On last week’s show we discussed the long history of Marvel Comics from 1939 to 1963. This week we finally see where Stan, Jack and the rest of the Marvel bullpen had been leading up to. It's time to talk about 1964, and the debut of the World's Most Interesting Superhero – Daredevil!
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The Year in Comics
1964 was an eventful year in America, and many of the things going in politics and culture made their way into the comics.
New Comics, Creators & Characters
Big Moments
Best Selling Books... and Marvels
The Year in Marvel
By the start of 1964 most of the characters that would headline the Marvel Universe were already in place. But there were still new characters and places to fill in, and 1964 added a number of Avengers and villains to the world. Even as the cast of characters grew, though, Lee still had a limited number of monthly titles he could put out due to a restrictive distribution deal. His solution? Tales to Astonish would be divided in half, and would co-star the Incredible Hulk and Giant Man. Later in the year Tales of Suspense would follow, with Cap and Iron Man sharing the title as of issue #59
Starts and Ends
New Characters
Who's in the Bullpen
- ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: George Tuska
Stories to Remember
The Year in Daredevil
Appearances: Daredevil Issues 1-5, Amazing Spider-Man #16 and #18
- The stories were all written by Stan Lee by art was by three different artists: Bill Everett for issue 1, Joe Orlando for 2-4, and Wallace “Wally” Wood for issue 5 – who’s announced in the title as the permanent artist.
- Daredevil’s origin story (April 1964)
- Nelson and Murdock law firm is formed right after Nelson and Murdock graduate college. Karen Page joins them as their assistant.
- First cross over heroes/villain from another book, Thing/Fantastic Four and Electro in book 2 (Electro first appeared in Spider-Man #9)
- Mostly single book stories involve Daredevil taking down the villain while hiding the fact he’s Daredevil from Nelson and Page.
- Letters column added starting in book 4
- Full page “pin-up” of Daredevil at the end of issue 5.
New Powers, Toys or Places
This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #4 October 1964
Recap
Why We Picked This Story
The Takeaway
Daredevil and the Blind Community
Questions or comments
We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.
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THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES
Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm. You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/.
The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts.
Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data.
Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.
The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years. Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time.
Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics. This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377.
My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss. This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage.
BOOKLIST
The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show. Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read m
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