Spectacular Spider-Man 54-60

Issue 54 “To Save the Smuggler”

I like several things about this issue, the first was the beginning where Spider-Man tries to do the right thing and stops a car chasing an ambulance. Only the car turns out to be full of cops and the ambulance a stolen vehicle. Whoops!

Spider-Man is such a physically strong superhero; he is often portrayed as his own worst enemy. This is the case whether he struggles with balancing school, work, and relationships, or whether he can’t tell who the bad guys are.

The next neat thing in this issue is that Spider-Man ends up rescuing one of his enemies. Remember the Smuggler aka Power Man? Remember, Spider-Man had a fight with him in the subway’s catacombs in Spectacular Spider-Man 50? Well, he is losing his powers and was going to go State’s evidence against the Maggia, but the Japanese Mob in some sort of informant exchange program kidnapped him.

Anyway, that brings me to the last cool thing in this issue, Spidey in Samurai armor. The best shot is the one on the cover. The colors on the cover are awful, which is why I uploaded it in glorious B+W the way I enjoyed it in the Spectacular Essential vol. 3.



Issue 55 “The Big Blow-Out”

“Nitro’s Back” the cover proclaims. It’s funny, Nitro wasn’t much of a villain until in modern times he literally set-off the Marvel Civil War. But let’s get back to 1981 and this issue of Spider-Man.

At Project Pegasus Nitro’s daughter and her lawyer appear with a writ and demand the release of her father. The scientist reluctantly consents and wheels out two air tanks. Nitro has been kept in a gaseous state since his last battle in Omega Unknown 8? That was his previous appearance anyway.

Now it’s true that it’s unlawful to keep a man imprisoned without a trial and keeping a man as a gas makes water boarding seem pedestrians as a form of torture. But Nitro is dangerous, shouldn’t the scientist build some sort of holding cell before releasing Nitro from his gaseous state (I really wish there was a way to say this without making it sound like Nitro just has a bad case of indigestion.)

Anyway, I can’t help but think of this Bronze Age Nitro as kinder and gentler than the Modern Age Nitro. This one explodes and destroys building, but never seems to do more to people than knock them out.

I really dig the ending of this issue because Spidey uses his brains and tricks Nitro into chemically combining with nausea gas!

Issue 56 “The Peril…and the Pumpkin?”

Jack O’Lantern is brought to a hospital after a fight with Machine Man (in Machine Man 19). However, apparently Jack’s metal mesh body armor is so strong no one can figure out how to get his costume off, not even the dumb looking pumpkin head. This becomes a moot point when the villain wakes up and with the help of his gang takes the hospital hostage.

It just so happens Aunt May’s boyfriend Nathan is one of the hostages and this causes Peter to have to choose between doing as his Aunt wants and being there to comfort her as she watches the hostage situation on the news or doing something about the situation as we know only he can.

In the end Spider-Man easily defeats Jack, but when Peter goes to be with Aunt May afterwards, she is furious that her nephew wasn’t there when she needed him. “I’m just a foolish old woman who thought she still meant something to you,” she says through tears.

This issue gets a B- for action, but an A+ for guilt tripping.

Issue 57 “These Wings Enslaved!”

I thought JJJ was married, but in this issue he seems to have it bad for scientist Marla Madison. He even finds it in his miserly heart to throw her a black-tie party when she gets a new research job at the ever-evil “Brand Corporation.”

Spidey is swinging through NY when he decides to call Aunt May. He does so, from a payphone, in his Spidey costume to the amazement of the crowd that forms around him. Miraculously, Aunt May has already forgiven Peter regarding the fight they had last issue. After the phone call Spidey swings away. Why didn’t anyone press *69 and see who Spider-Man called? Even if that feature didn’t exist in 1981 surely the police could have pulled the pay phone’s call records.

Okay, so at JJJ’s party Will-O-the Wisp, stuck as, you guessed it a gas, takes over the use of Killer Shrike’s body and kidnaps Madison. He takes her to a secret lab at the Brand Corporation, because she is the only one who can use the machinery to restore his body.

Spider-Man is at ease fighting a room full of Brand Corporation security and then in the middle of the fight decides to call Aunt May again! You’d think someone knows how to track down call logs?

In the end, after saving Will-O’, Spidey isn’t sure whether Will-O’ is a hero or a villain since he took revenge on the Brand Corporation by leveling the whole building and after seeing their dark side Marla decides she can’t work for Brand Corporation.

Overall, this was kind of a dud issue.

Issue 58 “Ring out the Old, in the New!”

Guest penciler John Byrne, makes the most of an issue with a throw-away villain. Fortunately the Ringer, is played for laughs. The Ringer’s suit has a “particulate-matter condensers that form rings right out of the soot and smog in the air.” I couldn’t help but think that with the brainpower to come up with a machine that makes metal out of air, surely this man could better serve society as a scientist. Hell, he could make a fortune as a somewhat disreputable businessman. Why do these guys choose a life of crime?

A highlight of the issue is when Spidey gets bored with his fight against the Ringer and decides to leave and go meet Debra Whitman for dinner. “You can’t leave now!” the villain shouts. “Oh, no? Watch me,” says Spidey.

In the end it turns out that it was the Beetle, itching to try out a new set of armor, that was pulling the Ringer’s strings. (No pun intended)

Of note- This issue features the debut of Marcy Kane’s new brunette look. I think it was a step up, but I’ve always preferred brunettes.

Issue 59 “I Want Spider-Man”

This is kind of a filler issue the builds up to Spider-Man big fight with the Beetle in the following issue.

Marty Blank also known as The Gibbon, is still bitter about his attempt to fight Spidey way back in ASM 110-112. He’s working for a documentary crew looking for new Spider-Man footage. Blank is more than happy to put the old monkey suit on one more time and give Spidey a rematch for the cameras.

The Gibbon is little challenge for our favorite wall-crawler, but he does distract Spider-Man enough for the Beetle to sneak attack our hero and the issue ends with the Beetle hitting Spider-Man with a brick wall. Ouch!

Of note- Marty Black wears a tee-shirt that says “Epic.” It seems that it was the hip thing at this point to slip that word into every issue possible, Anyone know the story behind this?

Issue 60 “Beetlemania!”

This “Special Double-Sized Issue” has a really cool cover.

The issue itself is both good and bad. For two issues the Beetle has been preparing for a battle against Spider-Man. First, he forced the Ringer to fight Spider-Man so he could upload data about Spider-Man’s movements into his new set of armor. The Beetle believed that his suit’s computer would be able to predict Spidey’s movements. Second, toppled a brick wall on top of Spidey when he was busy fighting the Gibbon.


The Beetle quickly realizes that his computer program doesn’t work. He doesn’t find out but it fails because Spider-Man’s movements are not a set of practiced predictable actions, but merely responses to Spider-Man’s spider-sense.

Spider-Man who never really recovered from being hit by the brick wall flees the fight with the Beetle after putting in a fairly good showing. The clueless Beetle believes he has suffered another defeat and kidnaps the Gibbon to
use as bait.

Peter runs into Deb Whitman, who is wearing a particularly frumpy outfit, a nightgown shirt over a full bodysuit.

When Peter realizes that the Beetle has captured the Gibbon he runs to save him and the final battle ensues. After Spider-Man does all the hard work, the Gibbon manages to deliver the punch that knocks the Beetle unconscious. Much to Peter chagrin, the Gibbon gets all the credit for saving the day from the police and the media.

Back-Up Feature “The Birth of a Legend!”

This is a retelling of Spider-Man’s origin; it’s kind of in the same vein as the shot-by-shot remake of Psycho someone did about 10 years ago. The original Amazing Fantasy 15 origin story simply titled “Spider-Man” was 11 pages. This one is 17, but a lot of the individual panels and dialogue have been recreated, they just added panels that weren’t there before, like a shot of Peter shedding a tear when Flash and the gang drive off after making fun of him for wanting to go to the science exhibit.

It’s funny, the original Ditko art does seem kind of primitive, but the art in the remake is also strange since Peter’s whole face and head look different since penciler Greg LaRocque attempts to make Peter look like a sort of Ditko-Peter/Modern-Peter hybrid.

You’d think I’d know ever panel of the original story, but I still had to glance at the Ditko story to be sure if a few panels were in the original for instance I forgot that Peter gets a new microscope from Aunt May and Uncle Ben, after Peter doesn’t stop the criminal and right before the
night Uncle Ben dies.

I was glad they left the “with great power there must also come great responsibility” line as narration instead or attributing it as a quote from Uncle Ben like some retellings have done.

Hang loose till my next set of musings, which includes a piece on Issue 68, which proves Spidey’s origin can be retold in just 4 panels.

World's Finest?... one issue's super-bad writing

World’s Finest issue 303 is a poorly written comic. I’ve been told its writer David Anthony Kraft is a particularly weak writer.

I’ve read lots of great Batman comics and there is nothing quite like a good Batman comics: the perfect balance of film noir mood, mystery, and action. On the splash page this issue has the mood down. Batman stands in the fog on the deck of a ship filled with human skeletons. I thought this was going to be an issue that didn’t throw its punches. Sadly this first page, along with the cover, which made me initially pick this issue up, turned out to be the highpoints of the entire issue.

My basic problem with this issue is that the script seems to have been written for children. And I know that’s whom comics are written for, but most comics aren’t this bad.

On p.3 a narration box says “A series of onsite tests already performed by Batman have established that there is no danger of airborne contamination!” That’s actually a smart bit of narration, but it is undercut by the fact that Batman is not wearing any sort of breezing apparatus at the start of the issue.

The action then shifts to Superman. Clark is walking with Lana Lang, when it starts to snow only the snow is green and full of a kryptonite mixture that is equally deadly to human and Kryptonian alike. You see clearly in this panel that Lana is being hit by the snow. I’m sure Clark will find a way to save her, right?

Wrong, the action shifts back to Batman and then when we go back to Clark three pages later he is crawling on his hands and knees towards the subway where he escapes the green snow and tunnels to safety. Lana is not seen in the issue again; I guess she died.

Batman goes to an expert on plagues for help. Who says, “unless I help, which I will, what happened on the yatch will happen to the entire City of Metropolis!” That piece of dialogue was so absurd, if this guy’s friend broke his arm would he say, “Unless I help you, which I will, your arm is going to stay broken.” It also reminds me of classic apocryphal B movie lines like a scientist saying “It will take the greatest scientific mind in the world to solve this problem, fortunately I am the world’s greatest scientific mind.”

This panel also introduces the idea that ancient alchemy is being used to transform Kryptonite into a plague. This premise, I actually accepted when I was reading the issue, because well, I’d already seen the effects of the green snow twice so, why question it? However, if you actually think about it, 1) ancient alchemy never worked and 2) how could kryptonite a mineral be transformed into a virus or a bacterium an organic material?

The scientist Batman found turns out to himself be the Alchemist and Batman makes a big deal out of explaining the clues that lead him to believe the Alchemist and the scientist were one in the same. These statements took the fun out of the reveal. This not being the first mystery I’ve ever read, I guessed the truth right away and caught both of the clues the first time I read the comic. To me they were in fact as obvious as huge roadsigns on a highway, but even if I’d missed these clues isn’t it more fun to have to reread the issue and find the clues yourself than to have them spelled out for you? Sherlock Holmes famously used to explain all of his intuitive leaps, but that was because readers would not be able to make the same leaps Sherlock did no matter how many times the facts were presented to them. Where as in this case the intuitive leaps are blatant.

An Epic Failure

“Defying Gravity” is yet another example of broadcast television’s inability to properly nurture a science fiction program. “Firefly” is the chief example of a great science fiction show that was never given a chance. “Defying Gravity” was not a great show, but it had some interesting science fiction elements. After 13 episodes, the show has been canceled and the sets have been struck. The show’s creator gave an interview and shared what would have happened if the show had gone on. I’ll talk about that and share the link later.

I’d say that there isn’t an audience for science fiction shows, but networks continue to make them, so someone thinks there is a market for them. “Gravity” was cancelled in America after 8 episodes. CTV in Canada cancelled it after 9 episodes but the remaining episodes aired on the Canadian network SPACE. It is airing in Britain on BBC-2 and will soon be airing in Germany. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I’ve seen all 13 episodes. Here is a link to watch the episodes: http://watch-defyinggravity.com/

Premise

The show is definitely what I’d call high concept in that it’s hard to just watch one episode and know what’s going on. Here is an attempt to explain the premise:

The year is 2052

10 years ago there was the first manned mission to Mars. That crew consisted of Maddux Donner (Ron Livingston), Ted Shaw, Sharon Lewis (Donner’s lover), Jeff Walker, and Rollie Crane (Commander). This mission goes horribly wrong when a massive sandstorm hits unexpectedly while Lewis and Walker are on a surface walk. They can’t get back to the module before the storm hits and under Crane’s orders Donner and Shaw are forced to leave Lewis and Walker to certain death on the surface of Mars.

5 years later training begins for the next big mission. Out of 50 applicants, 8 astronauts will travel for 6 years on the spaceship Antares and will visit Venus, Mercury, Mars, Europa, the rings of Saturn and Pluto. Donner and Shaw are trainers for the mission, but are also in the running as crewmembers. Crane is now the head of Mission Control.

And 5 years after that the Antares mission is about to be launched and this is when the show starts.

The action of the show flashes between “present” day and 5 years ago.
The present day stuff involves the Antares crew on their mission and also follows some of the mission controllers back on earth, while the 5 years ago stuff is about the astronauts when they were first starting their training.

It says something like 5 years ago on the screen the first time it jumps back each episode, but after that it counts on the audience to figure it out, but this can be confusing, especially to casual viewers.

The main character of the show is Donner who narrates the show with homespun blue-collar wisdom. He is racked with guilt over leaving his girlfriend to die on Mars. Early in the Antares training Donner has a one-night stand with astronaut trainee Zoe Barnes. But he ends up having a purely sexual relationship with another trainee Nadia Shilling. And that just one love triangle. There are 3 sets of married couples when the ship leaves, none of whom are together at the start of the mission’s training. With all this romance it is not difficult to see why the show was nicknamed “Grey’s Anatomy in space.” I think this label hurt the show a lot. It was a transparent attempt by the network to get more women to watch the show. However, I don’t think that the label got women to watch the show because they could not get past the show’s science fiction premise. I know there are lots of women that love science fiction, but statistically speaking you are a rare breed. Meanwhile, the soap opera image hurt the show’s credibility with actual science fiction fans.

Future Technology

Future technology is rarely shown and nearly never explained on the show. For example, the Antares gets from planet to planet by gaining power while in orbit around planets, but that’s just a guess and I have no idea what they use for fuel except that their blast-off from earth looked like a present day blast-off. I also have no idea how mission control is able to communicate with the Antares instantaneously even when the ship is in orbit around Venus. One think they did try to explain was that there is limited gravity in the Antartes because of the centrifugal force brought on by two metal arms that rotate the ship. And the astronauts also have shoes that are slightly magnetized to the floor of the ship. However, they ruined these explanations by saying that astronauts also magnetize their hair each morning because they might have to go into areas of the ship without gravity! (the truth is that they could not find a way to simulate how hair would move in zero gee)

Back on earth, technology has not advanced too much, despite the fact that it is supposed to be about 40 years in the future. Everyone uses these paper thin cell phones, in addition to being able to call people they can be used to pay bills at restaurants and you can hold a futuristic business card near the phone and it will dial the number! A futuristic car was shown briefly one time, but it was basically just a car with a weird bumper.

The creator of the show James Parriott, said in his interview about what would have happened if the show had gone on (here is that link now by the way: http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/10/29/how-defying-gravity-would-have-progressed-straight-from-the-creator/)

In the next two seasons, the state of the Earth would have been explored. Though it was never hinted at apparently Earth as we know it had changed in those next 40 year. He said, “We were going to reveal the world at large and, y’know, it’s kinda a fucked up place.” He claimed this wasn’t revealed for budget reasons, but that makes zero sense to me. Why not just introduce the ideas in some way that doesn’t use CGI or expensive sets?

Science Fiction Stuff

To me the show’s greatest weakness was that the science fiction elements did not come into the forefront of the show until episode 9 “Eve Ate the Apple.” (Note: the show was cancelled before this episode aired in America).

It is heavily hinted at from the first episode that there is some sort of unknown force manipulating the crew, but the audience is left to wonder what exactly it is? Is it an alien, a supercomputer, a shadow government? In episode 9, it is revealed that an object of extraterrestrial origin called Beta was found in Peru some years before the Mars mission. This object is on the Antares and has been giving the crew hallucinations, exposing them to radiation and even altering their DNA. There are also 6 other objects that have communicated with Beta over the years. These objects are on Venus, Mercury, Mars, Europa, the rings of Saturn and Pluto. In fact, it turns out, the whole mission of Antares is to go pick all of these objects up. (I don’t know how an object can be in the rings of Saturn? Pluto also seems like an odd choice.)

I thought the show suffered because it took almost the whole first season for the Antares to reach Venus and to me that was when the show actually got interesting. By that logic the crew would not have reached Mercury until the end of the second season and would not have reached Mars until the end of the third season. However, as I said before the events that happened on Mars 10 years ago are crucial. Donner and Shaw both hallucinate about the surface of Mars and thematically Mars is the focal point of the show. Therefore Mars should have been the show’s second stop.

Odds and Ends

-If you watch one episode, watch episode 6 “Bacon”. Visually it is the best episode, a crewmember gets injured and there is all this blood floating every which way because there is no gravity. The best part is it’s one of the episodes currently available on Hulu.com, which means it’s better quality and 100% legal and ethical to watch it.

-Cristina Cox, stars in “Gravity” as Jen Crane the Antares’ Biologist. Unfortunately, she is one of the least interesting characters on the show. However, I started watching the show because Cox was recently on an episode of Dexter called “Dex Takes a Holiday” in which she played a police officer who kills her own husband and daughter and then makes it look like a robbery gone bad. On Dexter, her performance was fantastic; as a police officer she presented a significant challenge for Dexter’s serial-killer title character. And while, I was of course repulsed by Cox’s character’s actions, the small part of my psyche that secretly routes for villains was intrigued and even a little turned on by Cox’s performance.

What if Spiderman had rescued Gwen Stacy?

What If 24

Originally posted July 8, 2009

Just for a moment lets travel back in time to December of 1980 when What If? 24 came out. In real time it was 6 ½ years since the death of Gwen Stacy. This issue was on the stands with Amazing Spider-Man 211 and Spectacular Spider-Man 49, and Marvel Team Up 100 (Quite a month!).

What If’s were such memorable comics because they took the questions that comic fans would debate in schoolyard, or think of late at night just before falling asleep and put them in print. These are the stories that could never be told in continuity because the very nature of the question contradicts canon (What if someone else had been bitten by the radioactive spider?) or greatly alters the status quo (What if the Invisible Girl married the Sub-Mariner?).

In this way What If were the great playground for Marvel’s most creative stories. Sometimes they are brilliant, such as, What if Uncle Ben had lived? (a personal favorite) And some times they are ridiculous (see, What if the Original Marvel Bullpen had become the Fantastic Four?).

To me, the best part about these stories is that the writers were allowed to not pull their punches as far as the endings. For instance, it seemed that in every dimension where Sue Storm left Reed Richards, he was always left heavily bearded and an utterly defeated man in body and soul. They had a way of turning stories around to show that even though it seems like the hero would be better off if such and such happened, here’s why he’d actually be even worse off.

This story seems to be an example of that kind of ending. In this issue, Gwen lives after the fall from the bridge but learns Peter’s secret identity. At first she is horrified and wants nothing to do with Peter because she still blames Spider-Man for her father’s death, but in a turnaround worthy of Richard the Third (Extra credit for all you Shakespeare fans that get that reference) Peter convinces her he’s not a bad guy, proposes marriage to her, and she accepts.

I know it all sounds like wine and roses, but there is still the problem of the Green Goblin, who knows about Peter’s dual life. After being defeated in a brawl with Spider-man the Goblin mails information about Spider-man identity to “Spider-man’s other worst enemy.”

Spider-Man goes to the Osborn residence and ends up fighting Norman and Harry, but eventually the father and son are weeping in each others arms and it is clear that the days of the Green Goblin are over. Of course Norman is so wrapped up in the moment he never mentions sending that package.

Cut to Gwen and Peter’s wedding. Flash Thompson is the best man, Aunt May is crying tears of joy in the first row. In walks J. Jonah Jameson…(You were expecting Dr. Octopus perhaps? I know I was). He’s published Spider-man’s identity and is there with a warrant for Peter’s arrest. Aunt May collapses in shock, and Peter is forced to jump out the window to escape.

The last scene is Peter still in his tuxedo standing on a rooftop near his apartment. The police have it surrounded. He thinks to himself that he’ll never be able to get his costume or his web shooters from his apartment. He also wonders how Aunt May is, but is afraid to risk even a phone call, and he doesn’t know how he can take care of Gwen now that his identity is out. He fears that Spider-man may actually become the menace JJJ claims he is, but he hopes not.

Now I’m sorry to go over all that because either you’ve already read this issue or would rather read it for yourself, but it was necessary because the point I really wanted to make is that this issue is symptomatic of Marvel’s inability to imagine Spider-man with his identity public. Here we are in a What If story, Tony Isabella could have written any ending he wanted and he stops with Peter on a roof top going “Gee I wonder what’s gonna happen?”

The story also seems a little lacking because in the last year or so, we just got done with a storyline where Peter’s identity was revealed for several months, but we won’t get into that.

At the time I’m sure it was a great story, I just wish it had been a two-parter that delved into what happened next: Which villains did Peter face? Did Aunt May accept her nephew’s dual identity? Was Peter able to protect his family and friends?

Marvel Team- Up Annual 5

Originally posted February 23, 2009

It is good to be back after a long weekend without Internet. However, I did read a lot of comics while I was incommunicado.

I plan on catching up tomorrow especially with Merzah’s Powerman and Iron Fist thread. But first I read one of the comics I was lucky enough to win from PFJ at the Spidey Board and I wanted to share my thoughts.



Marvel Team-Up Annual 5

Just as the cover promises: Twice as many pages! Twice as many thrills.

This really was a fantastic Annual. The art by Jim Mooney was excellent and the story by Mark Gruenwald was up to his usual level of greatness.

There’s just something about the odd couple pairing of Dr. Strange and Spider-Man that’s always a lot of fun. I especially like the scene where they’re going into the car rental place and Dr. Strange changes their clothes in an instant.

Later when Spider-Man and Dr. Strange are driving, Strange goes to the astral plane and studies all about Set for some unknown amount of time, but returns to his body seconds later. I never knew Strange had this power. That’s the power I always wanted if I was a superhero!

There are just a few minor things. I wanted to talk about:

-The 3 pages of exposition about the history of the serpent crown really needed editor’s notes letting the reader know what comics these events happened in. Maybe today I could find the info somewhere on the web, but in 1982 when this came out, readers who wanted to catch up were screwed.

-The second minor thing is that in the gorgeous two page spread with the Dimensional Canons and hundreds of Set’s slaves, the cosmic cube is right in the gutter of the page and so it’s kind of hard to see it. This wouldn’t be a big deal, but Spider-Man mentions seeing it later, so the reader feels like a dumb-ass for missing the clue.

- The third thing is that I felt like Quasar was given short-shrift. Spider-Man takes him out with a trip-line, but I was waiting for an all out fight that never happened. There was a perfect opportunity on page 34, but instead Quasar is still unconscious. What a let down!

- The fourth and final thing is that the ending felt a little rushed. There was only one page for resolution after the climax of the story. But I know there are only so many pages and there was no fat to trim here.

Does anyone know if the final joke about Spider-Man’s costume was a subtle preview for his black costume? The Secret Wars was still 2 years off though. Were they planning far ahead in those days?

Daredevil Part 3, The Romita Era

Originally posted January 30, 2009

John Romita fondly remembers working on Daredevil and he commented on a panel recently that he always wanted to draw more Daredevil, but never got to. These issues are a lot of fun and I wish he’d gotten to do more of them too.



Daredevil 12-14

I’m kind of confused as to what Jack Kirby did as layout man and what Romita did as illustrator. Does that mean that Kirby did a rough sketch of the whole comic and Romita polished it up?

Romita’s Matt Murdock looks great on the splash page as he walks away from his office at the start of what will become a crazy adventure. Then on page two we get a look at Romita’s Daredevil and boy is he freaking ripped. I don’t understand how Matt hides a Mr. Universe body under those suits! And I’m not even sure all those muscles exist.

Then there’s a cool shot on the bottom of page 2 of all of DDs past villains.

This whole storyline is kind of odd. Matt goes on a cruise and gets involved with a pirate called the Plunderer who takes him to the Savage Land in Antarctica in a submarine, where he meets Ka-zar. These issues are only Ka-zar’s second appearance.

Through a series of plot devices the Plunderer gets this magic rock that melts metal and the Plunderer makes a magic gun out of it that destroys other guns. Then the Plunderer and his gang start to take down armies. I was screaming at the comic book that they just needed to get some plastic guns, and of course Daredevil said something along those lines a few panels later. That made me happy.

Overall I thought this whole storyline was kind of ish.



Daredevil 15

“And Men Shall Call Him Ox!” This issue had me riveted from the cover to the end.

Ox and his cellmate a rat-faced scientist break out of jail. Rat-face then tells Ox he’s going to make him smarter, but what he does is put his brain in Ox’s body. However the process doesn’t work that well and the new Ox can’t control his savage rage.

In the end new Ox falls off a skyscraper while fighting Daredevil! I was surprised that there was an actual death.

Meanwhile “Ox” in the scientist’s body comments that he feels smarter and that maybe everything that happened was for the best.

I think Romita was really starting to click.



Daredevil 16 and 17

Romita meet Spider-Man, Spider-man meet Romita. Oh little did Romita know that he would be drawing our favorite wall-crawler for years to come, not soon after these issues.

I don’t have these in color but I think Peter Parker is wearing his classic blue coat and yellow shirt.

I love the Masked Marauder, you’ve got to love a villain whose answer to everything is to blind the guy. I can just picture him in Starbucks blinding the barista who forgot his soymilk.

The battles between Daredevil and Spider-Man are excellent. Just like in the Sub-mariner/Daredevil battle DD knows he’s outclassed, but he doesn’t give up without a fight. DD is like Little Mac from NES’s Punch-out, the eternal underdog with heart.

I don’t get how Spider-Man’s spider-sense tells him that Daredevil is in Nelson and Murdock’s office. The Spider-sense alerts him to danger and DD isn’t dangerous.



Daredevil 18-19

Foggy Nelson goes overboard trying to impress Karen Page by pretending to be DD. He goes to a shady costume shop and buys a Daredevil costume.

The owner turns out to be an aspiring super-villain called the Gladiator. The full-page pin-up shot of the villain on page 10 is priceless.

I love the shots of the chubby Foggy in the Daredevil costume. It is frustrating though that Foggy’s weight fluctuates from issue to issue. Sometimes he looks like he’s gotten into shape and then in the next issue it looks like he’s been eating too many Big Macs again.

The Gladiator and the Masked Marauder both end up thinking that Foggy is Daredevil but luckily they can’t stop fighting among themselves long even to actually threaten anyone, but they do run off together threatening to strike again another day.

Daredevil the Early Years Part 2

Daredevil 7

Originally posted January 20, 2009

Maybe it’s coincidence, but something very special happened in this the first issue in which Daredevil dons the red suit that he would wear from that point on, everything started to click!

The art by Wally Wood is Fantastic, Tremendous, Stupendous, and Spectacular. (I’m running out of adjectives.) This issue was hyped by fans as one of the best comics ever, and well, it lives up to that title.

The story involves Namor coming to the surface to seek legal rights to land. Of course he ends up at the law offices of Nelson and Murdock.

The battles in this issue are excellent. Daredevil is clearly not in Namor’s class in terms of strength and endurance, but Namor can’t help but admire Daredevil’s courage.

Highly recommended.



Daredevil 8

Another great issue. It begins with Daredevil saving a woman about to be run over by an
out-of-control driver-less car.

“Keep screaming! Don’t Stop! Don’t Stop Screaming!” Daredevil yells at her as he swings towards her. I couldn’t help but wonder what she must have thought. She must have thought he was nuts.

After saving her he throws her onto an awning and thinks “Lucky I knew that the corner store always has its awning down at this hour.” Why has this guy memorized helicopter schedules (issue 2) and awning schedules for the whole city? Doesn’t the outline of an awning show up on his radar sense?

Then Daredevil drives the driver-less car with his radar sense, the car turns out to have a bomb on it, but Daredevil manages to get it out of harm’s way. Lucky teenage Matt Murdock learned how to drive a car before he went blind I guess.

I know that the Stilt Man is portrayed as kind of ridiculous in modern appearances, but in this appearance I thought he managed to seem like a real threat. When he robs a helicopter, the men try and shoot him and the bullets just bounce off his armor. So you can’t shoot him, even from the air, and on the ground all you can do is try and grab his fast moving legs, plus it seems that he can go from 40 stories to normal sized in the blink of an eye.

Daredevil finds himself climbing up Stilt Man’s long legs in order to try and actually fight him at all. But it’s a task that is easier said than done.



Daredevil 9

This issue is more evidence of Stan’s struggles to give Daredevil problems seeming extremely inorganic (Rip Jagger’s word).

At the start of the comic Daredevil is fighting some boat hijackers and he gets shot in the arm. He treats the wound at home himself. Now I remember issues where Spider-man gets his arm hurt and has it in a sling. I remember these issues being awesome and the injury adding a lot to the drama, but Daredevil just kind of plods along for the whole issue. Wood and Powell keep the continuity, Daredevil doesn’t use his bad arm, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down, in fact Daredevil fights a robot army one handed. It sounds remarkable here, but on the page it’s kind of ho-hum.

Daredevil’s just a guy that does what he can to fight crime in Hell’s Kitchen. To have him battling robots in a Latveria-like eastern-block dictatorship just seems very out of his wheelhouse.

Nowhere is this more evident than when the dictator launches a radioactive attack and Daredevil just kind of leaves it for somebody else to figure out.



Daredevil 10-11

Billed as a mystery thriller, this two-parter fails to be anything remarkable IMHO.

I love a good mystery, there were some good ones around this time in Amazing Spider-Man: Who was the Big Man, the Crime Master, and of course the Green Goblin? All three were interesting, suspenseful and ultimately satisfying.

The way the mystery is presented is just kind of dull. No one knows who the Crime lord the Organizer is, but we know he has some connection to the Reform Party. So he has to be Politician A, B, or C. But who cares, none of them are significant characters in the Daredevil comic. That's not dramatic! Why didn’t Wally and Stan make it seem like anyone could have been the Organizer: the Police Chief, Spider-Man, Foggy Nelson. That would have been interesting. Nelson is Matt’s best friend, it would have been interesting to explore what it would take for Matt to begin to doubt his friend.

The henchmen in this tale are another oddity. Each one is recruited for possessing some kind of unique ability. The Cat Man has good eyesight even in the dark? Why? Is he a mutant? Do his goggles do it?

The Frog Man was trained by the military to perform task underwater, the Ape Man is strong, the Bird Man, I’m completely stumped, maybe he was just the right height and weight for the suit. (Is it the same technology as the Vultures’?) And how are these guys still good enough fighters in these suits to take on Daredevil? Other then Bird Man and Frog Man who have equipment in their suits, why do they need suits? It’s all kind of silly.

(Plus, I have no idea how Cat Man gets Ape Man out of prison and later appears to get his Cat Suit for the first time with everyone else.)