Issue(s): Daredevil #63
Cover Date: Apr 70
Title: "The girl -- or the Gladiator?"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Syd Shores - Inker

Review/plot:
Karen Page has decided that she can't be dating a super-hero, so she's going to leave New York. In an initial discussion (shown in flashback), Matt Murdock is unable to convince her to stay, but he intends to try again after taking care of some legal business with Foggy Nelson. Karen in the meantime pretty clearly wants to be convinced, and keeps reverting between berating Matt for not showing up to talk her out of leaving and deciding that she's already made the decision.

Nelson & Murdock's legal business involves traveling to "Prison Island", where Melvin Potter is claiming to not be the Gladiator and therefore he should be released. Their method of proving that Potter really is the Gladiator will have you shouting "No! No no no!" and then "Duh! What did you think would happen?!", but there is theoretically a method to their madness. After berating him a bit and trying to get him to acknowledge that he is the Gladiator, they pull out their ace and give him his spinning blade attachments (don't ask me why he's still in his armor to begin with).

And, as you would expect:

Now luckily, Matt Murdock is Daredevil, so he's able to prevent Gladiator from instantly disemboweling anyone.

The twist is that Nelson & Murdock have rigged the blades to disintegrate "after a few minutes"...

...but it's worth noting that "after a few minutes" is pretty much the entire issue, during which time Daredevil barely manages to protect Foggy and the prison guards and keep himself alive.

Foggy doesn't know that Matt is Daredevil, and i don't even think Matt should have been so confident in his abilities that giving Gladiator his blades in front of his captors was a good idea, so this all seems like a really dumb idea. But that's what happens. And of course the fight with Gladiator prevents Matt from reaching out to Karen again, so she departs at the end of the issue.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Gladiator is in jail after an encounter with Iron Man, a fact that is mentioned but no footnote for Iron Man #7-8 is given.
  
• Foggy Nelson can personally identify Melvin Potter out of uniform thanks to his encounter with him in Daredevil #18, and there is a footnote for that. But that's apparently not enough evidence; only handing the dangerous super-villain his blades will do.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Daredevil vol. 3

If the sawblades attach, he must be dispatched.

One thing I've always been confused about- does Matt need to consciously trigger his "lie detecting" ability or does it work automatically? This issue he wonders why he didn't use it on Karen, and this isn't the only time he seemed uncertain in retrospect if someone was lying to him, but other times it seems like it works automatically.

I was kind of annoyed by the awkwardness of the dialogue this issue: "Please don't call me (Gladiator). I am just a humble man who runs a costume shop- nothing more!" He didn't want to be called "The Gladiator", but at this point, his real name had not been revealed, and I guess they couldn't be bothered to come up with one (Frank Miller first named him Melvin Potter in DD 166). Foggy should at least probably know his name based on their history.

Generally, I think if you want to keep a character's real name unrevealed, you shouldn't put them in situations or dialogue where it's obvious the name is known, but the characters jump through hoops to avoid saying it. For another example, look at Leap-Frog/Vincent Patillio in court in DD 26.

God fucking damn it, Roy Thomas.
"Look out! He was faking!"
"Of course I was faking, you overconfident FOOL!"
Every time a Roy Thomas character speaks, they find a new way to say, "No, DUH!"