LATE TO THE PARTY in the mid-1960s was the final addition to Stan Lee's classic superhero lineup, Daredevil. And with this one, Stan took his concept of "a hero with a flaw" even further and gave Matthew Murdock a disability: he made him blind. I've mentioned in an earlier entry in this blog that in 1965 I marvelled at the idea of a blind superhero . Maybe because losing one's sight is one of our great primal fears - often the cover subject of the more extreme 1950s horror comics - and certainly something that scared me silly when I was a kid. Perhaps because of that, that issue of Daredevil , where he battles the Matador, made quite an impression on my ten year old self. Nowhere on the cover does it mention Daredevil's Unique Selling Point. However, Stan does mention that the interior art is by Wally Wood. Is this the first time Stan cover credited an artist? Though I'm quite sure that Daredevil 5 (Dec 1964) was the first issue of that title I saw, I do...
BY THE BEGINNING OF 1968 , I was a confirmed Marvelite. I devoured every word Stan Lee wrote and had only contempt for the offerings of DC Comics, especially given the bad taste the Batman TV show had left. But as I approached my fourteenth birthday, some NEW comics appeared in the newsagents that caught my attention. And incredibly, they were DCs. As noted in an earlier blog entry, I had been a big fan of Steve Ditko's version of Spider-Man and had been hugely disappointed when he left the title and Marvel. At the time, I wasn't aware of his work at Charlton Comics on Captain Atom , though I do remember seeing reprints of some of those stories in Alan Class' British black and white reprint comics. So when I came across a copy of Showcase 73 (Apr 1968) in a local newsagent, with the instantly recognisable Ditko cover, I plonked down my shilling without a moment's hesitation. The first appearance of The Creeper in Showcase 73 (Apr 1968) marked the return of Steve Dit...