{"id":9959,"date":"2024-05-05T12:05:14","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T11:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9959"},"modified":"2024-05-05T20:10:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T19:10:52","slug":"daredevil-villains-22-stunt-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9959","title":{"rendered":"Daredevil Villains #22: Stunt-Master"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DAREDEVIL #58 (November 1969)<\/strong>
\n“Spin-Out on Fifth Avenue!”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Roy Thomas<\/strong>
\nPenciller: Gene Colan<\/strong>
\nInker: Syd Shores<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Sam Rosen<\/strong>
\nColourist: not credited<\/strong>
\nEditor: Stan Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roy Thomas created a lot of new villains for Daredevil<\/em>. Very few of them had any lasting impact. Stunt-Master is as close as we get to an exception.<\/p>\n

Not because he stuck around in Daredevil<\/em>, mind you. We’ll see him again in issues #64 and #67, after which he vanishes. But in 1974, he was dusted off to join the supporting cast of Ghost Rider<\/em>, and he stuck around in that book for a couple of years. By the standards of the new villains created in Roy Thomas’ Daredevil<\/em> run, this qualifies as a resounding success.<\/p>\n

But that’s a little unfair. Roy Thomas’ strongest ideas, and his top priorities, were more about the book’s existing cast. He could see perfectly well that Matt and Karen’s relationship needed to advance somehow. So the previous story ended with Matt unmasking to Karen, allowing the book to move on to a new status quo. In this phase, Foggy is the DA, Matt is the assistant DA. Karen loves Matt, but she wants him to retire as Daredevil. Matt says he will. Soon. Really. Honest. Karen gets increasingly frustrated and alarmed until the penny drops that he’s never going to do it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You’d struggle to say that Karen was a rounded character here, and she’s still quite a reactive one. Even so, it’s\u00a0 a step up from the way Stan Lee used to write her. More to the point, we’ve moved from years of Matt fantasising about being with Karen (and vice versa) to an actual relationship that is utterly dysfunctional from the word go. Karen goes straight from being lovelorn to the sinking feeling that this is never going to work.<\/p>\n

This issue opens with Matt addressing a jury about the scourge of organised crime and jury intimidation that is blighting the city – the work of “the man known only as Crime-Wave.” We’ll come to Crime-Wave. Suffice to say that he was introduced in a sub-plot in the previous arc, he hasn’t shown up on camera yet, and that we’re going to get two issues of Daredevil fighting his minions before we reach the man himself. Crime-Wave gets a huge build-up, and Stunt-Master is part of that.<\/p>\n

A lengthy flashback fills in the action since last issue. Matt has his heart-to-heart with Karen after unmasking. Matt reveals to the public that he faked his death in the Starr Saxon arc. Foggy appoints Matt as a prosecutor to help him deal with Crime-Wave. Finally, Matt tells Karen that he’ll retire as Daredevil. Oh, except that he has to appear in the United Fund Parade first, because he’s already promised to do it. (How did they get in touch with him?)<\/p>\n

At the parade, Daredevil is just about to announce his retirement when Stunt-Master makes his debut. He’s exactly what you’re imagining – a costumed motorbike stuntman. But it’s the Marvel Universe, so he has a jet-propelled bike. He’s a down-at-heel ex-Hollywood stuntman hired by Crime-Wave to kill Daredevil, and he’s going to make his name. It’s never really clear what attracted Crime-Wave to hiring this loser in the first place, though he brings in another Californian villain in the next issue, so presumably he was meant to have contacts there.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Stunt-Master can steer his rocket-propelled death-trap without splattering himself against a wall. But the problem with a motorcycle stunt gimmick is that once you’ve jumped at the hero and missed, what next?<\/p>\n

Well, Karen begs Matt to leave Stunt-Master to the police – he’s just a normal guy on a bike, after all. But of course, Daredevil can’t resist fighting him. We get some action with Daredevil jumping on to the bike and clinging on as they fight through the streets, until eventually the bike crashes. Having defeated one of Crime-Wave’s henchmen, Daredevil is so excited at the prospect of hunting down Crime-Wave himself that he decides not to retire after all. So Karen runs off in tears while Daredevil lets the public cheer him. And then we get the end of the trial that opened the issue, where the accused was Stunt-Master, and of course he gets convicted.<\/p>\n

Stunt-Master is just here to provide a fight while Thomas sets up Crime-Wave and screws with Matt and Karen’s new relationship. And he’s got a gimmick that fits the times. With his generic codename and costume – which isn’t bad<\/em> exactly, but it’s not very inspired either – Stunt-Master is a knock-off Evel Knievel action figure. But if you’re going to ride a bandwagon like this, it’s odd to make him a villain. All the more so because his fighting style doesn’t really lend itself to Daredevil. He rides at the guy. If he misses, he turns round and rides at him again. It’s a bit limiting. You can see why he might have had more staying power in Ghost Rider<\/em>, a book which actually needs bikers.<\/p>\n

Thomas must have thought twice about Stunt-Master as a villain, because when we see him again, he’s back in Hollywood (which seems like a remarkably early release for someone who’s been convicted of attempted murder, even in the Marvel Universe ). In issue #64, he’s trying to go straight but gets press ganged by crooks into doing one more job; he gets to be the hero, and gets a pilot for his own TV show. By issue #67, they’re \u00a0filming that pilot, although poor Stunt-Master’s job in that issue is to get clocked over the head by Stilt-Man.<\/p>\n

In these issues Stunt-Master never entirely becomes a hero; he goes from being a guy who flirted with being a supervillain to one who’s happy to play the role of hero but mainly just wants to earn some money. There’s something in that, and the stunt biker angle is something different in small doses. He’s not a great fit for Daredevil<\/em>, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAREDEVIL #58 (November 1969) “Spin-Out on Fifth Avenue!” Writer: Roy Thomas Penciller: Gene Colan Inker: Syd Shores Letterer: Sam Rosen Colourist: not credited Editor: Stan Lee Roy Thomas created a lot of new villains for Daredevil. Very few of them had any lasting impact. Stunt-Master is as close as we get to an exception. Not […]<\/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-9959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daredevil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959","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=9959"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10066,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959\/revisions\/10066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}