Murdock and Marvel: 1974

Episode 12 - Murdock and Marvel: 1974

Well, here we are in 1974, when Richard Nixon leaves the White House in shame in real life even as he is shown to be leading a secret criminal organization in the Marvel universe.  The economy is a mess, crime is up, and comics are affected in all sorts of ways.

Preshow

• Reminder about Dan and Sienna's C2E2 Panel
• Saturday, April 27th from 10:30am – 11:30am.  Room S405-B

The Year in Comics 

The Big Stories

Shazam Winners (final year)

Comic Fan Art Awards (formerly Goethe Awards)

The Year in Marvel

Marvel published 86 different titles in 1974, including 9 new quarterly “Giant-Size” books, resulting in anywhere from 31 to 50 different Marvel titles hitting the stands each month.

New Titles (and lots of reprints)

Series Ending

New Characters

Big Moments

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: George Perez

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #107-116, Man-Thing #1, Marvel Two-in-One #3, Marvel Team-Up #25

• Steve Gerber (writer) and William Robert (Bob) Brown (art) were the main creative pair for most of the year. Sal Buscema on art in Marvel 2-in-1. Gene Colan returned to go art on #112 and #116. 
• Captain Marvel comes to the aid of Daredevil and Black Widow in their attempt to take down Kerwin Broderick and his Terrex. But it is Moon Dragon amplifying Angar’s powers that trap the Terrex in a black void where it is killed along with Broderick.
• During all this we learn that Captain O’Hara’s brother has died in Africa 
• Next Daredevil takes on the Beetle while Moon Dragon hangs out at the Daredevil/Black Widow Mansion. Daredevil then heads back to New York after hearing about an assassination attempt on Foggy Nelson. We also learn Foggy has a sister named Candice. 
• We learn the Beetle was hired by the Black Spectre criminal organization who are looking to overthrow the US government and attempt to forcefully recruit Daredevil and Black Widow to their cause.
• In the 2-in-1, Daredevil and Thing board the Black Spectre Zeppelin in an attempt to confront their leader, but it doesn’t go well and they have to flee. Daredevil is finally able to unmask the Black Spectre leader and it’s an apish mutant known as the Mandrill. Shanna and Daredevil are captured by another hired villain, Silver Samurai, and brought back to the Zepplin where they find Black Widow has also been kidnapped and is being mind controlled. 
• The final showdown with Mandrill and Black Spectre comes in Washington D.C. at the White House after Daredevil is able to snap Black Widow from her mind control. Black Widow and Shanna are able to defeat Nekra when she’s distracted by the explosion and Daredevil defeats Mandrill on the white house roof after he falls – but no body of the mutant is found. 
• Next Matt Murdock/Daredevil go to Florida in search of Gladiator and Candice Nelson – whom he kidnapped. The trail takes him to the Everglades where he finds Candice but also Death Stalker – whom hired Gladiator to get the project notes. Death Stalker captures Daredevil but the Man-Thing intervenes which ultimately saves Daredevil from the Gladiator.  
• Death Stalker heads to New York and tries to lure Murdock/Daredevil into a trap with the help of Foggy Nelson, but it doesn’t go as planned and Death Stalker escapes. Foggy and Matt hide Candice at Matt’s hotel. A final confrontation takes place in a chemical plant with Daredevil using his Billy Club to know Death Stalker into a vat of acid (along with the project notes).    
• The year ends with Daredevil returning to San Francisco to help Black Widow and her financial woes, but the pair are attacked and defeated by the Owl. He loads the unconscious heroes on his chopper so he can deal with them as he sees fit. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #112 August 1974 “Death of a Nation?” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Crediting Creators in the collaborative and evolving world of corporate comics

• https://www.newsfromme.com/2024/04/08/claws-for-debate-part-1/

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

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THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation.