Daredevil Villains #16: The Boss
DAREDEVIL #29 (June 1967)
“Unmasked!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: John Tartaglione
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not credited
As Daredevil approached issue #30, Stan Lee was getting downright sluggish when it came to new ideas for villains. Last month was little green men. This month is “the heartless hood they call… the Boss!” The Boss is just a regular old crime boss, with no particular hook. Often characters like this represent Daredevil toying with the sort of stories that will eventually make the book work. Less so in this case.
The issue opens with Matt pondering a dilemma. He’s decided to ask Karen to marry him. No, you didn’t miss an issue. It’s all or nothing with Matt. The dilemma is: should he marry her as Matt, or as Mike? Yes, this sounds like an excellent foundation for a healthy marriage. As Colan draws him, Matt at home looks like a genial English professor, with a nice cardigan and a tweed jacket. For some reason he also has a signed photograph of Karen Page. Seems like an odd gift for Karen to give to a man she believes to be completely blind, but it keeps showing up in later issues.
Meanwhile, we check in on the Masked Marauder’s men. The Marauder died two issues ago, and his men have been waiting patiently for “over a month” for further orders. Finally, they decide that he’s really not coming back, and so they open his last instruction. It tells them to go after Nelson and Murdock, find out who Daredevil is, and then avenge the Marauder’s defeat. The Marauder certainly has a lot of faith in his men to carry out this vague instruction from a man who is, presumably, no longer paying their wages. But follow it they do, heading to the Nelson & Murdock offices in the Marauder’s customised truck that very night.
Wolverine #43 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #43
“Sabretooth War, part 3”
Writers: Victor LaValle & Benjamin Percy
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colour artist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth and Wolverine in their Team X days.
PAGES 2-3. Flashback: Team X on a mission in Nicaragua.
Specifically, Sabretooth, Wolverine and Maverick (the other Team X member who shows up regularly in this book). So far as we can tell at this stage, this is just Sabretooth nostalgically recalling a random mission – with somewhat meta comments about nostalgia, this being a strand of continuity that dates back to the 1990s. The main point is really that Sabretooth looks back on these days fondly, which ties to the idea later that he wants to bring Wolverine back to this sort of persona too. In the next scene, Sabretooth seems to suggest that his team of alt-Creeds is also an attempt to recapture his sense of belonging from these days.
Daredevil Villains #14: The Leap-Frog
We jump forward quite a few issues here. So, just for the record: Issue #19 is more of the Gladiator and the Masked Marauder. Issues #20-21 are an Owl story, in which he kidnaps the judge who sentenced him to jail and forces Matt to defend him in a mock trial before a jury of criminals. It’s a lovely idea, but Stan couldn’t figure out a clever solution, so Daredevil just hits everyone with a stick. Issue #22 is the Tri-Man, but that’s just a robot built by the Masked Marauder. Issue #23 is another Gladiator / Masked Marauder story. Issue #24 is the Plunderer again. And that brings us to…
DAREDEVIL #25 (December 1966)
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Frank Giacoia
Letterer: Art Simek
Colourist: Not credited
The most significant thing in this issue is the new storyline advertised on the cover. “Wow-eeeee!”, Stan proclaims. “Just wait’ll you meet ol’ Matt Murdock’s swingin’ twin brother!” Yes, it’s Mike Murdock, a notorious piece of Silver Age silliness.
Foggy and Karen find a letter which reveals that Matt is Daredevil. When Matt shows up a few minutes later, he improvises wildly, and claims that Daredevil is actually his twin brother Mike. Foggy can’t help remembering that he and Matt lived together for years with no mention of a twin brother. But Matt keeps digging – complete with thought balloons of the “what the hell am I doing” variety – and winds up promising that Karen and Foggy can meet brother Mike.
Dead X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DEAD X-MEN #1
“Earth Intruders”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Jonas Scharf, Bernard Chang & Vincenzo Carratù
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Prodigy, Dazzler, Cannonball and Jubilee emerge from their graves. Not what actually happens in the story, but the whole billing of this series as Dead X-Men turns out to be a bit of a red herring so far as the actual plot is concerned. Poor old Frenzy doesn’t make the cover.
Dead X-Men is a four-issue miniseries, but it seems to be actually relevant to the line-wide storylines, which is why it’s getting annotations here.
PAGES 2-4. The X-Men make an abortive visit to a demonic timeline.
Okay, so.
The Treehouse is the X-Men’s former New York base. It’s not looking very healthy, but then nor is the rest of the city in this timeline.
The X-Men for the purposes of this series are Prodigy, Frenzy, Jubilee, Dazzler and Cannonball – in other words, the five who were voted onto the team in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 and lasted a grand total of one panel before being killed by Nimrod. The other members of the Gala line-up are Synch, Talon and Juggernaut, all of whom survived and are currently appearing over in X-Men. But this is the majority of the rightful X-Men team.
Daredevil Villains #13: The Gladiator
DAREDEVIL #18 (July 1966)
“There Shall Come a Gladiator!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: John Romita
Inker: Frank Giacoia
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not credited
Early Daredevil doesn’t have a large supporting cast. It’s just Foggy Nelson and Karen Page. And the heart of the book is the romantic triangle between Foggy, Karen and Matt.
Today, Karen has been out of the picture for many, many years. She was killed off in the late 1990s. Foggy’s established role for decades now has been the solid, dependable, long-suffering best friend who’s stood by Matt all through the years. And to be fair, that’s basically how he was set up in issue #1.
But in the early Silver Age, Foggy Nelson’s main function is to get in the way of Matt and Karen. Foggy loves Karen. Karen loves Matt, and she’s quite keen on Daredevil too. Matt loves Karen, but thinks she just feels sorry for him because he’s blind. Matt thinks Foggy is better husband material for her, and she’s willing to entertain him as a fallback option.
This role isn’t a promising starting point for Foggy. To make matters worse, he spends a lot of time in the early issues bitching about Daredevil whenever Karen mentions him, or even privately hoping that Matt doesn’t get his sight back, because it’d ruin his chances with Karen. Foggy does at least feel guilty about such things crossing his mind. From time to time he gets to show some decency and integrity. But fundamentally he’s a blocking character, not a supportive rock.
Resurrection of Magneto #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #1
“The Lightning Path”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO is a four-issue miniseries, which effectively replaces X-Men Red. It’s not exactly a renamed X-Men Red arc – as we’ll see, it’s a rather different book – but it does feature Storm and it continues the plot thread of Magneto’s death.
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm, with Magneto in the background.
PAGE 2. Storm’s dream about Magneto.
Storm confirms on page 19 that this is what she sees in her dream, and tells us fairly directly what she singles out as important: “He was standing on a strange shore, readying himself to enter a ruined city – his face turned away but in torment. It was more than a dream. It was a distress call.” She also notes the five helmets at his feet. We see a version of this same page with Storm on page 29.
The city, river and bridge are the same in both images, as are the positions of the helmets (which are replaced in Storm’s version by five versions of her headdress). Magneto has three identical versions of his traditional helmet, together with the less common black and white versions. As in Storm’s picture, the three helmets on the left appear to have pools of blood next to them, although in Magneto’s case, one of the pools is green. All of Storm’s are red.
X-Force #48 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #48
“Game Recognizes Game”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Beast in a forest, leaping towards someone who’s looking at him through the scope of a sniper rifle. Quite a loose interpretation of the actual story.
The first half of this issue is pretty much self explanatory, by the way.
PAGES 2-4. The Beast breaks into the Greenhouse.
X-Force set up their new Greenhouse base last issue, and Beast showed up at the end of the issue with his gun. From the look of it, whatever it is that he fires at Omega Red is meant to incapacitate.
That’s Aurora and Northstar on page 4, who also arrived here last issue.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. We’re expressly told that this comes before the current Wolverine storyline, and also before Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X – all of which was clear from the last issue of Wolverine anyway, but there’s no harm in making it clear in this book too.
Daredevil Villains #12: The Masked Marauder
DAREDEVIL #16-17 (May & June 1966)
“Enter… Spider-Man” / “None Are So Blind”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: John Romita
Inker: Frank Giacoia
Letterers: Artie Simek (#16) & Sam Rosen (#17)
Colourist: not credited
Sixteen issues into the series, Daredevil has had a steady stream of bad guys. But only the Ox has appeared more than once. That changes here, as this two-parter introduces Daredevil’s first recurring enemy. He’s the main villain through to issue #27 – and after that, he never appears in the series again. Meet the Masked Marauder, a villain exactly as generic as he sounds.
When we first meet the Masked Marauder, he’s already an established supervillain. He wears a purple jumpsuit and a green cape, the standard colours of Silver Age villainy in the Marvel Universe. He has a gang of thugs who do all the hard work for him. They wear purple too. He is, as advertised, Masked. If we’re being honest about it, though, he doesn’t do much Marauding. He’s a high-tech master planner, who creates elaborate devices and conceals them in trucks. But the Masked Planner didn’t have the same ring to it.
In this story, the Masked Marauder’s unspectacular nature isn’t such a problem. The real focus is Spider-Man. He and Daredevil don’t get on, they fight, they team up – you know the drill. It’s Spider-Man that the kids want to see, and it’s Spider-Man that they get.
X-Men #30 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #30
“Who Says Romance is Dead?”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Synch and Talon fight the High Evolutionary and his creations.
PAGES 2-4. Scott dreams about Jean.
This somewhat mirrors the dream scene that opens Fall of the House of X #1, in which Scott dreams about being hanged in the American west, and is apparently saved by Jean. Jean, of course, is still off in the White Hot Room, where we left her in Immortal X-Men. But the clear implication is that she’s regained contact with him in some way.
The fire imagery suggests Jean’s renewed connection with the Phoenix Force.
Rise of the Powers of X #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NOTE: This post has been revised now that the digital edition has been corrected to include the data pages at the right places.
RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #1
“Data Pages”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: R. B. Silva
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Associate editor: Lauren Amaro
Editor: Jordan D White
Editor-in-chief: C B Cebulski
THE RISE OF THE POWERS OF X is the companion series to The Fall of the House of X, mirroring the House of X / Power of X twin minis that launched the Krakoan era. And yes, according to the credits pages, the titles have a THE in them.
With the original books, the titles were supposed to be pronounced as “House of X” and “Powers of Ten”. Presumably the same goes for this, but you never know.
COVER / PAGE 1. The near-future X-Men team, of whom more later. They’re surrounded by foliage but in front of a mechanical portal showing what looks to be the sun.
PAGE 2. Recap and credits. The recap basically covers the plot of Immortal X-Men, and then explains that we’re ten years in the future, following the fall of Krakoa. The story title refers to the Krakoan era’s signature device of including text pages in the middle of the story rather than as back matter. It used to be a Jonathan Hickman signature device but it’s ours now.
