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Daredevil #11

A Time to Unmask!

Featuring: Daredevil
Release: October 5, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
Writer: Smilin’ Stan Lee
Penciller: Bubbly Bobby Powell
Inker: Wonderful Wally Wood
Letterer: Swingin’ Sammy Rosen
20 pages

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Wally Wood wrote part one of this two-parter just for a lark! But now it’s up to sly ol’ Stan to put all the pieces together and make it come out right in the end! Can he do it? See for yourself!

This really is goodbye for Wally Wood. He was heavily involved with 4 issues of Daredevil, then partially involved with 3 more. Now he’s just on inks, making no claim to having written this story in any part. After this job, he’s out the door.

Bob Powell provides the main art.

The narration box is again important. Stan is speaking in his normal salesman voice, but it barely conceals the behind-the-scenes drama of Wood writing the first half of this tale and then resigning.

I’m guessing Wood left before making a cover, as the cover is just a repurposed interior panel.

Here’s a good rundown from the Marvel in the Silver Age blog about Wally Wood’s career and time with Marvel and on Daredevil.

We’re left with one of those “What If” scenarios. What if Wood and Lee had gotten along better? Then Wood was probably going to be the one to revive Sub-Mariner instead of Colan. We got a taste of Wood’s Sub-Mariner in Daredevil #7.

I want to take a peek at Tower Comics to see what Wood is up to next. We’ll see he’s cocreated the superhero/espionage team the THUNDER Agents. Maybe he could have brought ideas like that to Marvel. Who knows what he and Lee could have come up with if they’d been able to work together.

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Daredevil #10

While the City Sleeps!

Featuring: Daredevil
Release: August 3, 1965
Cover: October 1965
12 cents
Exquisite editing by: Stan Lee
Lustrous layouts by: Bob Powell
Stunning script and art by: Wally Wood
Lots of lettering by: Artie Simek
20 pages

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Wally Wood has always wanted to try his hand at writing a story as well as drawing it, and big-hearted Stan (who wanted a rest anyway) said okay! So, what follows next is anybody’s guess! You may like it or not, but, you can be sure of this… it’s gonna be different!

This comic’s cool because if you look closely you can see all the behind-the-scenes drama playing out on the page.

The hype box is unusually important. Stan notes Wally had always wanted to try writing a story as well as drawing it, so Stan’s giving him a shot. Really, Wally claims he’s already been writing these comics, but not being paid for doing so.

The precise way in which this issue was constructed is unclear to me, in part because the people who could describe it to history weren’t in agreement, and nobody involved is still living. My best guess is the process here is something like this. Wally came up with the story and gave it to Bob Powell to lay out. Wood filled in the final art and supplied the script. Lee made his final edits.

The other important part of that narration box is that this is a mystery with clues. We’ll see that the mystery isn’t resolved in this issue, but we’ll also see that Wood doesn’t write the next issue and instead leaves the company.

Having his one writing gig be the setup to a mystery he doesn’t tell anybody the ending of may have been an intentional parting shot from Mr. Wood.

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