Daredevil (Lev Gleason Publications)

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For other uses, see Daredevil (comics).
Daredevil
AC Comics: Reddevil
Dynamite: Death-Defying 'Devil
This image is a candidate for speedy deletion. It may be deleted after Friday, 30 November 2007.
Cover detail, Daredevil Comics #5 (Nov. 1941).
Art by Charles Biro
Publication information
Publisher Lev Gleason Publications
AC Comics
Image Comics
Dynamite Entertainment
First appearance Silver Streak #6
(Sept. 1940)
Created by Jack Binder
Revamped by Jack Cole
In story information
Alter ego Bart Hill
Team affiliations Little Wise Guys
AC Comics: Sentinel of Justice
Abilities Highly athletic; superior reflexes; hand-to-hand combat; expert boomerang marksman

Daredevil is a fictional character, an American comic book superhero that starred in popular comics from Lev Gleason Publications during the 1930s-1940s period historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books. The character is a separate and unrelated entity from Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Although the original Daredevil ceased to appear in original stories by the end of the decade, the character nonetheless had an enduring impact on generations of comics creators influenced by the gritty, anything-goes storytelling[citation needed] of its most prominent writer-artist, Charles Biro.

Contents

[edit] Publication history

This original Daredevil was created by Jack Binder for an eight-page backup feature in Lev Gleason Publications' Silver Streak #6 (Sept. 1940). Editor Jack Cole, who would create the classic Plastic Man a year later, revamped the character in the next issue and pitted him against Silver Streak's lead character, the villainous Claw, for a five-issue battle that made Daredevil a star. The final installment was written by Don Rico, who would write the character through Silver Streak #17 (Dec. 1941).

Daredevil Battles Hitler (July 1941), the premiere issue of Daredevil Comics. Art by Charles Biro and Bob Wood.
Daredevil Battles Hitler (July 1941), the premiere issue of Daredevil Comics. Art by Charles Biro and Bob Wood.

By this time, publisher Lev Gleason had already launched Daredevil's own comic with Daredevil Battles Hitler #1 (July 1941), in which Daredevil and other Silver Streak heroes fought Der Fuehrer. As with Captain America #1 (March 1941), in which Hitler gets an ignominious sock in the jaw, the comic anticipated U.S. involvement in World War II. It was written and partially drawn by Charles Biro, who continued on the book when its title changed to Daredevil Comics with issue #2, and who in his 16-year run would make the character one of the most acclaimed of the Golden Age. Biro rewrote Daredevil's origin in #18 (August 1943), now depicting Daredevil's real identity, Bart Hill as having been raised by aborigines in the Australian Outback.

Biro introduced popular supporting characters the Little Wise Guys in Daredevil #13 (Oct. 1942). A "kid gang" similar to DC Comics' Newsboy Legion and many others, the group consisted of Curly, Jocko, Peewee, Scarecrow and Meatball — the last of whom, with remarkable daring, was killed two issues later. By the late 1940s, with superheroes going out of fashion, the Little Wise Guys took center stage, edging out Daredevil altogether with issue #70 (Jan. 1950). The series lasted through #134 (Sept. 1956).

In the late 1980s, AC Comics revived Daredevil as part of that publisher's superhero universe. Renamed Reddevil,[1] he appeared as a guest character in Femforce #45 & #50[2][3] before starring in the one-shot title Reddevil #1 (1991).[4]

Daredevil is one of several public domain Golden Age characters set to appear in Image Comics' Next Issue Project spearheaded by Image's publisher Erik Larsen. Daredevil will be returning once again to Silver Streak Comics, the book which introduced him to the public. A variation on Daredevil appeared in the comic-book series Project Superpowers, by writer Jim Krueger and artist Alex Ross.[5] In this series, he's billed as "The Death-Defying 'Devil."

[edit] Fictional character biography

As a child, Bart Hill had been rendered mute by the shock of seeing his father murdered and himself being branded with a hot iron. Orphaned, he grew up to become a boomerang marksman, in homage to the boomerang-shaped scar left on his chest. Like Batman, introduced a year earlier, he took up a costume to wage vigilante vengeance. Upon his partial revamping in the issue following his debut, only Hill's identity, spiked belt, and the boomerang remained; the mute angle was dropped without explanation, and his original symmetrically-divided bodysuit of pale yellow and dark blue was redesigned to a dark red and blue.

[edit] Legacy

In homage to the Golden Age Daredevil, Marvel Comics' Daredevil would wear a similar costume in the alternate-reality Mutant X series. A similar, earlier homage came in DC Comics' Kingdom Come series, when Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt — a character whose regular costume was inspired by Daredevil's, according to creator Pete Morisi[6] — wore a new costume very similar to that of the Golden Age Daredevil.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ As spelled on the AC Comics site; it sometimes erroneously appears as "RedDevil".
  2. ^ FEMFORCE #45 (html). Femforce Index. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  3. ^ Femforce #50 (html). Femforce Index. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  4. ^ Bob Rozakis (July 28, 2003). The Greatest Name In Comics (html). Silver Bullet Comics: It's BobRo the Answer Man. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  5. ^ Matt Brady (July 18, 2007). ROSS AND KRUEGER ON SUPERPOWERS. Newsarama.com. Imaginova. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
  6. ^ "Pete Morisi interview" (March 2001). 'Comic Book Artist' 1 (12): 84–85. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links