Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Volume 2

/ Alex Good

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Volume 2

This volume is a direct continuation of Daredevil’s beginnings as collected in the first Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil. As such, a lot of what I said about the character there still applies. To take just a few of the points I raised in my review of that book:

(1) “Effectively, Daredevil isn’t blind at all. Anything he needs to be able to do, he can do.”

To take some examples from the issues collected here: In the boat to Ka-Zar’s home of Skull Island (not that original, is it?) Daredevil can “sense vegetation . . . such as Earth has never known for millions of years! As though I’ve been transported to the dawn of time!” Now how would he know what vegetation smelled like (I assume he’s smelling it) millions of years ago? Also, he can identify people at a distance not just from their smell (as in previous issues) but from reading their emotions. How does that work? Just reading heartbeats?  And what are we to make of his “indescribably accurate hearing” that allows him to “tune in” to police short-wave radio broadcasts as he vaults above the city? There seem to be no limits to his (dis)abilities.

(2) “For the most part Daredevil is taking on B-list baddies who are nonetheless a lot of fun.”

So in this volume the “omnivorous”(?) and “omnipresent”(?) Owl is back. The Masked Marauder shows up, is defeated, and then teams up with the Gladiator, and is defeated again. Not the Strontian Gladiator, by the way, but Melvin Potter, a big guy with a chip on his shoulder who runs a superhero costume shop. So they’re a pair of B-listers. Then there’s the Ox, who is a big dumb guy (I’ll bet you never would have guessed) who gets a genius-level intelligence upgrade when a mad scientist switches bodies with him. The Plunderer (or Lord Parnival Plunder, to give him his full title) is a modern-day pirate who would have more of a Marvel afterlife because of his family connections (he’s actually the brother of Ka-Zar). Because I wasn’t as familiar with these guys I actually enjoyed them a lot more. They don’t have god-like super powers but are mostly just either really strong or really smart. And they’re all driven by a sense of bitterness at the world for not respecting them enough. I think this might have had been one of Stan Lee’s hang-ups.

(3) “On the downside, and as I’ve mentioned before, there’s his hopeless portrayal of women. The love triangle going on between Matt, his law partner Foggy Nelson, and their secretary Karen Page is just an annoyance.”

The office-romance stuff with Foggy always lusting after Karen who in turn has a secret crush on Matt plays out again here. And at least Lee seems to have recognized how painful it all was. After one cutaway to the land of thought-bubbles revealing hidden desires we get this editorial comment: “See how we try to please everybody? We even presented the preceding page for the benefit of soap-opera lovers!” And in a later issue, after another such romantic interlude, we get this apology: “Many thanks, Marvelite, for staying with us during the hearts and flowers portion of our yarn!”

This self-awareness, however, only goes so far. This part of the Daredevil story is painful. It does play a bit of a role when Foggy dresses up as Daredevil in an attempt to gain Karen’s affection, but otherwise it’s pointless. Pointless and annoying. At one point “Sensation-monger Stan” even gives his “batty bullpen” a “no-prize award” for presenting seven thought balloons in one panel. Which is as awkward as it sounds.

Speaking of Foggy putting on a Daredevil costume, it’s interesting how this is a motif in several of the comics here. When the Ox goes on a rampage he dresses an unconscious Daredevil in his clothes so that the police will mistake him for the troublemaker and lock him up. And then later the Masked Marauder has his entire gang wear Daredevil costumes as a way of diverting DD from the heist that the Marauder is planning. By sheer coincidence I read this volume at the same time as I was reading Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil comics and the idea of people dressing up as Daredevil was a significant plot point there too. I also remembered that this was something that turned up in Frank Miller’s Born Again story arc, when Kingpin got a psycho killer to wear a DD costume to kill Foggy and Karen. Were imposters something Daredevil had a special problem with?

On a final note, when a gang of thugs break into Matt Murdock’s office he tells them that he has “business with Murdock too – and I hate to take sloppy seconds!” Today the expression “sloppy seconds” basically has only one meaning, and it’s one that goes back quite a ways. Though I’m not sure what it would have meant to readers in September 1966, the date of the issue Daredevil uses it in here. Good for a laugh anyway.

Graphicalex

31 thoughts on “Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Volume 2”

  1. I managed not to know about Daredevil and his cohorts and nemeses, but he’s all over the shop now as I keep seeing adverts for it being on Disney TV, ( whatever happened to Snow White et al?). Anyways, my Marvel days are over, so that’s that.

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  2. So how far back does sloppy seconds go? I’d have assumed the 70’s or 80’s with the rise and slide of the sexual revolution.

    It always amused me when other characters would dress up as Hero X. They aren’t the same build or anything, but the costume is what matters 😀

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    • I think I saw somewhere that it had been used as early as the late ’60s. So sexual revolution is probably right.

      When Foggy dresses up as DD people do notice how flabby he seems. And he noticeably looks silly with a biggish belly. But the other guys who dress up as DD aren’t recognized. I think it’s part of superhero comics that you just have to roll with. DD isn’t recognized as Matt Murdock even by people who work with him every day, despite the fact that he’s just wearing a half-mask and talking to them? People don’t recognize Clark Kent is Superman just because he’s not wearing glasses?

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  3. I like that Daredevil is only on the cusp of being a big league Marvel hero who normally gets his ass whupped the moment he steps into the same line as Spider-Man or Wolverine. He’s almost an A-list hero trapped in a B-list comic arc most of the time, but it works terribly well for him. There was a big push for him at the end of the 90’s. I remember him appearing in a special episode of Spider-Man the animated series and he was the star of the show, alas one not to show up again. Then of course we got that Ben Affleck movie after the new millenium started… yikes.

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