DAREDEVIL #75-76 (April & May 1971)
“Now Rides the Ghost of El Condor!” / “The Deathmarch of El Condor!”
Writer: Gerry Conway
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores (#75) and Tom Palmer (#76)
Letterer: Sam Rosen (#75) and Artie Simek (#76)
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

In certain parts of South America, January 1971 was an exciting time to be a diplomat, particularly if you fancied leaving the house. In Brazil, guerillas  kidnapped four diplomats, and ransomed them to secure the release of 130 prisoners. At around the same time, in Uruguay, the Marxist-Leninist group Tupamaros kidnapped the British ambassador.

What, you might ask, does any of this have to do with Daredevil? And… well, yes, that’s a good question.

What it has to do with Daredevil is this two part story, billed on the cover of issue #75 as “A shocker… ripped from today’s screaming headlines!” Just to prove the point, it includes a Daily Bugle front page story about a kidnapping in Buenos Aires (or a “kidnaping”, as the cover says in three separate places). But this being the Marvel Universe, the story is not set in Argentina. We’re in the previously unheralded nation of Delvadia.

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DAREDEVIL #74 (March 1971)
“In the Country of the Blind!”
Writer: Gerry Conway
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

We’ve skipped issue #73, which is a crossover with Iron Man. The villains are Zodiac and Spymaster, but they’re not getting an entry because it’s not a Daredevil story. It’s an Iron Man story, and there’s absolutely no reason for Daredevil to be in it, other than (presumably) a vague hope of boosting sales. Daredevil’s contribution is to join in some fight scenes and to stand around listening patiently to pages of exposition about the origin of the Zodiac Key. Two issues in, Conway has yet to write anything for Daredevil which isn’t a complete dud.

Issue #74 is better, though it’s still not exactly good. It’s the second of Conway’s two stories about blindness. We open with Daredevil fighting some random thugs, getting clocked over the head, and miraculously regaining his sight. But alas, it was all a dream. This takes up a quarter of the book, because Daredevil‘s eccentric pacing decisions are unaffected by the change of writer. We still have languid opening scenes, and a desperate rush to finish the plot at the end.

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DAREDEVIL #72 (January 1971)
“Lo! The Lord of the Leopards!”
Writer: Gerry Conway
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

If you were feeling harsh, you might say that for Stan Lee, Daredevil was about the romantic triangle between Matt, Foggy and Karen; for Roy Thomas, Daredevil was about Matt and Karen trying to make their relationship work; and for Gerry Conway, Daredevil was about twenty pages long, once a month.

This isn’t entirely fair. True, Gerry Conway’s first year on the book has a lot of blatant filler, random crossover issues, and some decent ideas that would have been better suited to a different title. But he was clearly aware of the problem, given the drastic steps he took to re-tool the the book. And besides, right at the start of his run, we have a couple of stories that are unquestionably Daredevil-specific. They’re about blindness.

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DAREDEVIL #70-71 (November & December 1970)
“The Tribune” / “If an Eye Offend Thee…”
Writer: Gary Friedrich (#70), Roy Thomas & Lein Wein (#71)
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Sam Rosen (#70) & Artie Simek (#71)
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

This is the third story in a row to deal with political radicals. In issue #68, Phoenix were so vague as to be meaningless; in issue #69, the Thunderbolts were a clumsy stab at social relevance. So a third extremist story might sound less than promising. And when you find that the first half is by a fill-in writer, and the second half has two credited writers, neither of whom worked on the first half… you could be forgiven for not getting your hopes up.

But this story has neither the timidness that sank the Phoenix story, nor the over-earnestness of the Thunderbolts. It’s absolutely mad.

The Tribune is movie star Buck Ralston. Despite being enormously famous, Buck likes to give soapbox speeches to passers-by on the streets of Hollywood. “It’s about time patriots like us stopped being a silent majority!” he says. Karen Page is up for a part in his next film, but to the horror of her agent, she tells Ralston to his face that he’s an extremist. Ralston naturally concludes that she’s a commie. “Gotta watch anybody that says you can be too patriotic!”

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DAREDEVIL #69 (October 1970)
“A Life on the Line”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

No, not those Thunderbolts.

This story is set in Harlem, and there are multiple black characters with speaking parts. It’s Marvel in 1970, so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for an improving exercise in social commentary.

Daredevil stops two black gang members from robbing a warehouse. A third tries to escape, only to crash their van into a brick wall. He turns out to be a 15-year-old boy. The Black Panther shows up, and the heroes race the kid to hospital. His unspecified injuries call for a top surgeon, which Daredevil and the Panther are able to sort out. Although the story doesn’t labour the point, the clear implication is that the kid would otherwise have died thanks to the wonderful American health care system.

While our heroes wait for the outcome of the surgery, the Black Panther fills in some back story with an extended flashback. This is the period where the Panther had a civilian identity as school teacher Luke Charles. The kid is his brightest student, Lonnie Carver. Lonnie idolises his older brother Billy, who has just returned from Vietnam. Despite having become a pacifist as a result of his experiences, Billy wears his army uniform around the streets of Harlem, just in case we were in any doubt as to his status as a saintly veteran.

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DAREDEVIL #68 (September 1970)
“Phoenix and the Fighter!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

No, not that Phoenix.

After four issues in Hollywood, Daredevil is back in New York, but without Karen Page in tow. She’ll be back, but she’s out of the picture for the moment. In the meantime, Daredevil moves on to something else entirely.

Daredevil arrives at the DA’s office to find Foggy in a shouting match with three guys from an extremist group called Phoenix. The only one who gets a name is called Kragg. The Phoenix members wear brightly coloured tunics with logos on the chest – Kragg’s costume has a phoenix head, and the others have a sort of stylised flame thing. They generally look like they’ve wandered out of a Buck Rogers story and left their ray guns at home.

Kragg is trying to get Foggy to stop “hounding” his group. After Daredevil shoos the extremists away, we learn that Foggy is investigating them because they’ve mysteriously bought the contract of middleweight boxing contender Kid Gawaine. The Kid has an upcoming title match at Madison Square Garden, and his trainer, Pop Fenton, once trained Battlin’ Jack Murdock. For obvious reasons, a story of boxing corruption piques Daredevil’s interest, and he decides to look into Phoenix himself.

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DAREDEVIL #65-66 (June & July 1970)
“The Killing of Brother Brimstone” / “…And One Cried Murder!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Smiek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

Once again, we’ve skipped a couple of issues with returning villains. Issue #63 is a Gladiator story, and issue #64 is the return of Stunt-Master. There have been some developments in those two issues.

After months of pestering Matt to quit as Daredevil, Karen Page has lost patience and walked out. She was expecting Matt to stop her at the airport, but he was too busy being Daredevil to show up. So Karen is now living in Los Angeles with her old college roommate Sally Weston. And Matt has followed her out there, which means we get four issues in Hollywood. In issue #64, Daredevil fails to locate Karen, who is avoiding him. Instead, Daredevil gets sidetracked by Stunt-Master.

Now, obviously, Daredevil has pursued Karen to the other side of the country because he’s a romantic lead. It’s not like he’s some sort of stalker! So in issue #65, he breaks into Karen’s bedroom to find out where she’s working.

As it happens, Sally Weston is the assistant director on gothic daytime soap opera Strange Secrets, and she’s got Karen some acting work on the show. Readers at the time would have recognised Strange Secrets as the ABC daytime soap Dark Shadows, which ran from 1966 to 1971. Accordingly to Wikipedia, it “became popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) was introduced ten months into its run. It would feature ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel and a parallel universe.” By early 1970, the show was past its peak, which is in fact how Strange Secrets is presented here.

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DAREDEVIL #62 (March 1970)
“Quoth the Nighthawk, ‘Nevermore!'”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

We’ve skipped issue #61, which is a rematch with Cobra, Mr Hyde and Jester. And that brings us to a guy who just marginally qualifies for this feature.

This is where I normally say: No, not that one. This is a long-forgotten one who appeared in one issue of Daredevil at the tail end of the Silver Age. But… yes, that Nighthawk. Kyle Richmond. The one who goes on to join the Defenders.

What’s he doing here? Well, at this point, Nighthawk’s only previous appearances were in 1969’s Avengers #69-70, as part of the Squadron Sinister. In that story, the Grandmaster alters history to create four supervillains that he can pit against the Avengers – Hyperion, Nighthawk, Dr Spectrum and the Whizzer. The Squadron are blatantly a knock-off Justice League of America, and the whole thing is just a thinly veiled excuse to have the Avengers fight the JLA.

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DAREDEVIL #60 (January 1970)
“Showdown at Sea!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

At his core, Crime-Wave ought to work. He’s built up over three issues of sub-plot as the top criminal menace in New York. He’s talked about as an unprecedented threat to the rule of law. Intimidation of witnesses and jurors is apparently a big thing. He’s a kingpin of organised crime and a natural opponent for Foggy as DA and Matt as his assistant. He’s not just a street-level threat but a systemic one. It’s precisely the sort of thing that works for Daredevil in later years.

But Crime-Wave doesn’t work, and never returns.

Issue #60 is where Daredevil finally meets him. But his on-panel debut is in issue #59, where Willie Lincoln meets him and escapes alive. That issue rather sums up the problems with Crime-Wave. It opens with Crime-Wave’s thugs demanding protection money from a corner shop. True, the whole point is that Crime-Wave is a systemic background threat, and the shopkeeper does refuse to testify, but it’s still fairly underwhelming stuff for an archenemy.

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DAREDEVIL #59 (December 1969)
“The Torpedo Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee

Roy Thomas was determined to give Crime-Wave a big build-up before he faced off against Daredevil in person. So not only did Crime-Wave get trailed in a subplot during the Death’s-Head story, but the next two issues are devoted Daredevil fighting Crime-Wave’s underlings. Last issue, we had Stunt-Master, an gimmick character who was an odd fit for Crime-Wave. This time, Thomas plays it straight, and brings us the Torpedo.

Another Torpedo will debut in Daredevil in 1975, and go on to be a supporting player in Rom. That’s a different character entirely. This Torpedo is a one-off costumed hitman. Hence the name “torpedo”, which is just dated slang for a hitman. So at least he fits Crime-Wave’s theme.

In practice, this issue is mainly about building up Crime-Wave for the next issue. It opens with Daredevil dealing with a protection racket, only to find that the store owner is too scared to testify against Crime-Wave. But Willie Lincoln has found Crime-Wave’s secret base and escaped alive. More about that next time. For the moment, the important point is that Willie is going into protective custody to keep him safe from Crime-Wave. You’d have thought they could just raid the address and gather more evidence, but apparently Willie is a devastatingly important witness.

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