Daredevil #12

Sightless, in a Savage Land!

Featuring: Daredevil
Release: November 4, 1965
Cover: January 1966
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Layouts: Jack Kirby
Lettering: Sam Rosen
.. and introducing: the matchless artistic wizardry of Marvel’s newest, and most eagerly-awaited, illustrator… the inimitable John Romita!
20 pages

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Ka-Zar have you, Zabu… Need no other! You are wisest… bravest… swiftest of all!

John Romita’s arrival is greeted enthusiastically by Stan. Kirby does layouts, as is common when welcoming new artists, as Stan doesn’t yet trust their storytelling chops (or his own).

Daredevil has a lack stability with revolving doors of legendary superstar artists. Bill Everett only made it one issue because he struggled with deadlines. Joe Orlando left after 3 issues because he got angry with Stan. Wally Wood left after 5 issues because he got angry with Stan. Good luck, John.

We’ve seen John Romita before in our “Prelude” posts. He was a regular artist on Captain America’s short-lived 1950s revival. His art has improved a lot in the intervening 10 years. He found his niche with the romance genre, and then left comics for a successful career in advertising. He draws good-looking people, in a way that artists like Kirby and Ditko don’t. Stan talked him into coming back to comics.

We talked about Romita’s career when we read Captain America #78. This is his new regular gig as a main artist at Marvel, but we’d seen him before providing finishes for Don Heck in Avengers #23, released 3 months earlier.

The story picks up where last issue left off, with Matt leaving Nelson & Murdock. The characters have lots of thoughts. Matt is leaving to let Foggy and Karen be together. Karen is sad because she loves Matt. Foggy thinks Matt is his best friend, but is happy that Karen can now be his. Matt doesn’t recognize that Karen loves him; he thinks her affection is just pity for a blind man. Matt books an ocean cruise to the other side of the world.

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PRELUDE: Captain America Comics #37, Story C

Frozen Death

Featuring: Captain America
Release: February 11, 1944
Cover: April 1944
10 cents
15 pages

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The GCD credits the story to Otto Binder, Al Gabriele, and Vince Alascia.

Mostly a miscellaneous story we won’t dwell on. Three things stand out.

First, we note all clues about the identity of the Red Skull. He’s taken to using more German phrases than ever before. “Himmel”, “Donnervetter”. He refers to Captain America and Bucky as “American scum”. So perhaps this is a German villain, and not George Maxon.

Captain America and Bucky unmask him and recognize him as the “real” Red Skull they’ve fought before. This also implicitly acknowledges there may be “fake” Red Skulls out there.

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X-Men #10

The Coming of… Ka-Zar!

Featuring: X-Men
Release: January 5, 1965
Cover: March 1965
12 cents
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Inker: Chic Stone
Letterer: S.Rosen
20 pages

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Stronger than mastodon! Stronger than giant boar! Mighty is Ka-Zar! Lord of Jungle!

The cover claims this comic is introducing Ka-Zar. It’s unclear if that’s true when we just met a Ka-Zar in our last post, introduced almost 30 years earlier.

Same guy? No evidence otherwise, except that he’s somehow moved from the Congo to Antarctica.

I’m so glad they tell us how to pronounce his name. It’s the bane of comics reading. Nobody tells you how to pronounce the names. You think you’re an expert in this stuff, then along comes a movie and you’ve been pronouncing names wrong for decades, and everyone looks at you like an idiot. But now we know: “Kay-Sar”.

My buddy Brian just polled on Twitter about how people pronounced his name when they first read it, and I was forced to admit that I was saying “Kay-Zar” in my head in my ignorant youth. Perhaps if I’d known more German then, I would have different ideas about pronouncing that ‘Z’.

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