Episode 1472 - Spotlight on Daredevil in the Silver Age

Adam_Murdough

Here Comes... a new series of CGS Spotlight episodes devoted to Daredevil, in honor of ol' Hornhead's 50th Anniversary! In our first installment, encapsulating Daredevil's first eight years in comics, we address DD's milestone first appearance, his visual development, his early rogues' gallery, his turbulent non-romance with Karen Page, his frequent interactions with (and conspicuous similarity to) Spider-Man, his long-lost twin brother(??), and everything else that defined Daredevil in the Silver Age. Presented by Murdock Scholar Chris Eberle, Prof. Emeritus of Daredevil Studies Kevin Moyer, and the rest of the CGS University faculty! (2:12:41)

Listen here.

fredzilla

Soooo looking forward to this!

Greg

WOO HOO!

bralinator

Looking forward to this. The only issues I have of Daredevil from the silver age are issues 81, 82, & 83 featuring Black Widow and Barry Windsor Smith layouts. I've also got plenty of appearances of him (some featured below) as well as the excellent Kevin Smith & Joe Quesada Visionaries: Marvel Knights Daredevil series issues 1-8 (tpb). Not much else other than the DVD and the latest Marvel series. I still expect this to be an interesting podcast... as always.

I've always liked DD, but not enough to follow his exploits. Always enjoyed his Spidey appearances though...

And all of the other cool team-ups he got into...

I'll tune in tonight. Thanks guys for continuing the Spotlight tradition. They're generally some of my favorite episodes to listen to.

rebis

fredzilla said:

Soooo looking forward to this!

That's really cool!

rebis

my first experience with Daredevil

Thor_El

bralinator said:

I've always liked DD, but not enough to follow his exploits.

I'm in a similar boat. It wasn't until I met my friend who is a HUGE Daredevil fan that I've been reading. And while I can say I didn't care for the series immediately preceding Waid's current run, I will admit to really be enjoying what's been happening in the current (and recently-ended) series.

I think what excited me most in this episode was the confirmation of a future Thunderbolts Spotlight. As fortune would have it, I just bought the first three volumes of THUNDERBOLTS CLASSIC from InStockTrades, so I'll be all set without having to dig into my long boxes. :D

i_am_scifi

When I was a kid, one of my father's friends gave me a bunch of his hand-me-down comics. Daredevil #20 was one of them (there were two copies for some reason, although one was in much better condition than the other). First appearance of Judge Lewis, and the second appearance of The Owl!

Caliban

So Wally Wood was responsible for two superheroes with Double D chest features?

TheOriginalGMan

Caliban said:

So Wally Wood was responsible for two superheroes with Double D chest features?

Bazinga!

Caliban

TheOriginalGMan said:

Caliban said:

So Wally Wood was responsible for two superheroes with Double D chest features?

Bazinga!

Is the right answer

HannibalKing

Really enjoyed this podcast as DD is a favourite character of which I'm endeavouring to get all the issues of. I have #2 (the original) framed on my wall at home. Little disappointed the guys ran outta time to Deceive and Muddle though. :)

stratofariusbr

Really enjoyed this podcast. I feel like Daredevil is a very important character because he's part of a very exclusive club made up of fictional characters whose disabilities are not their main character traits, but rather part of who they are (I really can't name other characters that aren't Toph from Avatar, for example). I feel like when people think about Daredevil the first thing that comes to their mind is not the fact that he's blind, and that's a sign that Marvel managed to do a great character that is blind, not a blind character.

Hope that wasn't confusing, this is my first comment on the site, heh.

Elsiebub

Nice episode, guys.

I wouldn't say that DD is one of my favorite characters or anything... but he just so happens to have the greatest library of great runs and storylines in comics history besides Batman. I don't particularly like Matt Murdock (he's okay)... but he just seems to attract great stories.

That said, for me it all really begins with Frank Miller, so anything that happens before that is a welcome curiosity for me to learn about. I have read a handful of pre-Miller DDs, but not many. So the references of these first few Spotlight episodes will be mostly all-new to me.

To go over some touchstones that were touched upon:

I think Waid's run started off very, very, very good, but overall it's been trending downhill in my opinion. The first year or so of the title was excellent and refreshing. Since then, eh, it's okay; at times good but at times a bit too drawn-out imo.

Before that, I enjoyed pretty much the entirety of the volume that started with Kevin Smith's new #1. The Bendis run was excellent and the Brubaker run was extremely good as well (though I preferred roughly the first half of each writer's run to the second act of each).

I'm glad you guys mentioned the Karl Kesel run. I remember buying that in the '90s and enjoying it quite a bit. It was something different for the time. Unfortunately I pulled out my back issues a year or two ago and found the writing way too slow and exposition-heavy (and I'm a Claremont apologist). So, I dunno. I want to still like it, but maybe it doesn't hold up. The Cary Nord art still looked good, though.

Can't remember if I tried any of the Joe Kelly issues after that. I might've gotten a few but they didn't make an impression.

A year or so ago I did pick up the original final issue of DD vol. 1, though, #380. Wow what a trainwreck that was. I wasn't sure whether Matt had been mindcontrolled, or if there was an imposter in the suit for half the issue or what. It was just... ridiculous. Almost like a Mark Millar parody. But... still... not unenjoyable.

Thor_El said:

I think what excited me most in this episode was the confirmation of a future Thunderbolts Spotlight.

Ditto. I don't run as hot on it as Murd does, but I've got affection for those early issues and would love to hear in-depth discussion of what happens later on in the series.

Looking forward to that and to the forthcoming DD spotlights.

SolitaireRose

I'm looking forward to this as well, because this series is really where Stan would go completely unhinged with his plotting, and didn't have a strong storyteller to tell him, "no." So we got Mike Murdoch, Stilt Man and all of the other pure goofiness that was held in check by Ditko and Kirby.

I can't say the stuff after Wally Wood was any good, but it sure was a ride...

matchkitJOHN

Looking forward to this episode. My earliest experience with Daredevil is going to my first comic show probably around 78 or 79 and I got a bunch of early Daredevil reader copies for maybe 30-50 cents before DD blew up later.

Kilmarock

This was an excellent episode: informative and entertaining. You guys continue to bring it strong on these spotlight episodes.

Not sure if I have ever read any Silver Age Daredevil but now you've got me thinking about it.

bralinator

Great episode! Looking forward to you guys touching on a few issues that I actually own in the next round :)

Thanks guys.

TheOriginalGMan

FYI: Daredevil 1.5, out this week, has a cameo by "Mike Murdock"

matchkitJOHN

Not that there was anything wrong with the other Spotlights but this was one of the better ones. I think because it was for a character that doesn't get highlight too much on other Top 5 shows. Spidey and the FF gets covered a lot.

I actually liked DD because he was so much like Spidey in terms of his swinging and wisecracking. But I never thought of him as a grown-up Spidey. That makes sense now. He never had a great rogues gallery for me until Bullseye came along. He was definitely a DD villain. I am really looking forward to the future episodes.

alienal

As usual, thanks for the spotlight! This time on DD. He was my cousin's favorite and mine also. Since we often borrowed each other's comics, we also would discuss the stories, the heroes, and the villains whenever we got together. We liked Daredevil better than Spider-man, I think precisely because we knew that most of DD's villains were kind of lame, but the creative teams were able to make them interesting. I give A LOT of credit to Gene Colan for that. To me, his renditions of Leapfrog and Stilt-man, in particular, made the stories seem so realistic! And the story in #56 and 57 with the covered bridges and the "headless horseman" type villain was absolutely chilling!

Hey, DRUNK CAP! Yay! Haha, I was wondering what he thought about his 2nd movie. Sam Wilson as a pimp? That's funny, Cap! But yes, "Snap" Wilson really was a pimp in his backstory before ending up on that Exiles island with Cap and the Red Skull.