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Daredevil is a fictional character, an American comic book superhero that starred in popular comics from Lev Gleason Publications during the 1930s-1940s period historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books. The character is a separate and unrelated entity from Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Although the original Daredevil ceased to appear in original stories by the end of the decade, the character nonetheless had an enduring impact on generations of comics creators influenced by the gritty, anything-goes storytelling of its most prominent writer-artist, Charles Biro.
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Publication history
This original Daredevil was created by Jack Binder for an eight-page backup feature in Lev Gleason Publications' Silver Streak #6 (Sept. 1940). Editor Jack Cole, who would create the classic Plastic Man a year later, revamped the character in the next issue and pitted him against Silver Streak's lead character, the villainous Claw, for a five-issue battle that made Daredevil a star. The final installment was written by Don Rico, who would write the character through Silver Streak #17 (Dec. 1941).
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By this time, publisher Lev Gleason had already launched Daredevil's own comic with Daredevil Battles Hitler #1 (July 1941), in which Daredevil and other Silver Streak heroes fought Der Fuehrer. As with Captain America #1 (March 1941), in which Hitler gets an ignominious sock in the jaw, the comic anticipated U.S. involvement in World War II. It was written and partially drawn by Charles Biro, who continued on the book when its title changed to Daredevil Comics with issue #2, and who in his 16-year run would make the character one of the most acclaimed of the Golden Age. Biro rewrote Daredevil's origin in #18 (August 1943), now depicting Hill as having been raised by aborigines in the Australian Outback. Biro introduced popular supporting characters the Little Wise Guys in Daredevil #13 (Oct. 1942). A "kid gang" similar to DC Comics' Newsboy Legion and many others, the group consisted of Curly, Jocko, Peewee, Scarecrow and Meatball — the last of whom, with remarkable daring, was killed two issues later. By the late 1940s, with superheroes going out of fashion, the Little Wise Guys took center stage, edging out Daredevil altogether with issue #70 (Jan. 1950). The series lasted through #134 (Sept. 1956). In the late 1980s, AC Comics revived Daredevil as part of that publisher's superhero universe. Renamed Reddevil,[1] he appeared as a guest character in Femforce #45 & #50[2] before starring in the one-shot title Reddevil #1 (1991).[3] The publisher Dynamite Entertainment said in 2007 that Daredevil would be one of several public domain Golden Age characters that would appear in the comic-book series Superpowers, by writer Jim Krueger and artist Alex Ross[4]
Fictional character biography
As a child, Bart Hill had been rendered mute by the shock of seeing his father murdered and himself being branded with a hot iron. Orphaned, he grew up to become a boomerang marksman, in homage to the boomerang-shaped scar left on his chest. Like Batman, introduced a year earlier, he took up a costume to wage vigilante vengeance. Upon his partial revamping in the issue following his debut, only Hill's identity and the boomerang remained; the mute angle was dropped without explanation, and the costume redesigned to a dark red-and-blue, symmetrically-divided bodysuit with a spiked "dog collar" belt.
Legacy
In homage to the Golden Age Daredevil, Marvel Comics' Daredevil would wear a similar costume in the alternate-reality Mutant X series. A similar, earlier homage came in DC Comics' Kingdom Come series, when Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt — a character whose regular costume was inspired by Daredevil's, according to creator Pete Morisi[5] — wore a new costume very similar to that of the Golden Age Daredevil.
Footnotes
- ^ As spelled on the AC Comics site; it sometimes erroneously appears as "RedDevil".
- ^ Femforce Index: Femforce #45 and Femforce #50
- ^ Silver Bullet Comics: It's BobRo the Answer Man (column of July 28, 2003): "The Greatest Name in Comics", by Bob Rozakis
- ^ Newsarama.com (July 18, 2007): "Ross and Krueger on Superpowers", by Matt Brady
- ^ Pete Morisi interview, Comic Book Artist #12 (March 2001), pp. 84-85
References
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Daredevil
- CGComics vol. 4, #5 (May 2005): "The Original Daredevil Comics", by Michelle Nolan
- From the Archives, vol. 3, #1, 1996
- The Grand Comics Database
- AC Comics
External links
- Silver Bullet Comics: It's BobRo the Answer Man (column of July 28, 2003): "The Greatest Name in Comics", by Bob Rozakis
- Comic Book Resources: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #124 (column of Oct. 11, 2007), by Brian Cronin
- Golden Age Comics UK: Daredevil (non-commercial downloads, public domain issues)
