party in the game and depart, leaving the members of the Squadron Sinister free to chart their own course. Hyperion's fate at the hands of Thor would be more problematic in that regard; and while we were left to assume that the Whizzer and Dr. Spectrum would have been turned over to the authorities, that doesn't seem to have been the case for Nighthawk*, who turns up roughly four months later to use his criminal talents to con his way into Daredevil's territory.

Even More Emissaries Of Evil!

 

While clearly alliterative, the name of the group of villains who comprised the Emissaries of Evil seemed to come up short--after all, what villain would want to be regarded as an "emissary"? Are they an evildoer, or a messenger? Diplomatic, rather than deadly. "Greetings... we're here to bring you the evil that we harbor toward you" or, closer to the mark, something that indicates they've been sent by someone even more evil: "We come bearing a message from our master: 'Die!' " Yet in comics, alliteration goes a long way when you add an exclamation point--and those who would join the Emissaries club took their role seriously, even though I doubt the "Emissaries of Evil" was a name they could use as a form of intimidation toward those they went after, or even to strike fear into their targets. The Masters of Evil grabbed the really good name in those respects.

There was only one grouping of Emissaries who formed up and operated on their own volition, and that turned out to be the original team (though I'm probably being generous with that noun) from 1967, with Electro getting first billing as the one who gathered them together:

As was the case with the the Sinister Six in the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual, Daredevil would initially battle the Emissaries one by one; but going the ASM Annual one better, the DD issue, as we've seen, would provide a finale where Daredevil faced and battled the entire group. But under what circumstances did other groupings of evil Emissaries stick with that dopey name assemble over the years?

That's our cue to assemble yet another

---

Marvel Trivia Question

---

Who made up the ranks of the Emissaries of Evil between the years 1976-1998?

The Sting Of Seduction

 

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

Torpedo, Away

 

If you weren't much of a Daredevil reader in the mid-1970s, you may mostly remember the adventurer known as the Torpedo from the farce three-part Defenders story occurring a few years later which featured a plethora of Marvel's characters showing up on the non-team's doorstep to join their ranks. It was no one's finest hour that day, much less the Torpedo's:

Created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Bob Brown, the character's debut in the pages of Daredevil provides a generous two-issue appearance which from glances at their covers would lead us to at first believe there's a new, ruthless villain in town.

But "appearance" has always been part of the problem for me with this character, whose super-suit makes him, as intended, a human torpedo, a description that serves only to cement in the reader's mind that this character's main claim to fame is to streak through the air like a you-know-what--which in a way stacks him up right next to Nova (debuting the following year), who also failed to pique my interest. Maybe something more provocative for this character's name--e.g., as long as we're being direct in his description, "the Blue Streak," a handle another character would lay claim to a few years later.

The Torpedo's first time out of the gate, however, leads to his death when DD goes after him for theft. But the twist that Wolfman introduces for the character inadvertently becomes the only aspect of the Torpedo that I cared for: the fact that the man's corpse would yet serve a purpose for another to step in and adopt a sense of responsibility for what his predecessor set out to do.

A Smattering Of Smashers

 

There's no doubt that comics have had no shortage of recycled character names over the years, the circumstances varying depending on whether it was thought there would be potential sales reader interest in introducing another character who had taken on the name of a previous hero or villain. The short list of examples would include Captain Marvel... Thor... Spider-Man... Dr. Strange... Captain America... and on the villain side, so far we've taken a look at some Slashers and a few Crushers.

And since villains are known for choosing names for themselves that imply the threat they pose, what's another name that tends to be at the top of the list for bruisers who want their reputation to precede them?

THAT'S RIGHT, they're

Something Daredevil thought he was pretty good at, until he ran into a brawler who laid claim to the actual name.

The Final Hour of the Assassin!

 

We've been looking at the roughly six-month period of stories from 1971-72 which introduced the figure-in-shadows known as Mister Kline, whose agenda was to disrupt the lives of both Tony Stark and Matt Murdock for reasons unknown. To that end, he involved a number of criminal operatives to do his bidding, until finally turning to more dependable androids of his own construction--at which point Kline himself pulled back the curtain to reveal that he was also an android, in the service of another figure who was just as mysterious in regard to their ultimate goal.

And now, we come to see the situation somewhat resolved in the pages of Daredevil (the key word here being "somewhat"), where writer Gerry Conway brings an anticlimactic conclusion to this storyline that mostly fast-tracks closure for the character and story of "Mister Kline" (now designated "the Assassin" by his superior, Baal) by way of a bare minimum of explanation which may nevertheless satisfy those readers who are ready to move on. Oddly enough, it's made clear by story's end that those sentiments are also shared by Daredevil and the Black Widow.

The Many Operatives of Mister Kline!

 

From late 1971 to early 1972, writer Gerry Conway introduced the nefarious Mister Kline, a character who for reasons unknown sought to upend the lives of Matt Murdock, Tony Stark, and Franklin Nelson, and whose hidden agenda would by extension draw in Daredevil and Iron Man. It's hard to say whether Kline's primary focus on Murdock and Stark had anything to do with Marvel's soon-to-be-launched large format books that would offer an increase in story length for selected titles at a cost of 25¢, given that both Invincible Iron Man and Daredevil were reportedly to be merged into a single book; otherwise, Murdock and Stark would seem to be worlds apart as far as gaining the interest of a figure in shadows who would go to any lengths to cause them trouble, to say nothing of the time and effort taken to conscript others to do that figure's dirty work.

And speaking of which, since Kline himself is due for a PPC post of his own, let's spend our time here running down the list of those whom he enlisted to further his plans--some willingly, some not so much, but all in one way or another complicating the lives of our heroes.

Which calls for a not too complicated

---

Marvel Trivia Question

---

Which characters were compelled to serve the enigma named... Mister Kline?

Marvel Comics: The End Of The Century, Part 1

 

Having traveled back fifty years to get a look at the comics which were showing up on Marvel's checklist in April of 1972, let's now be drawn forward again until we arrive just twenty-five years in the past. The calendar date is now April, 1997--and though some of us realize that perhaps the most significant day from that year is six months away on October 16 (the launch date of the space ship Jupiter 2 on its tragic flight toward Alpha Centauri), the fate of Marvel Comics was equally unknown, having gone through some financial difficulties and now in the midst of pulling itself together in terms of stability and direction.

If you were born in 1997, you would of course be 25 this year, another reason to note the twenty-five-year mark. Let's take a peek at what else was happening in April of that year:

• The launch of the pay-per-view Extreme Championship Wrestling event Barely Legal (I take "extreme" to mean that all the body blows and elbows to the face seen in the regular wrestling ring aren't staged in ECW--someone will have to educate me);
  
• Two environmental anomalies: the April Fool's Day blizzard which dumped rain, sleet and as much as 3 feet of snow from Maryland to Maine, as well as the Red River of the north breaking through dikes and flooding Grand Forks, ND and East Grand Forks, MN, to the tune of $2B in damages;
  
• Celebrities' births include actors Asa Butterfield, Maddison Brown, and Maisie Williams; YouTuber Crawford Collins; model Molly Bair; south Korean rapper Kim Min-gyu; football players Donny van de Beek, Matteo Pessina, and Oliver Burke;
  
• The first space burial: a Pegasus rocket carries the remains of 24 people into Earth orbit (this one threw me--not exactly a "burial," is it?);
  
• The TV series Pokémon premieres on TV Tokyo;
  
• Michael Chang (who turned 49 this year) defeated Grant Stafford in the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships singles final;
  
• The comet Hale-Bopp meets or exceeds predictions when it passes perihelion (the point when Earth is nearest the sun), visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months.

Over at Marvel, the Bullpen Bulletins page has been expanded to two pages, which now include an editor profile, a February (?) Marvel checklist for books sold in April... and, well, a grand total of two bulletins, where the "Items" of yore have made the journey to what you and I might refer to as full-blown "ads."

As for the February April checklist, the PPC is going to do a little expanding of its own and run down a few more of the 1997 books sold that month.

Fifty Years of Marvel Comics

 

What were some of you doing five decades ago? It's funny when you reach certain points where you find yourself recalling the world as it was then, and the realization hits that you lived during that period of time and lived through many of the events and changes which took place. For those of you in high school right now, you'll experience your own reflections of today's world in the year two-thousand seventy-two (!) -- and if you're like the rest of us, you're understandably not looking that far down the road, nor can you have a true conception of how your world, its people, its advances, and your own way of life will change.

Regrettably, it's safe to assume that by 2072 the price of a comic book will probably be around the cost of a monthly house payment, so be sure to factor that into your budget.

Fifty years ago, my own calendar would have put me at the year 1972, fourteen years old and looking forward to starting high school the next year. Here's a little of what my world looked like at the time:

• NASA was one flight away from closing out its Apollo moon mission, where America established itself as a pioneer of a sort but eventually realized it was spending a lot of money just to collect moon rocks;
  

• The SX-70 Polaroid camera was introduced, giving us film prints which developed themselves "right before your eyes"--an alternative to dropping your film off at "photo marts," but still too slow for those who reasoned that shaking the print feverishly would speed up the process (a reminder to think twice before following a wacky trend);
  
• Born in April of that year: actresses Jennifer Garner, Jenni Garth and Carmen Electra;
  
• The United States was nine months away from withdrawing its forces from Vietnam;
  
• The world's first law to officially recognize change of gender passed in Sweden;
  
• Winners of the 44th Academy Awards included The French Connection, Jane Fonda, Cloris Leachman, and Gene Hackman;
  
• The price of gas was at $0.55/gallon; the cost of a new home was around $30,000; a new car, $3,800; average rent, $165/mo.
  
• The home videogame industry took its first baby step with inventor Ralph Baer's patent for "A Television Gaming Apparatus and Method" (i.e., the home video game console).

But if you were a Marvel Comics reader in April, 1972, your focus away from school was probably on the comics stand at your local drugstore, shopping mart or whatever distributor carried comic books in your town, thanks to the Bullpen Bulletins page which often included the Marvel Checklist. If your comics collecting was in full swing, here's a "snapshot" of what Marvel Comics readers were plunking down their 20¢ for.

(WARNING: Please don't try shaking this image in the air for faster loading.)

When Firemen Fear The Man Without Fear

 

With crowds of civilians often playing a major role in comics stories, you'd think that comics covers would be just as generous in featuring spectators witnessing a battle, or a face-off, or even engaging in an occasional "Look! Up in the sky!" sighting. But as we found in the PPC's initial exploration of this subject, covers all too often have elbowed crowds out of the picture, given a cover's emphasis on sales and the presumption that the casual comics browser isn't going to be particularly interested in anyone on an issue cover but the story's main characters. In Part 2 of this impromptu series, we search out more of those covers where crowds were injected into the scene presented--and why not start out with two heroes who were often forced to confront a threat during what appeared to be a busy workday for the average New Yorker?

"Bedlam At The Baxter Building!"

 

Over fifty-five years ago, the city of New York was gearing up for the wedding of two of its most famous residents--a celebration which spilled over into the year's action-packed Fantastic Four annual!

...but not everyone was thrilled with the impending nuptials.

It's been over eight years since the PPC briefly tipped its hat to this 1965 issue, and it's high time it was given its full due. But try explaining that to Dr. Doom, who, at this point in time, has recovered from the injuries his hands received from the crushing attack of the Thing, though it's his earlier defeat at the hands of Reed Richards which continues to gnaw at him. Fortunately, through the magic of what we used to call "back issues," we can pair up scenes in which Doom continued to rage at past humiliations he has suffered from both members of the Fantastic Four, moments of bitter recollection which began to fester just around the time when the Frightful Four were about to launch their final attack against the FF at their Baxter Building headquarters--after which, we jump ahead to follow up with Doom's harsh treatment of his copy of the "Daily Press." In both instances, it's clear that few can hold a grudge like this armored foe.

...Divided We Fall!

 

Judging by his most recent appearance in the PPC, you have to hand it to Paul Duval, the super-villain known as the Grey Gargoyle. Having already fought separately the big guns of the mighty Avengers--Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America--during his nefarious career, it's understandable that as he faces the assembled Avengers in this issue, he does so with not only an air of confidence and arrogance, but also with the expectation of their defeat at his stone hands. Even cover artist George Perez seems to know which way the wind is blowing on this one:

As we can see, both Iron Man and Daredevil (a timely-arrived ally in this struggle) have been early victims of the Gargoyle's stone touch and, unfortunately, will be out of this fight for the duration. But with the Falcon clobbered while the rest of his team are frozen in place gaping, it's clear that the Gargoyle is just getting warmed up!

Something Evil Falls To Earth!

 

Heading into 1980, artist John Byrne's brief eleven-issue run on The Avengers reached its end with a two-part story plotted by Roger Stern and almost seamlessly split between scripters Steven Grant and David Michelinie, while featuring the return of an old "foe"--Henry Peter Gyrich. Actually, Gyrich is not the principle foe of the story, though to the Avengers he might as well be. Acting as the watchdog of the National Security Council, the agency which is responsible for granting the Avengers their priority clearance, Gyrich has been on the Avengers' case for their lax security standards which not only have failed to prevent unauthorized access to their mansion and its computers' cache of federal government data, but also extend to their constantly shifting membership lineup changes that take place at the drop of a hat while at times failing to keep their total of active members down to a reasonable number.  For their part, the Avengers maintain that Gyrich has saddled them with too many restrictions which hamper their ability to carry out their operations.

And so the assemblers have requested a federal hearing before a three-person senatorial committee to finally settle this matter once and for all.

Meanwhile, in space, a meteor has plummeted toward Earth--only to change course and crash into Brooklyn's Jamaica Bay, where it then "hatches" into something more mobile and rises from the marsh. And so, ponderously but determinedly, the Avengers' more deadly foe in this issue is now on the move toward Manhattan. But what is the nature of this... creature? And why is it attacking Earth's mightiest heroes?

 

Too Tall... Too Small

In the beginning of his career, there's little dissent that the crime-fighting Daredevil had a bizarre array of foes to pit his talents against, including but not limited to: a criminal who fashioned himself a human owl... a stunt-cyclist... a jester (no, really)... a group of animal-men... a matador (no, really)... a man outfitted as a frog (with springs on his feet, it goes without saying)... and how about a man-bull, complete with antlers. In such a mix, you may think that a man pulling off heists wearing a pair of stilts ranks low in such a gathering--but not low enough, as far as Daredevil is concerned.

Yikes! The "Daily Press" is breaking this story?? J. Jonah Jameson must be fuming!

"Your Serve... er, Move, Daredevil!"

Having put together a special series on symbolic splash pages featured in Marvel's major team books as well as in Amazing Spider-Man, the PPC now moves briefly to highlighting some noteworthy efforts made in a random sampling of other titles from over the years which came to mind, some of which may ring a bell for you.

Leading us off are a number of pages from Daredevil, which I lingered on for some time considering their diversity in both style and artists and spanned a range of years from 1964 to 1971. (Perhaps even longer, but DD is monopolizing this subject as it is!) Bill Everett Jack Kirby is who we have to thank for paving the way for us (correction courtesy of Dave Plunkert--thanks, Dave!):

Joe Orlando, whose work began appearing in the industry in 1949, would follow up on the title with the next three issues (though you'll find much of his work for Marvel appearing in titles published in the mid- to late-'50s, in categories ranging from westerns, romance, war stories, sci-fi and mystery). His final work was published in 1997, a year before his death at 71.

Wally Wood, whose work Stan Lee made efforts to spotlight, makes his own SSP contribution (working off artist Bob Powell's layout) in a story from 1965 which he also scripted:

Ross Andru and Herb Trimpe unintentionally provide dueling SSPs featuring Ant-Man, with Andru providing more variety in terms of what awaits us within the story:

While John Romita and Gene Colan line up their versions of face-offs between DD and Spider-Man.  Writer Gerry Conway's "sports fan" caption turns out to be appropriate, since Mr. Colan seems to have Spidey trying to capture DD with a tennis court net.

(Maybe that second title should start off with "...And So Re-enters"?)

The mask and form of Daredevil lend themselves nicely to the SSP format, as Colan demonstrates in his other efforts with the character.

Over in Amazing Adventures, where the Black Widow is splitting the mag with the Inhumans, John Buscema appeals to the action lover with imagery suggesting that the Widow's new series is the one to watch--while Colan takes a more intriguing approach.

Later in that same title, Craig Russell is well-suited to the characters and concepts we'll find in stories adapted from H.G. Wells' War Of The Worlds.

While Colan, Gil Kane, and Jim Starlin show us what they bring to the table for Captain Marvel, old and new...

...as well as for Warlock (with Steve Leialoha working off of Starlin's layout).

Dr. Strange is also well-represented, both solo and as part of the Defenders. Here we see work by Andru, Colan, Barry Smith, and Sal Buscema.

Howard Purcell, whose work for Marvel was limited to backup stories featuring the Watcher and two Nick Fury stories in Strange Tales, turns in this splendid SSP for the Black Knight's appearance in Marvel Super-Heroes.

Finally, Andru takes us out with the opening page to Marvel Team-Up #1, which features the rare display of Spider-Man in battle while poised on his own spider's web.

(Frankly these two don't seem very interested in fighting the Sandman.)

COMING UP:

One more SSP for the road... to Transylvania, that is.