{"id":9390,"date":"2023-10-15T13:03:52","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T12:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9390"},"modified":"2023-10-15T16:29:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T15:29:58","slug":"daredevil-villains-5-the-matador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9390","title":{"rendered":"Daredevil Villains #5: The Matador"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DAREDEVIL #5 (December 1964)<\/strong>
\n“The Mysterious Masked Matador”<\/strong>
\nWriter, editor: Stan Lee<\/strong>
\nArtist: Wally Wood<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Sam Rosen (uncredited)<\/strong>
\nColourist: not credited\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the previous issue featured a goofy Silver Age villain who became increasingly grim in retrospect, there are no such concerns here. In Wally Wood’s first issue, we have the Matador, who is as Silver Age as it gets. He is an evil matador who commits crimes in the style of a matador while dressed as a matador. He is absolutely committed to the theme. He is wonderful. He really should be fighting Adam West, and isn’t that what you come to the Silver Age for?<\/p>\n

Like any new villain, the Matador gets quite the build-up. He has been on a “one-man crime wave”. He is, we are assured, “the greatest threat to law and order in years”. Now, you may be wondering how exactly you commit crimes in the style of a matador. Does it just mean wearing a fancy costume and waggling a sword around? No, no it does not. In his first scene, the Matador robs an armoured truck by making it crash with his bullfighting skills. He stands in the middle of the road and confuses the driver by waving a cape around. And he is very pleased with himself. “What delicacy! What artistry! What magnificent daring!”<\/p>\n

This issue isn’t just about the matador gimmickry, though. There’s an actual theme to this story. Eventually we get the Matador’s origin: he’s Spain’s most famous and controversial bullfighter, “Manuel Eloganto”. Ah, the sixties. Audiences turned on Manuel over his cruelty towards the bulls – we’re not told exactly what this involved, but since bullfighting already involves killing the bulls, I suppose any more detailed explanation would be a horrible tone clash. Manuel was so distracted by the booing that he got gored. Now that he’s better, he wants “revenge on all mankind”, and to do that, he’s going to manipulate the public into loving him. That’s not a means to an end, mind you. It’s the entire plot. He just wants to make the suckers love him.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, he reasons, what could be cooler than a criminal matador who pulls off ludicrously audacious crimes? A rogueish underdog who outwits the establishment? And incredibly, the Matador is right – the public does love his adorable matador-themed antics. The local kids are starting to play as the Matador instead of Daredevil.<\/p>\n

You could do basically the same idea today with someone streaming prank videos, but is that as wonderfully absurd as a criminal matador? Of course it isn’t. The Matador’s crimes are genuinely ridiculous, in the best possible way. He shows up at a costume party in full costume and tries to crack the safe in full view of the guests. He robs a burglar alarm factory. “No one has ever dared rob a burglar alarm factory before!”, he declares.<\/p>\n

The story comes dangerously close to making Daredevil into a humourless scold. “The Matador has struck again!” he laments. “And throughout the nation, the young people, and the foolish, unthinking adults, will soon start making a hero of him!” And you wouldn’t want to be a foolish, unthinking adult, now, would you? Daredevil would be disappointed in you.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Matt raises his game with his plan to lure the Matador out. He holds a press conference to announce that the Matador is actually Daredevil. As expected, this prompts the Matador to show up at Matt’s office and ask what the hell he thinks he’s playing at. Of course, the plan also means that Matt looks like an idiot when Daredevil publicly defeats the Matador a few pages later, but that’s dual identities for you, and besides, everyone will have forgotten about it by next issue.<\/p>\n

This is a fabulous issue, but that’s not to say that the Matador would have worked as a recurring character. He’s very gimmicky indeed. And he’s meant to be. It’s literally the point. The gloryhound angle might have had some legs, but the matador theme is pretty limiting – part of the joy of the issue is that it finds enough variations on the theme just to get to page 20. Besides, the Matador is a craze. We get the kids playing Matador in the street, we get a newspaper headline “Stores report record sales on Matador suits”, and by the end of the issue, the trash cans are overflowing with matador outfits cruelly discarded by disillusioned children.<\/p>\n

That’s the whole point, and returning to it too quickly would have been a mistake. The Matador makes a handful of later appearances, but you can see why nobody tried to make him a regular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAREDEVIL #5 (December 1964) “The Mysterious Masked Matador” Writer, editor: Stan Lee Artist: Wally Wood Letterer: Sam Rosen (uncredited) Colourist: not credited\u00a0 While the previous issue featured a goofy Silver Age villain who became increasingly grim in retrospect, there are no such concerns here. In Wally Wood’s first issue, we have the Matador, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daredevil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9510,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}