I’ve read a lot of vandalized comics in this block. Good job on those eyes, unknown child from the 60s. I bought both these DDs from a guy at Heroes Con 2019. I wonder if I’ll ever feel safe going to a con again. I will choose to hope I do when this posts, a year and a half after I write it. Well, regardless of pandemic woes, Spider-Man is now threatening to throw Foggy out a window to get him to admit he’s Daredevil, and Matt has no idea what to do. I feel like if Spider-Man’s about to accidentally kill your best friend because he thinks your friend is you, maybe you give up the secret identity, but that’s just me.
Romita’s Spider-Man is looking a little more like Romita’s Spider-Man, but still with way more webbing and little eyes.
Aw, Foggy, no. I love that everyone in the office just starts furiously thinking to themselves in silence for awhile. That’s such a comic book thing. Foggy takes Karen home for the day, and Matt says he’s going to finish some paperwork. As soon as they’re gone, he becomes Daredevil, and sets out to swinging around the city, recapping last issue, telling us he thinks Spider-Man has somehow been duped by Masked Marauder, and vowing to go catch MM. Daredevil goes to eavesdrop on the board of World Motors to hear MM didn’t get the plan for fueling the engine. This gives him an idea.
Masked Marauder: Not too bright! The board at World Motors are outraged, knowing JJJ has just guaranteed they’ll be hit again, and listening in, Daredevil is satisfied that things are going in the right direction. He stakes ou the building until sunrise, not knowing MM plans to come the next night, then goes back to the office. So we skip ahead to the next night, as Spider-Man approaches the building to keep it safe. But…
Spider-Man’s about to put DD down for the count in his own book when Masked Marauder and his gang show up… in a blimp. Which says “WORLD MOTORS” on the side to avoid suspicion. Not… exactly working, as the heroes immediately call a ceasefire and focus on the blimp. Spidey takes off to get them, telling DD he better not move if he wants to prove he’s not part of the gang. MM dispatches the 2 guards on the roof as he & his goons disembark, but then Spider-Man is on them.
Jeez, Mantlo even repeated the big twist in this fight later (In TAC 26). Romita pretty cleverly lets Spider-Man do some heroing, then gets him out of the way so DD can face the villain and wrap things up in his own book. Masked Marauder hits DD with his blinding rays, and is shocked when Daredevil keeps coming and belts him one. As he handily defeats his unimpressive foe, Daredevil notes his goons are getting up and trying to flee in the blimp.
And that’s the bizarre, rushed, kind of silly end of that. Poor Daredevil never really had any good villains until Bullseye came along in the 80s, and then Frank Miller snatched Kingpin from Spider-Man. I wonder how Foggy pretending to be DD worked out. The Masked Marauder is back in DD with #19, and a few more times, even, before we saw him in DD 26, years ago on this blog. Then appearances in Iron Man and Werewolf By Night, of all things, are all that happen until that Mantlo TAC run. After that 1979 story, he doesn’t appear in anything until he presumably dies, along with a bunch of other villains, when Punisher blows up a bar with them in it in 2007, only for MM to reappear as a background part of a criminal gang a year later, because that’s how comics got in the 2000s. Continuity became optional. And that’s his whole publishing history. Meanwhile, in the Bullpen Bulletins page, there’s an item of note. I’ve been noticing that every comic talks about stuff out the next month as “on sale now!” in this period. So, even tho ASM 37 and DD 17 are both June cover dated issues, this blurb mentions ASM 38 is on sale “now,” and also says…
Stan still taking credit for Ditko’s plots even after he left could’ve been risky. What if the quality dipped and it became obvious who the real mastermind behind Spider-Man was? Lucky for Stan, Romita was no slouch. Dr. Strange would be picked up by Bill Everett, creator of Namor, and then Marie Severin. It’s interesting to note that Strange was already being scripted by Denny O’Neil even before Ditko left. Stan pretty openly didn’t care much for Strange. Well, with this detour aside, it’s time to race to the finish line of this block. Only 5 issues to go. Only 3 Ditko issues to go.