September 1964 -- The quintessential James Bond movie -- Goldfinger -- which many more smarter then myself deemed the best Bond film of all time, premiers during the same month as Pete Townshend of The Who performs an eclectic on stage ritual for the first time when he smashes his guitar live in front of a rabid audience in London. Speaking of wild Peters and more bad segues, it's time for another episode of Comics in the Classroom.
In this illustrious issue, Spider-Man gets face to face with Marvel's answer to Batman on a budget, the blind superhero Daredevil, who at the time of this issue's pressing was still sporting an awful mustard and brown colored outfit that only a blind man could approve. Sharing the same city, it was only a matter of time before these two forces of good would meet, battle, reconcile and ally themselves as the ultimate tag team. Of course every team must first get through it's growing pains.
Our tale begins with our titular hero Peter Parker consistently fending off his Aunt May's persistent attempts to get him to go on a date with their next door neighbor's niece, Mary Jane. Flattered but annoyed, Peter always has a chance to blow off steam when he goes out for some web slinging. He happens upon a burglary in progress, where the fleeing robbers nearly trample a blind man crossing the street.
Spidey lays the smack down and saves the blind man, who offers his thanks in return. As Spidey swings away, the blind man does a little costume change of his own and becomes the fearsome yet awfully attired Daredevil, the man with no fear.
For those who are ignorant in the annals of Marvel, Daredevil was once lawyer Matt Murdock, who had a freak reaction when a childhood accident left him completely blind yet enhanced his other senses to superhuman levels. Daredevil's radar senses actually allows him to hear the heartbeats and breathing patterns of his clients and enemies to tell if they're lying. His lack of sight is covered when his other senses give him a sonar type view of his surrounding, which give him no depth of height and therefore, give him no reason to fear anything around him. In actuality Daredevil went through a major dry run and was nearly canceled and erased from existence very much like the Hulk when wunderkind writer Frank Miller took over the series and made it a bad ass detective type series. Sometimes all it takes is a little Marvel magic, or the mind of a sick wordsmith.
We then change perspectives over to the traveling circus that has arrived at Madison Square Garden in order to perform to a large audience of rich New Yorkers. The leader of the circus, the appropriately named Ringmaster, who had recently had his butt handed to him by The Hulk, is planning to hypnotize and then rob the entire audience during the show. Aiming to guarantee a sell out audience, The Ringmaster lists Spider-Man as tonight's guest performer, even though old Spidey never agreed to the billing.
Over at the Daily Bugle, Peter decides to make an appearance at the circus in order to improve his public image, since all the proceeds from the circus are supposedly going to charity. Peter even foolishly breaks off a date with Betty Brant, who does her usual dramatic performance that the class gets a kick out of. Blowing off a girl for a chance to perform at a circus and turning down blind dates make my students question Spider-Man's priorities and masculinity.
A sellout crowd fills the Garden, including Matt Murdock and his co workers from his law office. While his friends feel bad that he can't "see" anything, Matt actually is the only one that senses Spider-Man climbing through the ceiling in order to make his surprise appearance.
Swinging through the crowd, Spidey is a smash hit, performing amazing wonders of acrobatic stunts while the crown drools in fascination. The Ringmaster comes forward and uses a device in his large top hat to hypnotize the entire crowd, including Spider-Man. With his trance lasting exactly one hour, The Ringmaster leaps in excitement while his circus flunkies proceed to wander into the crowd to relieve the guests of their wallets and jewelry. What they don't know is one man was able to get past the mass hypnosis, the blind man of course.
When the class inquires about the content of this issue, I give them a quick lesson in piggybacking. As I mentioned earlier, Daredevil was a character still in development, very much like the Hulk and just about everyone on the Marvel roster in the 60's. With Spider-Man as the most popular series for Marvel at the time, the editors and writers probably made a marketing decision to have Daredevil pop up as a guest star in the Spider-Man series in order to drum up sales for his own fledgling title. You can't blame the people at Marvel for trying however myself and the class were in agreement when we can't stand when a piggyback story is presented without further advancing current storylines in the Spider-Man universe. With the exception of a quick appearance by Spidey's supporting cast, this issue served only as a way to promote the Daredevil title, one of my students even brought up the movie Barbershop 2, which only seemed to serve as a springboard for Queen Latifah to get her own movie, Beauty Shop.
Vocab Word Web
1- Doldrums
2- Efficiency
3- Infallible
4- Handicap
5- Recluse
6- Crafty
7- Miscalculation
8- Exhibition
9- Hypnotized
10- Hallucination
11- Elude
12- Retrieve
13- Maneuver
14- Tension
15- Brazen
16- Brash
17- Boastful
18- Caustic
19- Opaque
20- Irrepressible
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