Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, Vol. 7

Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil #7

by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Gary Friedrich

The Man Without Fear heads out to the Left Coast in a quest to earn back the love of Miss Karen Page - and L.A.'s never been stranger! A cast of bizarre and action-packed enemies stands between DD and the woman he loves, including Stunt-Master, Brother Brimstone and the Stilt-Man. Back in the Big Apple, Daredevil teams up with the Black Panther, fights Tagak the Leopard Lord, and protects a young boxer under the wing of his father's trainer. Meanwhile, the Tribune attempts to lay his own justice down on the youth movement. And it all leads to a crossover classic as DD joins forces with Iron Man and Nick Fury against Spymaster and the Zodiac! COLLECTING: Daredevil (1964) 64-74, Iron Man (1968) 35-36

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

249 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories collected here aged not much well at all but when I was a kid I loved so much reading them, the DD/Iron Man/Nick Fury team up is a real good one, and Gene Colan is just best Daredevil artist ever.



Last but not least, #69 with T'Challa revealing his identity to Matt (Black Panther discovered Daredevil's secret one in the epic #52) and #77 with the (probably by mistake) one and only blonde Mary Jane Watson ever drawn, make this volume a milestone in Marvel comics history.



'Nuff said.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daredevil was always, to me, one of the more underrated of the Marvel heroes. His silver age stories were some of the best (with the exception of the Elektra saga) with the character being much more involved in the Marvel Universe. Good collection of these comics. Recommended

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some good material here. The crossover with Iron Man is particularly good but more interesting in the context of Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man vol. 7 since this was in a period of predominantly one-off stories company wide at Marvel in 1970, and this crossover has little to do with anything that happened previously in Daredevil and a lot to do with a multi-parter in Iron Man, as is pretty clear hear by beginning with a comatose Jasper Sitwell. Some portions would be more exciting if they weren't one-offs. In the last story, an ordinary crook who is clearly mentally disabled releases a gas that makes the whole city blind, putting the already blind at an advantage (and introduces us to Murdock's opthalmologist, Dr. James Carrington). I liked the heroism of Cindy but am guessing (without checking Fandom) that we don't see any more of her but wish we could have seen the rest of New York's heroes dealing with temporary blindness (explained as the iris muscles contracting and preventing enough light making it to the pupil).

Karen Page going to Hollywood is pretty good, and Stuntmaster going from villain to supporting character is also strong for all Roy Thomas's self-effacing about the character in his introduction.

While Allyn Brodsky's bio notes him wanting to bring more conservatism to left-leaning Marvel comics, Friedrich and Thomas do a skewering of the right with Judge Tribune, whose alter ego is a redneck movie star, thast seems awfully relevant as I read it during Trump's second term, though it might have felt heavy-handed in other political climates.

The colors are notably different in Daredevil vs. Iron Man, with Madame Masque's costume being dark blue here and purple there. I made a closer comparison before returning them to the library. The two volumes are identical from pavges 180 228 with only slight differences in lightness and darkness between the two that are probably printing issues rather than anyhting deliberate, so the discrepancy is surely intrinsic to the original material. These two volumes are nearly simulataneous in the orignal publishing in periodical format, but in book form, this one was several years later. It appears they did not have to go back and do anything, even down to retaining the page numbers. One interesitng difference is that the bio for Gerry Conway in Iron Man calls the Justice League Detroit "fabled," while the more recent bio here says "infamous" along with other changes including identifying his child as a daughter and eliminating the reference to his work on Night Gider for the Topps Kirbyverse.

The fantastical elements in this volume are unusual for Daredevil, possibly influenced by Thomas's love of Dark Shadows The influence of that show over a two-parter here is pretty notable, although the battle at the La Brea Tar Pits is the most memorable part of the story. His previous Dark Shadows tribute with Paxton Page (Karen's father) as Death's Head (in Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil vol. 6 , Daredevil: Brother Take My Hand and Daredevil Omnibus vol. 2 ) was more memorable and better at capturing the feel of the pre-Barnabas version of the show, back to the first episode. Apart from the Brotherhood of Ankh in the Iron Man crossover, the other fantastical element involves characters coming out of the mirror from another dimension, which is kind of cool but oddly mystical for the title. The hero has a seeing-eye leopard to guide him, and it is one of the many points that leads Matt to think about his blindness and his desire for it to be cured, which comes up repeatedly throughout the stories in this volume.

[Elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay volume but with nothing that really sparkles

[Antonella · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

"I know my people Foggy, only my eyes are blind"

Me gustó mucho todo el tema de DD en Hollywood aunque no veía la hora de que vuelva a New York. Los villanos estuvieron bastante bien, mejores que en otras ocasiones. En algunos issues había uno que otro plot twist que estaban muy interesantes, pero finalmente se quedaron en poco y nada. El crossover con Iron Man no estuvo mal, aunque mi atención se la llevo Madame Masque.

Issue #64: 3.5/5
Issue #65: 4/5
Issue #66: 4/5
Issue #67: 3/5
Issue #68: 3/5
Issue #69: 3.5/5
Issue #70: 4/5
Issue #71: 4/5
Issue #72: 3.5/5
Iron Man #35: 3/5
Issue #73: 3/5
Iron Man #36: 3.5/5
Issue #74: 4/5

"Every peal of laughter I hear, each passing heartbeat, becomes her laughter, her heartbeat, until I'm no longer certain I could tell the difference."