Featuring: Daredevil
Release: December 8, 1966
Cover: February 1967
12 cents
A Stan Lee * Gene Colan epic extravaganza!
Inked by: Frank Giacoia
Lettered by: Art Simek
20 pages
| Previous | #647 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #89, Story B | Reading order | Amazing Spider-Man #46 |
| Daredevil #24 | Daredevil | Daredevil #26 |
We’re both lawyers, Matt! You know how thin that story sounds!
Where were we? Matt had the weirdest plan yet to protect his secret for Karen. Strong, strong emphasis on the word “yet” there. He thought he would put on a Daredevil costume in front of her and pretend to be pretending to be Daredevil to diffuse a hostage situation. Over the course of events, “Matt in disguise as Daredevil” disappears and the “real Daredevil” appears. And then finds himself transported to Europe and trapped there for a bit.
Fortunately that whole act seemed to basically have Karen fooled. But now Matt has disappeared along with Daredevil. And she opened a letter written to Matt from Spider-Man which said that Spidey knew Matt was Daredevil but would keep his secret.
Not very well, apparently.
Now, Matt is back from Europe and will need to scramble to explain his disappearance and protect his secret. He’ll need a plan even crazier than the last one.
Meanwhile, Leap-Frog is a new menace on par with Dr. Doom.
Even Matt thinks it’s a corny name. And this from a guy who calls himself “Daredevil”. Glass houses, buddy.
A police officer could shoot Leap-Frog, but his crimes don’t warrant death. Fascinating restraint.
A master criminal with power like mine needs a costume– something worth of his talents.
I concur the costume is worthy of Leap-Frog’s talents.
As I have mentioned several times, my least favorite trope in Marvel comics is when a hero is over-impressed by a villain’s lame powers. As is the case here. Leap-Frog has springs on his shoes that let him jump. And Daredevil just drones on and on about how unstoppable a foe that makes him. Stan’s refusal to ever use a period to end a sentence doesn’t help things.
“I wonder how to fight a swinger who can leap like that!”
“I never fought anyone who could move so fast before!”
“He doesn’t even seem to consider me a threat to him!”
“Can’t keep up with him! Those springs of his have him zooming like a rocket!”
“Next time he’ll probably demolish me!”
“Those steel springs of his are practically alive!”
Baffingly, Daredevil loses the first fight.
Daredevil has a philosophical quandary that plagues many a person living two lives. Which is the real him?
It’s like DD is my real identity– and I’m just play-acting as Matt Murdock!
But his real problem this issue isn’t Leap-Frog, but keeping his own secret.
He thinks he has a good story for Karen. He was dressed as Daredevil. But then the real Daredevil showed up. And he felt tired. So he left, and also left town for a sudden vacation. He’d left a note for her with an usher.
Clever, Matt. Clever.
But that doesn’t explain the note from Spider-Man. You’ll have to think fast.
Spider-Man has confused you with your twin brother Mike!
His name is–eh–Mike–Mike Murdock–and he’s a dead ringer for me!
Foggy’s known you for years and you’ve never mentioned a twin brother. Foggy wants to meet him.
Easy enough. You just need to act like someone different, using words like “pussycat” and “dad”.
Foggy dislikes Mike. “A swaggering, swell-headed, loud-mouthed clown.”
Both Karen and Foggy seem satisfied and don’t question why they don’t see both Matt and Mike Murdock at once.
It’s good that they were fooled. If they actually learned Daredevil’s secret, it would be death or amnesia for them.
In a better world, this would be the last we ever saw of Mike Murdock. But we don’t live in a better world. I think the saga of Mike Murdock is just the dumbest saga.
Why not just trust Karen with your secret, Matt? What could go wrong?
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 39/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Is Leap-Frog a significant enough villain to earn this a 4th star in significance? I’m going to say no. What about the introduction of “Mike” Murdock. Also no.
The scans above mostly come from a reprint in Marvel Adventure #4, 1976. Unfortunately by the ’70s Marvel was being cheap with its page counts and doing 18-page books instead of 20. So the issue had to be abridged, as we’ve seen before.
In the original, page 8 includes a demonstration of Daredevil’s grappling hook in the first 3 panels, which are deleted. Seventies fans will never learn the secret of that hook.
The final panel on page 8 is included, but in place of the first panel on page 9.
And page 17 was deleted completely. It’s just Daredevil and Leap-Frog trading a couple extra blows. You wouldn’t know you’d missed anything.
The cover atop comes from the GCD.
Characters:
- Leap-Frog
- Matt Murdock/Daredevil/Mike Murdock
- Karen Page
- Foggy Nelson
Story notes:
- Matt Murdock is returning from Europe on a plane when a leaping man attacks the airport.
- Matt hears the sound of powerful springs uncoiling.
- Leap-Frog just testing his abilities.
- Leap-Frog takes Matt hostage.
- Leap-Frog releases Matt, deciding his test was a success.
- Karen still wonders about the letter from Spider-Man; Foggy insists it can’t be true.
- Newspapers had reported Daredevil alive in battle alongside Ka-Zar in Europe.
- Matt’s alibi: He left a note with a young usher at the arena saying he was going to rest at the seashore fore a few days, but the boy didn’t deliver it. He’d left suddenly because he was tired from the strain.
- Karen doesn’t believe him. She tells him about the Spider-Man note.
- Stan claims Spider-Man figured DD’s secret out in issue 16. But that’s not quite true. Spidey deduced Daredevil to be Foggy at the time. He must have put the truth together later.
- Matt makes up a story about his twin brother Mike.
- Foggy demands to meet Mike.
- They leave pretty casually after learning Matt has a secret twin brother who is Daredevil.
- Daredevil examines his cane gizmo, which runs on batteries. It forms a hook at the push of a button.
- Leap-Frog used to invent novelty items for toy companies, but now he has made super springs and a costume to be a criminal.
- Leap-Frog robs a jewelry store but trips an alarm, which attracts Daredevil.
- Leap-Frog silences the alarm, but DD can still sense it.
- Foggy is not impressed by Mike. But he and Karen are both fooled.
- Daredevil beats Froggy in round 2.
- Matt wants to defend Leap-Frog in court, though Foggy hates costumed crooks.
| Previous | #647 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #89, Story B | Reading order | Amazing Spider-Man #46 |
| Daredevil #24 | Daredevil | Daredevil #26 |
Agree so much! I stopped buying DD at this point and didn’t try it again until Royalty Thomas came to save it. And even that almost didn’t work! DD still had a few good stories left in him, such as the “Karen stars on Dark Shadows” story. Black Widow brought a lot of interest with her. It seemed like a decade before I started buying DD again – mostly because my wife LOVED the introduction of Elektra.
Argh! ROY Thomas, not Royalty Thomas! AI is supposed to HELP not embarrass we sight-screwed-up people!
I assumed it was a nickname for him I hadn’t heard. Sounds like it could have been in the credits for a comic at some point.
I love this issue, but for all the wrong reasons. Mike Murdock’s story is so absurd that I can’t help but find it funny, and Leap Frog doesn’t exactly help me take things seriously. Let’s just say Daredevil was one of the lower-quality comics at the time, but at least now I could get a few laughs while reading the story. Oddly enough, Leap Frog is one of the most memorable villains from this era of Daredevil.
I assume humor is the goal here. Stan did later mention in an interview he was attempting to make Daredevil comics have a different feel than Spider-Man comics. And leaning into the absurd was his strategy.
BH sez “ Leap Frog is one of the most memorable villains from this era of Daredevil.”
Chet thinks “..which is a depressing truth, when you think about it.”
In fairness, there weren’t many. He spends the next year fighting old foes or other heroes’ villains. I think issue 42 is the next time we meet a new villain, and it’s the Jester.
I loved silly DD by Gene Colan way more than sad and brooding DD by Frank Miller. then again I was 12 when this was published in french magazine STRANGE, so what do I know.
Maybe it will grow on me.
Hopefully. Maybe you had to be there, I don’t know.
My early super-hero experiences were a lot more fun, wacky villains and goofy plots like the original Doom Patrol and The Challengers of the Unknown, Plastic Man, the Inferior Five. Marvel was trying to be more “adult”, the Stan Lee Way of course, so in that period, DD was my favourite Marvel series.
I recently reread the first 100 issues in the Marvel Essential B&W volumes, the Gene Colan+ Syd Shores art is incredible that way. I’ll take Shores over Tom Palmer any day as the best Colan inker. the coloring of the Masterworks is so ugly.