Daredevil Villains #23: The Torpedo
DAREDEVIL #59 (December 1969)
“The Torpedo Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
Roy Thomas was determined to give Crime-Wave a big build-up before he faced off against Daredevil in person. So not only did Crime-Wave get trailed in a subplot during the Death’s-Head story, but the next two issues are devoted Daredevil fighting Crime-Wave’s underlings. Last issue, we had Stunt-Master, an gimmick character who was an odd fit for Crime-Wave. This time, Thomas plays it straight, and brings us the Torpedo.
Another Torpedo will debut in Daredevil in 1975, and go on to be a supporting player in Rom. That’s a different character entirely. This Torpedo is a one-off costumed hitman. Hence the name “torpedo”, which is just dated slang for a hitman. So at least he fits Crime-Wave’s theme.
In practice, this issue is mainly about building up Crime-Wave for the next issue. It opens with Daredevil dealing with a protection racket, only to find that the store owner is too scared to testify against Crime-Wave. But Willie Lincoln has found Crime-Wave’s secret base and escaped alive. More about that next time. For the moment, the important point is that Willie is going into protective custody to keep him safe from Crime-Wave. You’d have thought they could just raid the address and gather more evidence, but apparently Willie is a devastatingly important witness.
And so Crime-Wave brings in the Torpedo to kill Willie. The Torpedo is a costumed hitman from Los Angeles. You might think from the cover and the title that this issue would be all about the Torpedo; in fact, there’s so much set-up that he doesn’t show up until the final panel of page 13. This is a recurring problem in Daredevil stories of this period; they spend far too long on the opening set-up scene and then visibly run out of pages at the end. This isn’t the most extreme example, but the book still spends more than a quarter of its page count on the opening scene with the protection racket, and it ends with another hyper-compressed epilogue.
Colan’s villain designs can be hit or miss, but the Torpedo is not bad at all. Unusually for the Silver Age, he’s in red and blue primary colours. He’s presented as a kind of gunslinger, with a costume that vaguely echoes a western character, complete with wide-brimmed hat and gun belt, but without being too blatant about it. He looks a bit like a more shadowy version of the Texas Twister. (It’s more obvious on the interior art than it is on the cover.)
Despite his gunslinger motif, the Torpedo’s gun fires knockout gas. Or he can set it to “blast”, whatever that means. To be fair, you can just about rationalise him going for the knockout gas in this story. He’s hiding in Willie’s hotel room; Willie has guards with him; if Torpedo just shoots Willie dead, there’s a fair chance that the guards kill him before he can get away So… okay, with a lot of charity, I’m just about willing to accept that the Torpedo thinks that it’s a better plan to try to gas everyone and then kill Willie later. He’s certainly a Comics Code-friendly hitman.
Naturally, Daredevil comes to the rescue. Torpedo puts up a decent fight – I’m pretty sure he’s also the first character to call Daredevil “Hornhead”, which is some sort of claim to fame. He helpfully explains why he’s called the Torpedo, which is clearly for the benefit of the readers, but Thomas makes it into a character point by playing it as a patronising explanation of something Daredevil already knows.
As the fight makes its way to the roof, we learn that the Torpedo has another gimmick: his hat has a razor-sharp brim and he uses it as a throwing weapon. Now this is a bad idea. Not because it’s an awful idea in isolation, mind you, but because it’s so blatantly ripped off from Odd Job that the dialogue has to acknowledge it. It’s not even topical – by the time this issue came out, Goldfinger was five years old. And the Torpedo only gets to use the hat once, before getting tackled by Willie. Somehow or other, Willie ends up accidentally shoving the Torpedo over the edge of the building, without going over himself. The Torpedo then plummets to his death. And that’s the end of the Torpedo.
Thanks to that wonderful pacing I mentioned earlier, there are two whole panels left to wrap up the story. Willie laments having killed a man. Not to worry, says Daredevil! “In a way, the Torpedo committed suicide when he threw in with Crime-Wave!” Well, it’s certainly a take. Having thus satisfied themselves that the splattery guy on the street is no longer of any concern, Daredevil and Willie end the issue by agreeing that Crime-Wave has to be stopped.
Presumably, Roy Thomas intended Torpedo to be a one-off villain, whose real function was to continue building up Crime-Wave. As it turns out, Torpedo at least had a decent character design and a punchy codename; as a random henchman, he might well have had more staying power than the character he was setting up. But Crime-Wave was the real priority here, and we’ll see next time how that turned out.
“In a way, the Torpedo committed suicide when he threw in with Crime-Wave!”
Too bad they didn’t do a scene where Matt argued that in court.
“The Torpedo Will Get You if You Don’t Watch Out!” — really? The cover copy is better.
“You might think from the cover and the title that this issue would be all about the Torpedo; in fact, there’s so much set-up that he doesn’t show up until the final panel of page 13. This is a recurring problem in Daredevil stories of this period; they spend far too long on the opening set-up scene and then visibly run out of pages at the end. This isn’t the most extreme example, but the book still spends more than a quarter of its page count on the opening scene with the protection racket, and it ends with another hyper-compressed epilogue.”
Yep that’s the Colan special, he was notorious for having wonky pacing. Leisurely pacing with lots of atmosphere with huge panels that need to be wrapped up in a page or two. There is a Captain America Tales of Suspense story where every page has maybe 4 panels expect the last with has 12 to jam in an ending.
@Thom H. I … guess it’s riffing on the 1885 poem “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley (only tangentally related to the comic strip) in which Annie warns that “the Gobble-uns’ll git you, ef you don’t watch out!”
Why it’s riffing on that is another question entirely.
There was an episode of “Nanny And The Professor” with a title that made the same reference.
Why was “Daredevil” doing it? Roy Thomas.
I can imagine Crime-Wave sitting there at his desk or poker table or whatever.
“We have to shut that witness up. Send … the motorcycle enthusiast.”
“Uh boss, he’s out of action, remember?”
“Damn it, I suppose I’ll just have to use the professional killer from out of state.”
Just a small correction: the 1970s will see two different Torpedos appear in this book in short order, both unconnected to this one.
The second Torpedo is a relative of Senator Stivak a.k.a. Kligger of the Corporation. He dies very soon after being introduced, and Brock Jones inherits his costume and name. It is him who will go on to fight Daredevil once or twice before becoming a Rom character.
@Daibhid C: Interesting. I like the title better when I sing-song it in that cadence, so that’s helpful. I agree that it still doesn’t make sense as a reference in this comic. But maybe the answer is just “the ’60s”?
I have a weirdly vivid memory of the later Torpedo from the OHOTMU Book of the Dead. I had a morbid fascination with that issue. It was full of characters I mostly didn’t know and their sad stories. I liked Torpedo’s costume.
I liked Torpedo’s costume as well. But I can’t help but remember that no less than three of its users died as a consequence of deciding to use it…
Thom-Five words for you: “They Shoot Hulks, Don’t They?” (Incredible Hulk #142)
It was a common occurrence during the Silver and Bronze Ages for Marvel titles to feature literary allusions. While that Hulk issue was also by Roy the Boy, it wasn’t just him or Stan the Man who did it.
“Yep that’s the Colan special”
Sort of like a manga artist born in the wrong country when it comes to the pacing he’d obviously rather be working at.
“I have a weirdly vivid memory of the later Torpedo from the OHOTMU Book of the Dead. I had a morbid fascination with that issue. It was full of characters I mostly didn’t know and their sad stories.”
Best description of an Official Handbook “Dead or Inactive” issue ever.
There’s also a Little Rascals short where a girl sings a song with the line “Love is gonna get you if you don’t watch out” to someone, and a 1939 copyright for a song with that as the title.
X-Men!