OMU: Daredevil -- Year Two

After coming a bit late to the party, Daredevil wasted no time establishing himself as a fully integrated member of the Marvel Universe, thanks largely to his frequent interactions with Spider-Man. He was perhaps less fortunate than everybody’s favorite web-slinger in his roster of villains, which grew slowly and generally failed to impress. Mister Fear, Stilt-Man, and the Gladiator had some staying power but hardly qualified as world-class menaces. The Masked Marauder and the Owl were standard-issue diabolical masterminds. The Purple Man had some interesting potential, but nothing ever really came of it. This may be why the book soldiered on for years as a second-tier title, even after gaining Gene Colan as its regular penciler. Colan’s mastery of moody shadows gave the book a noir-ish atmosphere that was compelling, but by then the die had been cast.

The next twelve months in the life of Matt Murdock are interesting in that, for the bulk of that time, being Daredevil is clearly not his number one priority. Instead, he and his partner, Foggy Nelson, are building their fledgling law firm’s reputation by focusing on each man’s strengths. Matt is a whiz in the courtroom, where he practically has juries eating out of the palm of his hand. Foggy, in contrast, is far from glamorous but obviously has a genius for legal research and writing and is primarily responsible for the firm’s success. His hard work and dedication makes Matt’s second career as Daredevil possible.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.

Here comes... The True History of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear!

January 1963 – Matt Murdock and Franklin “Foggy” Nelson continue to build their new law practice, assisted by their sole employee, secretary Karen Page. Foggy makes a concerted effort to win back the Fantastic Four as clients after Matt’s failure last month. Finally, Mister Fantastic decides to give the firm another chance, and Foggy makes sure the FF are not disappointed again. Busy making a name for himself in the courtroom, Matt appears as Daredevil only infrequently through the rest of the winter.

Matt accompanies Foggy and Karen to a circus where Spider-Man is scheduled to appear. However, when both the audience and Spider-Man are put into a trance by the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime, Matt changes into his yellow-and-red Daredevil costume and goes into action. Daredevil fights the hypnotized Spider-Man for several minutes before managing to free him from his trance. Then, as the enraged wall-crawler makes short work of the crooked circus performers, Matt changes back into his civilian guise and takes his seat in the grandstand. After Spider-Man releases the audience from their hypnotic state, Matt offers his business card to the captured Ringmaster, knowing he’ll need a good defense attorney.

A few days later, though, Matt is shocked by reports of Spider-Man’s cowardice while fighting the Green Goblin at a New York supper club and can scarcely believe it when the web-spinner further humiliates himself by fleeing from the Sandman down a crowded street. Matt is relieved when Spider-Man finally redeems himself by rescuing the Human Torch from the Sandman and the Enforcers.

February 1963 – Matt focuses on his work as an attorney and tries to get up the nerve to ask Karen on a date. He remains unconvinced that she is truly attracted to him, due to his blindness. The reputation of Nelson & Murdock, Attorneys-at-Law continues to grow by leaps and bounds as Matt’s hypersenses give him a distinct advantage over other lawyers. In the evenings, Matt begins to work on redesigning his Daredevil costume and modifying his billy club weapon.

March 1963 – Matt agrees to defend Zebediah Killgrave, known as the Purple Man due to his bizarre skin coloration. However, Killgrave possesses the ability to make people obey his every command and simply walks out of jail. Killgrave kidnaps Karen and turns the bystanders on the street into a bloodthirsty mob when Daredevil tries to recapture him. A little while later, Daredevil tracks Killgrave to the Plaza Hotel, where he goads his overconfident foe into making a full confession, then captures him within plastic sheeting that inhibits his pheromone-like powers. Daredevil’s public victory is widely celebrated in the media. However, Matt is preoccupied with his suspicions that Foggy has also fallen in love with Karen.

The fickle public quickly turns against Daredevil when he is beaten by a dashing masked thief called the Matador. Matt draws the Matador into a rematch by publicly claiming that the Matador is just Daredevil in a different costume and the “Daredevil” who was so easily defeated must have been a patsy hired to wear the yellow-and-red costume. Sure enough, the prideful Matador breaks into the law office to punish Murdock, only to find Daredevil waiting for him. As they battle, Daredevil leads the Matador out onto the lower rooftops of the city, in full view of hundreds of onlookers. This time, Daredevil scores a decisive victory and is cheered on by the bystanders. Though Daredevil’s good name has been restored, Foggy frets about their law firm’s reputation in light of Matt’s cockamamie theory being debunked.

April 1963 – Daredevil tries to stop a heist being committed by the Ox, the Eel, and their leader, a ghoulish figure called Mister Fear. However, Daredevil unaccountably panics and abandons the fight. The next morning, Daredevil is excoriated in the media for his cowardice, and unsure of what happened, Matt is reluctant to act as Daredevil for a few days. When he stumbles upon Mister Fear’s hideout, Matt goes back to investigate as Daredevil and fights with the three crooks again. Unfortunately, Foggy blunders in and is seriously injured while DD is having another panic attack. He soon realizes that Mister Fear is using a strange chemical gas to induce panic in his victims and relieves the villain of his “fear gun” to even the odds. After a pretty intense brawl, Daredevil manages to knock out the Ox and the Eel. Mister Fear surrenders, afraid of getting punched in the face. Daredevil’s reputation is salvaged once again, and Foggy is soon released from the hospital.

May 1963 – Nelson & Murdock are hired by Prince Namor of Atlantis, a.k.a. the Sub-Mariner, who is intent on suing the entire human race. When Matt and Foggy convince him that there’s no legal basis for such a suit, Namor decides to get his day in court through more violent means. Matt dons his brand-new all-red Daredevil costume and sets off to stop the Sub-Mariner’s one-man rampage through New York City. Daredevil proves to be no match for Namor, though, and is easily defeated. Still, Namor allows himself to be taken into custody. Two days later, Namor loses patience with the criminal justice system and decides to return to Atlantis to stop a military coup he has learned of. Daredevil tries to stop him a second time and is equally unsuccessful. Ultimately, Matt and Foggy decide it’s just as well they’re rid of the Sub-Mariner.

Daredevil comes to the aid of the Fantastic Four when they have lost their powers and their headquarters has been taken over by Doctor Doom. Daredevil faces the armored arch-villain alone to give the FF time to reach Mister Fantastic’s laboratory so they can regain their powers. Doom nearly crushes Daredevil’s wrists before the Fantastic Four arrive and drive him off. With a shudder, Daredevil perceives Ben Grimm’s transformation back into the Thing. As her teammates go after Doctor Doom, the Invisible Girl gives Daredevil some first aid before he heads home to recover.

Daredevil attempts to capture a high-tech robber called Stilt-Man, who uses a pair of hydraulic lifts to steal from high-rise buildings. He is frustrated when Stilt-Man manages to escape after multiple encounters but begins to suspect that the hydraulic system the crook uses is the basis for one of the lawsuits he’s working on, brought by an engineer named Wilbur Day against his employer, Carl Kaxton. Matt initially suspects Kaxton of being Stilt-Man but soon learns that it is, in fact, Day, who is merely trying to cover up his criminal activities. Daredevil then battles Day when he tries to steal a shrinking ray that Kaxton has developed. An errant blast bathes Day in the eerie energies, and Daredevil can only stand by helplessly as Stilt-Man is reduced to microscopic size.

Karen pesters Matt to look into an experimental eye surgery that might restore his sight. This leads him to Lichtenbad, a tiny independent dukedom in Central Europe, the ruler of which, Klaus Kruger, was a classmate of Matt and Foggy’s during their last year at Columbia Law School. Once there, Matt learns that Kruger is a cruel dictator, and the surgeon, Dr. Van Eyck, is only one of many world-class experts Kruger has kidnapped. Daredevil goes into action, freeing Kruger’s prisoners and inspiring the underground resistance movement. A full-scale political revolt breaks out as Daredevil battles Kruger on his castle’s ramparts. The fight ends when Kruger falls over the edge of a parapet and plummets to his death. Daredevil then discovers that Dr. Van Eyck has sacrificed his own life to deactivate Kruger’s doomsday weapon. Matt returns to New York and tells Karen that Van Eyck died before he could perform the operation.

While arguing a case in court, Matt is momentarily distracted when his hypersenses detect a wave of telepathic energy sweeping over New York City. The trial then continues normally.

June 1963 – Matt, Foggy, and Karen are invited to the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm at the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building headquarters. Among the guests they meet industrialist Tony Stark, the noted geneticist Charles Xavier, the mystic Stephen Strange, and the blind sculptress Alicia Masters. They are also introduced to the mysterious X-Men: Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, and the Beast. When a number of super-villains stage an attack on the building, Matt becomes Daredevil to lend a hand. Outside the building, Daredevil stops a squad of HYDRA shock troops from blowing up the Baxter Building with a truck-bomb. Despite being attacked by the Black Knight on his flying horse, Daredevil manages to drive the truck into the East River. There, the bomb explodes, driving away Attuma and his horde of undersea barbarians. Daredevil makes his way back to the Baxter Building to find Mister Fantastic activating a strange device that causes all the super-villains to disappear into a time vortex. After meeting Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch, Daredevil goes off and becomes Matt Murdock again. Meeting up with Foggy and Karen, he enjoys the rest of the day’s festivities.

July 1963 – Towards the end of the month, Matt is surprised when Foggy announces that he’s been asked to run for Manhattan district attorney as a third-party candidate. The New York criminal justice system has been in disarray following the sudden resignation of the previous D.A. in the face of constant threats from super-villains, so a special election is being held. Despite his youth and relative inexperience, Foggy has clearly impressed the leadership of the Reform Party, so Matt is supportive. They attend a gala fundraiser aboard the yacht of Abner Jonas, who was the Reform Party’s candidate in the last mayoral election. There, Foggy is reintroduced to his junior-high sweetheart, Debbie Harris. After dark, Matt saves Jonas from an assassination attempt by a Frog-Man who is working for someone called the Organizer. Despite becoming Daredevil, Matt fails to capture the assassin. Over the next three days, Daredevil battles a Bird-Man and a Cat-Man who commit further crimes against the Reform Party, though they also escape. However, Daredevil captures Cat-Man when they kidnap Debbie Harris from a Reform Party fundraiser. Soon after, outside police headquarters, Daredevil stops an Ape-Man from lobbing a hand grenade through the window of the room where Cat-Man is being interrogated. Feigning defeat, Daredevil trails Ape-Man back to his hideout and discovers that Debbie’s kidnapping was staged; she’s in league with the Organizer. Nevertheless, Daredevil rescues Debbie to prevent the conspirators from manipulating Foggy. After Cat-Man tells the police the Organizer is trying to use the Reform Party to take over the city government, Matt argues that Foggy should withdraw from the race, though he is reluctant to reveal Debbie’s duplicity. Once Foggy is convinced that the Reform Party is crooked, Daredevil tracks down Debbie, who now fears the Organizer will have her killed. She agrees to help Daredevil infiltrate the Organizer’s headquarters. After a savage battle, Daredevil defeats the animal-themed henchmen and unmasks the Organizer as Abner Jonas. The Reform Party is discredited, and Foggy’s hopes of being the new district attorney are dashed. Furthermore, Foggy is depressed that Debbie was just using him, even though she’s agreed to testify against Jonas.

Matt convinces himself that Karen loves Foggy and decides not to stand in the way of their relationship. He announces that he’s resigning from the firm to travel the world. Both Karen and Foggy are upset by his decision and try to talk him out of it, but Matt remains resolute. After leaving the office, Matt books an ocean cruise to help him get over Karen and figure out what to do with his life. However, a few days into the voyage, the luxury liner is attacked by the notorious pirate known as the Plunderer. Matt changes into Daredevil to fight off the band of freebooters but is forced to surrender to keep the ocean liner’s crew from being made to walk the plank. When he is finished with the ship, the Plunderer compels Daredevil to join his pirate crew. Daredevil is astonished to discover that the Plunderer’s apparently wooden sailing ship is actually a high-tech, heavily armored dreadnought capable of converting into a submarine. As they set a course heading due south, Daredevil learns that his captor is really an English lord named Parnival Plunder and that their destination is a mysterious place known as Skull Island at the bottom of the world.

August 1963 – Daredevil spends the entire month a prisoner aboard the Plunderer’s submarine as they make their way stealthily towards Antarctica.

September 1963 – After about five weeks, the Plunderer’s submarine finally reaches Skull Island, which turns out to be located in the Savage Land. Once ashore, they are attacked by a savage called Ka-Zar and his massive sabretooth tiger. Ka-Zar quickly knocks out Daredevil with a blow to the head. When he revives moments later, Daredevil finds his radar sense is gone. The pirates’ cache of weapons is exploding, and Daredevil soon blacks out again when a piece of shrapnel tears through his arm. Sometime later, Daredevil wakes up in a cave, being menaced by some sort of primitive ape-man. He attempts to fight the creature off, but the injury to his arm and the loss of his radar sense make it difficult for Daredevil to either fight or escape. He is finally rescued by the Plunderer and his pirates, who assume DD went blind during the explosions earlier. The pirates soon capture Ka-Zar, who is revealed to be the Plunderer’s long-lost brother. Ka-Zar throws a bunch of berries at Daredevil, indicating that he should eat them at once. As he does so, Daredevil is amazed that his hypersenses quickly return and the pain in his arm fades away. He decides not to let on to the pirates that he has recovered, still hoping to learn what the Plunderer is trying to achieve and why he has gone to such lengths to get Ka-Zar’s half of a broken medallion. The pirates load the captive Ka-Zar onto the submarine, and Daredevil follows them aboard. He spends the rest of the month playing the helpless blind man aboard the Plunderer’s ship as they traverse the length of the Atlantic Ocean, heading north.

October 1963 – About five weeks later, the Plunderer’s submarine reaches a lonely castle on the coast of England, where Daredevil joins the pirate crew for a banquet to celebrate their successful voyage. Later that night, the Plunderer forces Daredevil to fight Ka-Zar for possession of the broken medallion. The villain reveals that the medallion is the key to the vault containing their father’s samples of Antarctic vibranium, a very dangerous substance. However, Daredevil skillfully maneuvers Ka-Zar into the right position so he can use him as a springboard to attack the Plunderer. No sooner is their foe unconscious than Daredevil and Ka-Zar are confronted by two of his underlings, Slagg the pirate and the butler, Feepers, who each want the medallion—and the treasure—for himself. Feepers shoots Slagg dead, but Daredevil and Ka-Zar quickly knock the butler out and escape into the English countryside. Their progress is halted by a sniper, whom Daredevil tails back to the castle. Hidden from sight, Daredevil observes as the Plunderer kills both Feepers and the sniper and finally unites the two halves of the medallion. Daredevil tries to stop the Plunderer from reaching the cache of vibranium but must flee when the police arrive, for “Lord Plunder” has framed Daredevil and Ka-Zar for the murders. Getting away aboard a moving train, Daredevil stops at the next station to send a telegram to Foggy Nelson, asking him to come to England to help defend Ka-Zar in court. He then doubles back to the castle to infiltrate the Plunderer’s pirate band as they ship off on their first campaign of conquest using the vibranium-powered weapon the Plunderer has created.

Three days later, the Plunderer’s gang attacks Thule Air Base in Greenland. With the Plunderer’s weapon capable of disintegrating all the military’s metal hardware, the pirates easily capture the base. However, Daredevil reveals himself and defeats the Plunderer in single combat. When their leader falls, the pirates all surrender. Under interrogation, the Plunderer makes a full confession, confirming that the murder charges against Daredevil and Ka-Zar are false. The base’s grateful commanding officer arranges for Daredevil to be flown back to London. Once there, Matt catches up with Foggy and Karen, who are relieved to find he is still alive after disappearing from the luxury liner back in July. Foggy convinces Matt to return to their law practice, and after Ka-Zar is released from custody, the three friends return to the United States.

Back in New York City, Daredevil tries to track down the Ox after the criminal escapes from jail with his cellmate, Karl Stragg. He finds the Ox menacing Karen outside her apartment building and is confused that his foe seems much more intelligent than he was a few months ago. Unfortunately, the Ox overpowers Daredevil, but DD catches up to him later on a rootop helipad and prevents him from escaping in a helicopter. They fight again, and the Ox becomes increasingly reckless as his rage grows, until he accidentally throws himself off the roof. The Ox is killed instantly when he hits the sidewalk. Returning to the law office, Matt learns that Stragg helped Karen escape from the Ox’s hideout.

Daredevil and Spider-Man are tricked into fighting each other by a criminal mastermind calling himself the Masked Marauder, who steals an experimental auto engine while the two heroes are keeping each other busy. The next day, Spider-Man smashes into the offices of Nelson & Murdock, claiming to know that Foggy is really Daredevil. After the web-slinger has left, Matt realizes that Foggy is trying to make Karen think that Spider-Man’s accusation is true. He worries that Foggy is playing a dangerous game and could end up making himself a target for underworld retribution. Later, Daredevil convinces Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to announce that the Masked Marauder (and his accomplice Spider-Man) failed to steal the special fuel formula the engine requires. When the Masked Marauder and his gang return to the scene of the crime, Daredevil and Spider-Man are waiting. Though the gang is apprehended, the Masked Marauder escapes capture. Daredevil goes out of his way to defend Spider-Man’s reputation, to make up for the bad press he caused him.

November 1963 – Foggy continues trying to convince Karen that he is secretly Daredevil, much to Matt’s annoyance. When Matt learns that Foggy has procured a Daredevil costume for himself, he knows his partner is going to get himself into trouble. Thus, Daredevil tails Foggy and Karen on a dinner date that takes them to a secluded area of the waterfront. Sure enough, a costumed villain calling himself the Gladiator, obviously hired by Foggy, challenges him to battle. Foggy gets into his Daredevil get-up and goes to defend Karen. However, DD is forced to intervene when the unstable Gladiator knocks Foggy out and tries to rape Karen. Though Daredevil manages to defeat the Gladiator, the costumed Foggy takes all the credit when the police arrive. The next morning, the Daily Bugle carries the Gladiator’s claims that Franklin Nelson is really Daredevil. Matt spends the rest of the day trying to keep Foggy from being gunned down by revenge-seeking gangsters. The news quickly spreads that the Gladiator’s claims were false. Unfortunately, the Gladiator escapes from jail and disappears.

Daredevil receives a summons from the Avengers and stops at Avengers Mansion to meet with the team. Present are Goliath, Wasp, Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, and Iron Man. They ask Daredevil for his assessment of Spider-Man, as they are considering making the wall-crawler a member of the team. Daredevil tells them about his battles alongside Spider-Man against the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime, and more recently, the Masked Marauder. He is happy to give Spider-Man his highest recommendation. The Avengers thank DD for his help, and he departs.

Matt is kidnapped and taken to an ancient castle on a remote island in the North Atlantic Ocean. Upon entering, he discovers that his captor is none other than Leland Owlsley, the rogue Wall Street financier and crime-boss known as the Owl. Owlsley has also kidnapped retired Judge Lewis, who sentenced him to prison after Daredevil captured him last December, and wants Murdock to defend Lewis in a mock trial before the Owl has him killed. With no choice, Matt agrees to play along, hoping to beat the Owl at his own game. Matt skillfully manipulates the Owl into giving him a chance to change into Daredevil. Unfortunately, despite putting up a valiant fight against the Owl’s gun-toting goons, Daredevil is captured in one of his foe’s booby-trap bird cages. Luckily, Daredevil escapes to continue the battle, but the island’s volcano erupts, causing the castle to crumble. As the criminals flee for their lives, Daredevil leaps aboard the villain’s giant robot owl, rescues Judge Lewis, and flies back to the mainland. After a rough landing on Long Island, Daredevil searches for the Owl, without success.

Returning to his law office, Matt learns that they have been appointed by the court to defend the criminal known as the Rhino, with whom Foggy has already attempted to meet. However, the Rhino has escaped custody and is at large in the city. Matt considers going after the Rhino as Daredevil, but Spider-Man beats him to it. Spider-Man dissolves the crook’s Rhino costume, rendering him relatively harmless. The Rhino is returned to prison, and Nelson & Murdock agree to represent him.

Daredevil answers the challenge of a powerful android to a fight at Madison Square Garden, to prevent the artificial being from destroying the building. Before a crowd of thousands, Daredevil battles his inhuman foe, and they cheer him on to victory. As soon as the fight is won, however, Daredevil finds himself teleported to the hidden lair of the Masked Marauder and the Gladiator, who have teamed up against him. Daredevil learns that the android had been imbued with the abilities of three notorious criminals: a safecracker called the Dancer, an over-the-hill professional wrestler known as the Mangler, and an underworld strategist nicknamed the Brain. Daredevil quickly defeats the three of them and turns his attention to the Gladiator. Suddenly, the Masked Marauder activates his teleportation device again, sending Daredevil and the Gladiator to a mock-up of the Roman Coliseum on an abandoned movie set in Europe. There they fight for the entertainment of ranking members of the Maggia, the international crime cartel. However, the Gladiator calls off the fight when Daredevil saves him from an escaped lion. Impressed with Daredevil’s fighting skills, the criminals decide to let him leave in peace.

Unfortunately, Daredevil finds himself in northern Italy with no money, passport, or civilian clothes. A chance encounter with a group of armed brigands engaged in a guerilla war against their government provides Daredevil with transportation—he commandeers a fighter jet they’ve stolen and flies it to England. Once there, he discovers that Ka-Zar has been accused of being a serial killer the papers have dubbed the “Midnight Stalker.” They team up to prove that Ka-Zar has again been framed by his brother, the Plunderer. The villain is recaptured and sent back to prison. In gratitude, Ka-Zar offers to pay Daredevil’s way back to New York.

Before leaving London, Matt is shocked to learn that President John F. Kennedy has been assassinated while visiting Dallas, Texas. He considers volunteering his services to the investigation, confident that with his hypersenses he could act as a human lie-detector. Matt weighs the pros and cons of getting involved on the long flight across the Atlantic.

When Matt disembarks from his plane at the airport in New York, he is accosted by a man calling himself Leap-Frog, who is bounding around on spring-loaded boots. Leap-Frog evades the police and gets away, but Matt is too eager to get back to the office and decides not to pursue him. However, when he arrives, Karen and Foggy confront him with a letter from Spider-Man, in which the web-slinger claims to know that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Feeling backed into a corner, Matt hastily explains that he has a twin brother named Mike, and Mike is really Daredevil. Foggy is incredulous, since Matt never mentioned having a twin brother all through college. Matt claims that Mike was the black sheep of the family and he never mentioned him because he was a bit ashamed of having a disreputable, wild adventurer for a brother. Foggy demands to meet this “Mike” Murdock, so Matt agrees to arrange a meeting soon.

While patrolling the city that night, trying to figure out what to do about this “twin brother” business, Daredevil finds Leap-Frog robbing a jewelry store, though the crook is now wearing an outlandish frog costume. Suffering from jet-lag, Daredevil fails to prevent Leap-Frog from escaping. The next morning, Matt dons some loud clothes and a pair of stylish sunglasses and is waiting for Foggy and Karen when they arrive at the office. Claiming to be “Mike” Murdock, he assumes an obnoxious, abrasive personality, flirts with Karen, and teases Foggy. He hurries out when a radio bulletin announces that Leap-Frog has just robbed a bank. Daredevil soon catches up to Leap-Frog in Central Park and defeats him. He returns to the office as Matt Murdock to see if Foggy and Karen were fooled and is relieved that they bought it. Later, Nelson & Murdock are hired to defend Leap-Frog in court.

December 1963 – Over the next few weeks, Matt continues to make appearances as “Mike” Murdock to keep Foggy and Karen thinking that Daredevil is his twin brother. In one such instance, he attends Leap-Frog’s arraignment, thus allowing Foggy a chance to do a high-profile court case. The proceedings are disrupted when Leap-Frog makes an escape attempt, but he breaks his leg and is recaptured. While chasing Leap-Frog, Daredevil encounters Stilt-Man, who has been restored to his normal size. Though Daredevil manages to topple Stilt-Man into an alleyway, the villain seems to disappear without a trace. DD spends the rest of the day searching for Stilt-Man without success, though he does run into Spider-Man. Daredevil decides not to mention the letter Spidey sent to Matt Murdock, hoping that will cause the wall-crawler to doubt his conclusions.

The next day, Matt, Foggy, and Karen are kidnapped by Stilt-Man and held prisoner aboard the Masked Marauder’s armored helicopter. The villains are convinced that the three of them know Daredevil’s true identity and threaten to kill them unless they reveal it. Karen and Foggy are shocked when Matt immediately gives up “Mike” as Daredevil. Triumphant, the Masked Marauder drops off Stilt-Man so he can hunt down Murdock’s twin. Karen is horrified that Matt would betray his own brother. Then, the Marauder announces that instead of freeing his captives, he’s just going to kill them by throwing them out of the helicopter. And since Murdock cooperated, the Marauder says he can die first. However, under cover of darkness, Matt hooks his legs around the landing struts, changes into Daredevil, then swings back in and attacks the Marauder. Daredevil suddenly recognizes that the Masked Marauder is really their building manager, Frank Farnum. He unnerves the Marauder by calling him by his real name, causing the villain to take drastic measures. Farnum activates a disintegration field around the helicopter, to make it easier to kill Daredevil. As they fight, though, Foggy messes with the force field control panel, trying to deactivate it. The helicopter lurches and Farnum stumbles through the open door, vanishing into the energy field outside. Foggy takes the controls as Daredevil explains that he saved Matt before attacking the Marauder. Just then, Stilt-Man returns and is just about to shoot Daredevil when his armor’s power supply shorts out. His stilts retract and he lands in the river, knocked out by the impact. Foggy radios the harbor patrol to pick up Stilt-Man before finding a place to land the helicopter.

Following this incident, Matt finds himself a pariah around the office, since both Karen and Foggy think he would betray his own brother to save himself. As a result, he spends more and more time hanging around as “Mike,” since Karen clearly enjoys their flirty banter. However, he gradually realizes that this whole “secret identity” problem is starting to get out of hand.

Notes:

January 1963 – Daredevil meets Spider-Man at the circus in Amazing Spider-Man #16. DD is then seen reacting to Spidey’s cowardly actions two issues later.

March 1963 – Daredevil’s adventures continue in Daredevil #4 and following.

May 1963 – Daredevil’s iconic all-red costume debuts in Daredevil #7, redesigned by Wallace Wood. Incidentally, DD makes a brief cameo while searching for the Sub-Mariner in Journey Into Mystery #116. Daredevil then helps the Fantastic Four survive Doctor Doom’s attack in Fantastic Four #39–40. Matt Murdock has another cameo appearance in Uncanny X-Men #13.

June 1963 – Daredevil helps out the Fantastic Four again on Reed and Sue’s wedding day in Fantastic Four Annual #3. Of all the assembled villains, Daredevil has previously encountered Electro and the Eel. Mister Fantastic specifically states that Nelson & Murdock are his team’s attorneys.

July 1963 – Why New York County is looking for a new district attorney is not explained in the story, so I speculate that it has to do with the ever-growing crowd of super-villains the criminal justice system is trying to deal with. I believe this would make an interesting Untold Tale of the Original Marvel Universe.

August 1963 – Daredevil is aboard the Plunderer’s submarine somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean when Galactus arrives on Earth and so misses the entire event.

October 1963 – Thule Air Base in Greenland is not named specifically in Daredevil #14, but it seems the most likely candidate, even though it is about 3,000 miles from the west coast of Britain. When Daredevil realizes the pirates’ weapons are all made of plastic, he warns the approaching fleet that the Plunderer’s vibranium weapon is effective only on metal weapons. It is quite possible that the American military has already developed plastic weapons at this point, in response to Magneto’s attack on Cape Canaveral one year ago. In Daredevil #15, Karl Stragg does the mind-transference mambo with the Ox. When the Ox’s body dies at the end of the story, his mind lives on in Stragg’s puny body.

November 1963 – Daredevil gives Spider-Man a character reference for the Avengers in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3. While Matt is busy with the Owl, Foggy is seen trying to meet with the Rhino in Amazing Spider-Man #42. Matt and Foggy discuss the Rhino situation in the next issue of that title. The maximum range of a fighter jet in the early 1960s was about 700 miles, which is why I speculate that Daredevil found himself in northern Italy at the beginning of Daredevil #24. Plus, this is the Maggia’s home turf and a likely place to film a movie involving Ancient Rome. I find it highly unlikely that Ka-Zar would have had Zabu shipped all the way from the Savage Land to England at this point in time. Since he is not necessary to the story, I maintain that Zabu was not actually present during these events. Naturally, the Kennedy assassination is not mentioned in the original story, but it falls at this point in the timeline.

December 1963 – This brings us up to Daredevil #27. Foggy actually succeeds in deactivating the disintegration field, allowing the Masked Marauder to teleport himself to safety.

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