Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1967-07-01 00:03:10 |
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Daredevil #33-34
Issue(s): Daredevil #33, Daredevil #34
Cover Date: Oct-Nov 67
Title: "Behold... the Beetle!" / "To squash a Beetle!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
John Tartaglione - Inker
Review/plot:
In these issues Daredevil fights the Beetle. I see this as different than the addition of Cobra and Hyde to Daredevil's rogue's gallery in the previous arc. Beetle has already shown himself to be a free agent, fighting the Human Torch, Spider-Man, and even the Avengers prior to his appearance here. This villain pool, the idea that any super-hero could come across any bad guy, is one of the Marvel Universe's greatest strengths.
Anyway, Daredevil probably thinks that since the Beetle is a Spider-Man level villain, he'll be easy pickings. But not so much.
After dusting himself off, he heads back to the office of Nelson and Murdock, as "Mike" Murdock, and demonstrates that he can "see" again. He then arranges an elaborate ruse wherein he has Karen call Matt at home, which in fact causes a pre-recorded message to tell Karen that it's ok for her, Foggy, and "Mike" to take a vacation to see Expo '67 (a World's Fair) in Montreal.
The real reason for Daredevil to suggest the trip was that he expected the Beetle to attack the train they were using to get there, and he does. As much as i hate, loath, ridicule, despise the Mike Murdock period here, one nice thing about it is when a super-villain attacks, Daredevil doesn't have to make up some lame excuse to disappear while he goes and fights.
But again Beetle turns out to be more than a match for Daredevil.
DD winds up giving chase across some barren terrain...
...and ends up in a frontier town that turns out to be populated by a gang working for the Beetle.
While Daredevil is held captive, the Beetle tells his "origin", as promised by the next issue blurb in issue #33, but it really just comes down to "I built myself a suit". There's really nothing that wasn't already covered by the first telling of his origin in Strange Tales #123.
Beetle gets the dumb idea to take Daredevil to the Expo and unmask him there.
He doesn't even take a peek before heading off to the Expo. What if it turned out that Daredevil was like his best friend or cousin or something?
Anyway, Daredevil of course manages to get free and defeat the Beetle in the end, with some hands-on help from Foggy.
The Mike Murdock thing continues to be awful but there's a point where you just can't rage against it any more, and i like the Beetle's showing here...
...at least until the end where he's forced to act dumb because the good guy always wins.
Quality Rating: C-
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: Daredevil's initial fight with the Beetle takes place only "a few hours" after his fight with Cobra and Hyde. Daredevil hasn't even gotten any sleep.
References:
- The Beetle's origin from Strange Tales #123 is more or less repeated here, but without any footnote.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
These issue really underscore that Beetle really didn't become a loser villian until the late '80s and early '90's.
Yeah, the Beetle was originally played as a guy who was outmatched by the Thing and the Human torch together, but was step above street-level baddies and "mere acrobat" superheroes. But if you have a character lose to Daredevil and Spider-Man often enough and later writers figure he or she is just another low-level baddie, the sort no one should have trouble with.
It occurs to me thatDavid Michelinie and Bob Layton were responsible for a lot of this. They liked to show Iron Man outclassing most of his old villains, as well as pretty much any armored villain who didn't start out in Iron Man, and almost all of the characters they had Iron Man casually trash started turning up as "loser" villains elsewhere.
The Beetle was never a major player in my estimation but was persistent in battling various heroes. It wasn't until Busiek got a hold of him that he became an interesting character.
Granted, it must have been difficult to ever take him seriously in the first place with that kind of utterly goofy gloves.
There was an effort to make the Beetle a dangerous mastermind when he got his new armor (blackmailing the Ringer into doing his dirty work and the like),and they really made an effort to make him come off as sinister and badass, but they didn't stick with it. Then he kind of sat around in the bottom tier doing nothing until Busiek "made him interesting" by completely changing him.
