Last week I complained about the idiot plot of Fantastic Four #89; this week it’s Daredevil #54-55 (Roy Thomas, Gene Colan). Not that I plan to focus on idiot plots, I’m just pressed for time and writing about idiocy is easy.
Following Starr Saxon figuring out Matt’s identity, Daredevil goes for a riff on Spider-Man No More — he’ll eliminated the risk of exposure by faking Matt’s death and becoming DD full time. Then he goes up against his old foe Mr. Fear (actually Saxon under the mask) and in the middle of battle freezes with fear! OMG, he’s lost it! He’s … a coward!
It’s true, Saxon didn’t make any obvious use of his predecessor’s fear gas but you’d think Daredevil would suspect there might be a connection. Instead he broods and skulks into part two, wondering if he backed the wrong horse by going all in on Daredevil. Eventually he figures it out — Saxon planted fear-gas capsules inside Matt’s billy club — confronts his foe and and settles his hash. His courage is restored!
For bonus idiocy, Matt has to do detective work to figure out the new Mr. Fear’s identity; given he just met Saxon a couple of issues earlier, shouldn’t his hyper-senses have made it obvious?
Saxon can count himself lucky that with his apparent death, he left this book and went on to a considerably more successful career as Machinesmith.
#SFWApro. Covers by Colan.
So, Daredevil has a villain called Scarecrow and a villain who uses a fear gas…
and they’re not the same foe.
What would Batman do?
Scarecrow was Iron Man, then part of Nefaria’s team against the X-Men. Didn’t fight DD though they’d have been a much better match-up.
Well, there goes my irony!
(BTW, I haven’t been getting notifications lately. If I don’t respond to people responding to me, that’s probably why.)
While the Batman villain the Scarecrow had a couple of Golden Age appearances, he didn’t start using fear gas until he was brought back in 1967, by which time marvel already had both their Scarecrow and Mister Fear (complete with the fear gas). It would be tempting to think that the Marvel villains inspired Gardner Fox (who wrote the Scarecrow’s Silver Age return) to bring back the Scarecrow and to give him fear gas as a weapon, but honestly, Gardner Fox doesn’t strike me as having been much of a Marvel reader, somehow.
It’s a logical enough upgrade to a character built around fear. I was surprised to read Crane’s two Golden Age appearance: one he’s just a protection racket, the other has no fear element at all. He needed the upgrade, for sure.