In Which Mike McGuire is Sick of Hash and Stew.

Let's take a gander at some random panels I found in Daredevil Comics, starting with this beauty:

Mike McGuire amuses me.  He reminds me of that "I want an Easter Egg!" kid from the Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Wait... Is that racist?  I mean, it's positive stereotyping, but I'm still pretty sure that's racist.

Wow, did kids ever really talk this way?  Not that I have any problem with patriotism, but I'm skeptical that even Boy Scouts ever voluntarily talked like that.

Now, I totally believe that people talked like that.

Hey!  It's time for Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!)

Brain Wolf to Stand Trial!

Okay, I'll get back to PPTSSM after I get through a few more Daredevil Comics.  Also, programming note:  I am taking a spring break for the next couple of weeks, so there may not be any posts until June.  Hey, I'm lucky my rickety self can crank out what I do these days.

Also, watch I, Tonya if you haven't already.  Brilliant.

Anyhoo, let's plow into the story that appeared in Daredevil Comics #6 instead of the "Mysterious Trunk" one we saw yesterday.  The first thing I noticed was this:

Wow, that went dark in a hurry.  Before the turn of the century, I don't recall very many kids dying of violence on camera.  Sure, you'd have the occasional kid dying of a rare disease whose last wish was to have Superman fly him around the world and take him to the Chicken Ranch in Vegas who would bravely pass at the end, but that was about it.

Anyway, our shooter gets an offer from the prison doc to escape before the strap him to a chair and pull a The Green Mile on him:

And so it begins:

Um... you broke a shovel over that watchman's head.  I think whether he saw your face or not is a moot point.

And so, a little nip and tuck leads to:

Yup.  He's now a wolf.  Fortunately, people don't seem to recognize wolves when they see them:

See what I mean?

Hey!  It's time for Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!)

And here's a bonus Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!)

Yeah, that's the stuff.

Anyway, back to the wolf thing:

Yes, the guy who couldn't figure out that a wolf wasn't a dog somehow pieced together that a mobster's brain was in the wolf's body.  Because REASONS!

Whoa, WHOA!

Is that kosher?  I mean, if you're a human being in a wolf's body, do you lose all of your rights as a human being?  This is a very disturbing precedent.

See you in a couple of weeks, hepcats!

An Honest-to-Goodness Real-Life Mystery

Okay, gang, you know how I loves to see things in comics and then see what I can find out as things spilled over into real-world history.  And many of you are much better at it than I, so I'm going to submit this to you and see if anyone can clue us in as to what the heck happened.

Remember in the previous post, Charles Biro put a caption box in the Daredevil story saying he couldn't run a story called "The Mysterious Trunk" and was really cryptic about it.  He promised he would run it in the next issue, but I opened Daredevil Comics #6, and this is what I found:

At this point, I started wondering if this wasn't some brilliant marketing scheme to get readers committed to buying the next issue.  It would actually be quite clever: Promise something if your followers will just stick with it and always be unable to completely fulfill the promise... but you'll be able to someday!  It works for religion.

Anyway, I found the next issue courtesy of the good folks at Comic Book Plus and, sure enough, there was the story:

And now I'm more befuddled than ever.  This was a real case and someone got executed???

Well, I tried to find some more details on it, but haven't had any luck.  Here are the pertinent pages of the story, just in case it might jog someone's memory:

So, what do you think, campers?  Will we ever know the truth behind this odd turn of events?  Sadly, Charles Biro died in 1972 and I can't find any indication that he ever talked about the matter.  So, if anyone has any ideas, slap 'em in the comments!

See you soon!

Perhaps the Single Golden-Age Comic Story Ever

Dear Ones, it amazes me that I used to be able to crank out posts five days a week.  It's not for lack of wanting to, I think I'm just getting older and it's hard to find time.  Thanks for bearing with me!

Just for fun, I took a look at Daredevil Comics #5 from the Golden Age!  It starts with a couple of messages from the editors:

Okay, I'm totally picking up issue #6 because I've got to know what that was all about.

And here's another:

Someone is murdered, robbed, or kidnapped every twenty-two seconds!  Enjoy your comic book, kids!

The lie detector is pseudo-science, by the way.  Just putting that out there.  Anyway, let's check out the death detector:

So, it isn't a "death" detector so much as a "you got murder in ya" detector.  Moving on:

Hmmmmm... I don't think we need to run the test on Nattony.  I mean, I'm no scientist or anything...

Hey, doesn't Daredevil not talk?  Or is that just with the "Death-Defying Devil" relaunch?

So, you'd think that would be the end of that, right?  Nope.  Daredevil grabs the machine for safe keeping and is asked to deliver it to the government.  And no less than twelve bad guys are dispatched to keep that from happening.  Thusly:

These days, that would be a summer crossover event in every title put out by the Big Two.  But Daredevil Comics says, "Oh, these twelve guys?  Psh.  I've got so many ideas, I'll take them off the board before this introductory story is even finished."

And danged if that doesn't happen.  Watch:

You know, I've got to give it up for Daredevil Comics.

And then, in a complete break of kayfabe, Daredevil invites you to ask that they be brought back for another beating:

I know comics aren't real, but do we have to have the hero tell us this is all made up stuff?  I mean, they were pretty fast and loose with the caption boxes when this thing started.

Still a great story, though.

See you soon!