Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1976-12-01 00:09:30 |
| Previous: Uncanny X-Men #98-101 | Up: Main 1976 / Box 11 / EiC Upheaval | Next: Marvel Team-Up annual #1 |
Daredevil #140
Issue(s): Daredevil #140
Cover Date: Dec 76
Title: "Death times two!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Sal Buscema - Layouts
Klaus Janson - Finishes
Review/plot:
Another fill-in issue; this one more obviously so since instead of regular writer Marv Wolfman it's written by Bill Mantlo, who was the fill-in king at this time.
It's a good one, though, with finishes by Klaus Janson, and a plot involving the Gladiator and the Beetle.
The Gladiator apparently met the Beetle in prison and the two hijack a train and ride it from Florida to New York to get revenge on Daredevil. Not the greatest scheme in the world but these guys aren't criminal masterminds.
They are pretty brutal, however. Here's the Gladiator chopping up the train conductor.
A passenger says on the next page that the man isn't dead, but i don't see how that's possible. Then the villains make all the passengers jump off the train, which is said to be traveling at 75 miles per hour.
After the bad guys crash into Grand Central Station, the rest of the issue is just a big fight.
Daredevil wins.
Quality Rating: C
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: Gladiator appears in Ghost Rider #21 after this issue; see the Considerations there for more.
References:
- The Gladiator has been in jail in Florida since Daredevil #114. It's not said why the Beetle would have been in a prison in Florida.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
| Previous: Uncanny X-Men #98-101 | Up: Main 1976 / Box 11 / EiC Upheaval | Next: Marvel Team-Up annual #1 |
Comments
its interesting how often the writers have to try to "cover" for the artists' depicting Gladiator as murderous.
Klaus Janson's finishes really rock the Sal Buscema layouts here, making these some of the best looking scans of this 1976 index IMO. Lots of black and what appears to be zip-a-tone shading. Nice. That shot of Gladiator under the no smoking sign is the best pin-up shot of that character that I've seen so far.
It's not totally implausible that Gladiator could have cut the conductor deeply enough to disable him without administering a fatal wound. The spinning wrist blades should enable him to be as precise as he wants to be, and the conductor's jacket fits pretty closely. Being a slasher is Gladiator's only "power set," and it's really no worse a problem than what we constantly have with Wolverine.
