Issue(s): Daredevil #29
Cover Date: Jun 67
Title: "Unmasked!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
John Tartaglione - Inker

Review/plot:
The Masked Marauder died but his gang is still intact. This issue they finally get around to opening a note he left them in case he was ever out of the picture, and it tells them that Nelson & Murdock know who Daredevil is. So the gang decides to head over and force them to tell.

Meanwhile, the boss of another gang (whose name is, er, "Boss") decides to take over the Marauder's gang.

After some in-fighting...

...they both team-up to kidnap Karen Page to force Nelson & Murdock to tell them who Daredevil really is.

All of the above is a fine plot. Except you have to remember that Foggy and Karen "know" that Daredevil is really Matt Murdock's identical twin brother Mike, who mysteriously appeared on the scene a few issues back. So any plot that deals with Daredevil's secret ID is going to run up against that particular craziness. And you might think this issue would be a chance for Stan Lee to tackle it head on and ultimately get rid of it. But no.

Instead Matt shows up in his Daredevil costume, except pretending to be Matt pretending to be Mike. So he makes a big show of being blind and being obviously not Daredevil. He even carries a gun...

...which generated some complaints in the lettercol and even made it into the No Prize book that Marvel put out in the 80s. But the point was that it was Matt pretending to do a bad job of pretending to be Daredevil (stay with me here). So the gun makes perfect sense. (Maybe the holster didn't. There was also some question as to why Matt's glasses weren't visible under the mask.)

Anyway, the point is, here's Karen Page and she sees Daredevil show up and then he's unmasked by the Boss' gang and oh look it's Matt Murdock. Does it cause any doubt in Karen's mind that Matt's ridiculously convenient identical twin brother that she's never seen at the same time as Matt doesn't actually exist? No, not at all. Not even a little.

Matt and Mike may be identical, but Mike is supposed to be a super-hero. Athletic. Active. Matt is blind and supposed to be a working stiff lawyer. Not someone who's hitting the gym on a regular basis, let alone swinging from rooftops. And yet here's Matt in the form-fitting Daredevil suit looking exactly like the real thing. Karen? Any lights going on in there?

Nope.

So Daredevil beats up all the goons...

...and everybody goes home. Matt decides he can't tell Karen that he loves her, because if she ever knew his secret ID, why, she might get kidnapped by bad guys or something!

Cameo by Stan Lee, who really ought to stick his head back in that window and start rewriting this script from scratch.

I did it! I made it through this entire review about a bad guy called The Boss without making a Bruce Springsteen ref... damn.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• The Masked Marauder died in Daredevil #27. No footnote. The gang says it was "over a month" since they last heard from him.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Sometimes you have to wonder if Karen's drug problems started a lot earlier than we were told.

Ah well. At least there was Gene Colan to enjoy. Not as swirly, shadowy, and moody as his magnificent later work (the sadly short-lived Night Force series with Wolfman), but he was getting there.

So Matt pretends he's an ordinary blind guy "pretending" to be Daredevil…and part of the masquerade is his carrying a gun?? What is this, "Daredevil, the Blind Gunslinger without Fear (of accidentally killing bystanders)??

This is the one issue of the Mike Murdock Madness that I don't have, and it's even lamer than the rest. Oy, Stan…oy.

Stan popping his head in the window reminds of those bits on the goofy Batman TV series where guest celebrities would stick there head out the window when Batman and Robin were, ahem, climbing up the wall.

This run of stories works much better if you assume it's like that Mad Men episode where everyone in the office is taking speed.