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The Road Not Travelled: Let's Read Marvels WHAT IF...
- Thread starter Octopus Prime
- Start date
Yeah he definitely took a bunch of ambiguously canon Cap lore and made it canon
Written by Don Glut, Pencils by George Tuska
Inks by Russ Jones Colors by G. Roussos
I hope you like seeing nazis get knocked out and blown up, because boy is there a lot of that in this issue.
Also, if you dislike that, we can’t be friends.
Anyway, the cold opening in this issue, showing the way history was meant to unfold feels kind of unnecessary, since (as the narration box points out) it was covered in the last issue. And also quite often in more than one other Marvel book; detailing Captain America and Bucky final mission against Baron Zemo, with Bucky dying and Cap being frozen in the Arctic sea.
Slightly expanding on that, however, is the news that his (apparent) killing of Cap and Bucky gave his career a real shot in the arm, and he wound up replacing the Red Skull as Hitlers number one guy. Which didn’t amount to a lot overall since Germany was defeated shortly thereafter. Also, Zemo is coloured wrong again.
BUT INSTEAD!
In their dash to stop Zemos drone plane, Cap and Bucky chose a motorcycle to pursue it, instead of running after it, and manage to catch up to the plane much faster, giving them plenty of time to safely disable the weapon, without any casualties. So that’s great. But while they’re distracted by that, Zemo has enough time to make his own escape, and he flees to the Red Skulls base in order to regroup.
Skull, however, ain’t having any of this and decides to punish Zemo by testing an experimental paralysis Ray, freezing him in place for the next 20 years, and also burying him alive under his secret base, which he then abandons, along with all his henchmen, as aforesaid base is about to be completely leveled by Allied bombers.
All in all, one of the gentler punishments for failure that the Skull has doled out over his career.
Anyway, the rest of World War 2 resolves largely the same way, regardless of whether or not Cap is involved; though he teams up with the Howling Commandos a lot more, at one point telling Nick Fury to take care of his eye. Which comes out of nowhere, and it’s before he had an eyepatch so that’s just a really weird thing to say.
Was “Take care of your eye” a really common expression in the 40s?
A decade passes, Cap gets bunch Of secret missions to route out Cold War spies. Good news is that since Rogers was still around, super jingoistic, racist 50s Cap never felt like he needed to wear the mantle. Bad news is that since Cap was doing all kinds of spy stuff, Nick Fury wound up fighting in the Korean War and was killed in action. Also Bucky is tired of being called a Kid Sidekick and insists people call him “Buck”, and sets off on his own.
The possibility of calling him “James” is not raised.
Another decade passes, and Lyndon Johnson has a new mission for Cap; a new terrorist agency calling itself HYDRA has appeared on the world stage, and the US has prepared a response in the form of a counter-spy agency; SHIELD, and LBJ wants Cap to lead it!
The other big difference between this What If timeline and the one you're familiar with is that LBJ is associated with a Good and Successful military operation that he was advised to pursue.
Cap, however, turns him down, as he's too much of a daring lone-wolf type, and suggests getting Bucky to take over the operation instead (he was literally fighting in covert military ops against Nazis before he was old enough to drive), and LBJ knows a good idea when he hears it.
This new arrangement works great; Bucky is happy to finally be getting the respect he felt he was denied by being a sidekick and Cap gets to resume being a masked vigilante. And they both get to beat up fascists.
Eventually, Super-Soldier Serum or no, Steves age starts catching up with him, and he allegedly is getting slower and weaker (like that part in Commando, where Jesse Ventura says that Schwarzenegger is getting "old and slow" when he was lifting an entire tree above his head, like, ten minutes earlier); and Bucky suggests they swap jobs; Steve takes over SHIELD and Bucky picks up the Shield, and Steve agrees.
Also, Rick Jones is around and insists he become the new Bucky because this is a Marvel comic and Rick Jones has to insinuate himself into everyones business.
This arrangement works EVEN BETTER STILL for everyone involved, and, working together, Steve and Bucky are soon able to discover the location of the main HYDRA base inside an active volcano (secretly a dormant volcano they had realistically hot lava and tremors pumping through.... so the difference is kind of academic) and attack it with the combined SHIELD forces and their OTHER sidekick; Sharon Carter (in this timeline, she's Buckys girlfriend instead of Steves).
Steve, Rick, Bucky and Sharons tactical espionage action mission through the HYDRA base is quickly discovered, however, because Sharon is a smokin' hotty and her sexy curves are visible through the HYDRA soldier disguise she's wearing.
This is explicitly how they are discovered. And it happens a page after the only female character in this story is introduced.
Great work, Don.
Anyway, naturally, a fight breaks out and Steve and Bucky are captured (Rick and Sharon apparently beat down the entirety of HYDRA off panel while this is happening) and are confronted by the Supreme Hydra himself; who wishes to gloat so his most hated enemies; the commander of SHIELD and Captain America can see how powerless they are;
And he removes his mask to reveal a second mask that covers WAY more of his face than the original; it's Baron Zemo! Who has completely lost his marbles!
Turns out that being conscious, but immobilized, and buried in the basement of a castle which has been bombed to rubble for TWENTY YEARS *really* does a number on you, psychologically, and Heinrich was never the most stable of people to begin with. He flips out further when he unmasks Captain America and sees Buckys face and starts ranting about being tricked.
The book suddenly became both ablest and sexist over a couple of pages.
Steve takes advantage of the fact that Zemo is in a blind panic that Captain America doesn't look the same as he did when he lost saw him, two decades and a serious psychological trauma ago, and punches him so hard he falls into the fake (but precisely as hot) lava that filled the volcano base and he is immediately killed, and Bucky wakes up in time to disable the super weapon Zemo had constructed before it would activate and threaten the world. And that's good, but he still wound up getting a fatal electric shock from the effort and died.
Steve Rick and Sharon all mourn their friend, (Sharon more-so, since they were engaged and she blamed Steve for making Bucky a superhero in the first place), but Rick points out that the importance of the symbols, and insists Steve become Captain America again so the world would always have someone to look to as an icon of resisting tyranny and fascism.
And we close out on Uatu saying "Yeah, fascists suck. I hate those friggin' guys." Just more portentous.
BUT DID IT HAPPEN
Well, if you mean "DId Captain America ever not disappear at the end of World War 2" then... well... no. That's not really the kind of thing you can retcon. However; Bucky DID take the mantle of Captain America for a while after Cap was seemingly killed following Civil War AND an aging Cap was made the leader of SHIELD because they needed his expertise and he couldn't participate in any actual battles just before Secret Wars. To my knowledge, Zemo never associated himself with HYDRA
NEXT TIME: What if the Fantastic Four were a team of astronauts who got unique super powers after being doused with Cosmic Rays?!?!
All this talk about artificial lava makes me wish I could find the conversation in No One Lives Forever 2 where two goons discuss the development and focus group testing of the artificial lava in their secret base to make sure it really impressed their clients and the media.
Exactly where my brain went when I was reading it
Written by Roy Thomas, Pencils by Jim Craig and Rick Hoberg
Inked by Sam Grainger Colored by Phil Roche
Also, 36 pages isn't "Novel Length", but that's neither here nor there.
Story kicks off with something the Fantastic Four are not especially known for; beating the trash out of bank-robbers. They're more on the alien conqueror/mad genius tier of crime-fighting. But it does give a chance for any theoretical readers of Marvel Comics in 1977 who are *not* familiar with the FF to get a handle on their personalities and powers. Delightfully, Ben also notes that bank robbers are *really* not worth the FFs time, and makes it a point to not waste his catch-phrase on them.
Uatu then recaps the FFs origins, which I believe uses the exact same dialogue as FF#1, but is redrawn by either Jim or Rick; and Uatu notes that the Cosmic Rays that bombarded the ship didn't just give the FF random powers; but ones that befit their personalities.
But we all contain multitudes, and so here we have our WHAT IF!
As Reeds ship (now referred to as the Marvel-1, but I don't think it had a name back then) crashes somewhere in the heartlands, the team wakes up to find that they all have developed bespoke super-powers; ace pilot Ben Grimm grows a pair of draconic wings out of his back and becomes the high flying Dragonfly, Automotive genius and hot-rod enthusiast Johnny Storm becomes the living machine MANDROID, highly adaptable and multifaceted Sue Storm becomes the super stretchy Ultra Woman (after debating a few other names that felt a bit copyright-infringey), and the Genius Mind of Reed Richards turned him into... a big Brain. Named Big Brain. He's psychic too.
Anyway, regardless of timelines, somethings have to happen; and here we have four astronauts who have super powers, so they decide to make it official and call themselves The Fantastic Four (which, as Uatu noted; is because of a Human Weakness for Alliteration), and the first four issues of FF happen more or less the same way, regardless of which powers everyone has.
Even The Miracle Man shows up, and Uatu is precisely as impressed with him as you'd expect.
Where things begin to really diverge is right after that, however; as the FF are stopping a museum break-in by several unnamed masked goons and an actual demon; all trying to steal the priceless treasure of Blackbeard the Pirate! The goons and l'il baby satan are not up to the mustard for this new FF team, and who beat them all up and save the treasure, news which comes as something as a surprise to the person who sent them; Dr. Doom!
Turns out that Doom has heard of the FF, but knew nothing about them, figuring that they were just propaganda made up by the American government and thus beneath his consideration. Now he has a reason to investigate them farther and is surprised to learn that half the team is made up of his college rivals, but that the leader is that witless buffoon; THE ACCURSED RICHARDS! And he puts a plan into motion to get his long-standing revenge against Richards for the accident that scarred his own body and also further his plans to steal Blackbeards Treasure.
And while he's doing that, we also get a look at how having different powers affected the rest of the teams personalities; Ben and Johnny have basically fully swapped (Johnny bemoans his inhuman appearance, delivers wise-cracks and pranks, and is pranked by, the Yancy Street Gang, and Bens cool dragon wings have made him a celebrity) and Sue still loves Reed for his personality, but he's a friggin' brain in a jar and that's a hurdle for most relationships. And Reed is happy to be even smarter than he is in the 616 but sad because, like Sue noted, he's a friggin' brain and ain't nobody wants to smooch a brain.
Ain't nobody.
Anyhoo, Doom shows up in the Baxter Building looking to make a deal with Reed; he'll build Reed a realistic replacement body in order to give him the opportunity to smooch on his lady-pal once again in exchange for Reed helping him with some experiments he's looking to do. And Reed politely rejects him because this is a strange science-wizard who just teleported into his room making weird demands. Then Doom tips his hand a bit further by announcing his name, and Reed says "Oh, definitely not. I'm pretty sure you still hate me from college".
But he's just a brain in a jar, so he doesn't have a lot of choice in the matter when Doom just plucks him up and steals him. He also gets into a brief scuffle with Johnny, who he defeats easily because being an impulsive idiot who ruins everything he ever tries to do is how one defines Johnny Storm. He is called a blundering simpleton by Doom, however. So that ain't nothing.
Back in CASTLE DOOM in DOOMSTADT, Doom reveals that he wasn't really lying to Reed earlier; he is going to use his robotics expertise to build a new body for Reed in exchange for helping with his experiments. It's just that the robot casing is more of a room-sized chunk of Kirby-tech, and the experiments will involve shredding every scrap of free-will in Reeds body and turn him into a spongey organic computer under Dooms command.
Sues ability to smooch him is entirely dependent on how much she wants to kiss a room-sized brick of Kirby Tech; that's on her.
Anyway, the rest of the FF find out what happened to their squishy buddy and fly off to Doomstadt to save Reed, and the expected Early FF hijinks ensue; everyone splits up and gets locked in rooms designed to counter their abilities, but they manage to get around their bespoke deathtraps anyway before confronting Doom in person, and then they fight him for a bit.
And it's a fine fight; not up to the high points Kirby was capable of when he was suitably fired up, but fine. At one point, Johnny and Doom punch each others fists hard enough that Johnnys entire arm, and Dooms gauntlets each broke to pieces. Regardless, this is Dr. Doom, and this is three members of the FF who have suckier super powers, so Doom ultimately wins the fight but made a crucial error; he was showboating a bit too much.
And leaving Reed sitting there where he could watch Doom as he beat Sue and his best friend unconscious, and blew Johnnys arms clean off was something of a mistake when Reed now has psychic powers tied to his emotional state. And, at the last possible moment before Doom can activate the machine to excise Reeds personality, Reed attacks the exhausted Doom with a massive psionic blast; strong enough that it not only shorted out Dooms brain, but also transferred Reeds consciousness into it.
So Reed, now in Dooms body, is the one who awakens in the wreckage of Castle Doom, and reintroduces himself to the rest of the FF as they revive, and Sue gives him the new name of Mr. Fantastic; ready for brand new adventures because he has arms and legs now.
And Uatu closes out on a quote from Thomas Pynchon (because Roy Thomas is gonna Roy Thomas) about how the real mystery now is if Sue is going to smooch on a guy who wears armor to hide his busted up face. But he also says that it is not his place to influence who Sue smooches FOR HE IS THE WATCHER, SWORN TO NEVER INTERFERE
Which is a weird note for Uatu to end things on.
BUT DID IT EVER HAPPEN?
Not to my knowledge; the FF have gone through a period of changing up their powers every once in a while (most notably Ben took on a pineapple-y appearance for a while), but they tend to stick to Stretchy, Rocky, Fiery, Shield-y. I can't imagine that Reed-as-Reed didn't show up in the Hickman run, but he wasn't one of the more central Evil Reeds, if he did. I think there were a few later stories that imply that Uatu does play match-maker between Sue and Reed as well.
NEXT TIME: Enter the Spider-Verse
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
This isn't mainstream continuity BUT Marvel for a time had a line of comics called MC2, the premise being about the children and following generations of superheroes. The most famous series is Spider-Girl but there was also J2 (about the Juggernaut's good guy son) and A-Next (about the next Avengers team). We then later got Wild Thing, about the daughter of... Wolverine and Elektra (OK, whatever) and Fantastic Five.
Notice anything?
I mean, aside from Franklin's unfortunate hair. No, Reed nearly died, so his brain was put into a HERBIE-like robot. His new hero name? Big Brain. So in the main stream, no but we got five issues of this mediocre looking nonsense.
That's a step up from even original-flavor Reed, right?
Lateral move
I'll grant you that a big Kirby machine has a lot of lateral ground to cover by comparison, but OG Reed as a character is nearly irredeemable.
He’s still *as* likely to get smooches as a giant computer bank with a visible human brain inside it
Ain’t nobody wants to smooch that guy either, except for City.
Near the end of Mark Waid's run Reed switched Johnny and Sue's powers to trick Galactus and it ended up sticking for a little longer than he intended.
Writer Don Glut Artist Rick Hoberg
Inks: Sam Grainger Colors: George Roussos
Well, got a lot of comic for two bits this time. And the very earliest inklings of what would eventually be Spider-Verse. And a serious contender for the worst Spidey-related costume!
Also; this is a comic written by Don Glut, so I was absolutely reading everyone’s dialogue in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends voices.
Anyway, using what is apparently becoming this series standard opening; a quick vignette showing off our heroes normal status quo (Spider-Man saves a kid who fell out a window, and rejects his offer of a free meal because wealth and fame he’s ignored; action is his reward), and then Uatu pops up to recap how history is supposed to go (official wallflower of Middleton High gets bit by a spider, does whatever spiders can), and then ol’ Uatu slams on the breaks to ponder if something else happened. That spider could have bitten anyone; so…
WHAT IF THE RADIOACTIVE SPIDER BIT FLASH THOMPSON?
Well, nothing great, as we will soon see.
Turns out that after mocking Peter Parker for wanting to see a demonstration of a new nuclear reactor, Flash Thompson took the rest of his polycule to the seminar as well. He explains that this is because he has too many girlfriends, so cheap dates are a necessity. That being said; attending a lecture on nuclear reactors is a terrible date by almost anyone’s standards. His multiple girlfriends don’t seem to mind.
And because Flash Thompson’s gonna Flash Thomp, he knocks that weedy little bookworm Peter Parker out of his place in line, so when the spider comes down, it’s Flash what gets bit.
Flash is too resplendent with toxic masculinity to be concerned that a radioactive spider bit him, which is kind of justified when a drunk driver nearly runs him over; and Flash responds by suplexing the car. Flash immediately realizes there’s money to be made when one is unexpectedly car-tossingly strong, and takes his newfound strength to a wrestling exhibition with a grand prize of one hundred dollars.
It was 1977, so I presume $100 was a lot of money for beating a champion wrestler like Crusher Hogan.
Here, Flash makes two critical errors; he doesn’t just neglect to hide his face, he strips to the waist so everyone can easily identify him. Furthermore; he has no idea how strong he actually is; so he straight up murders Crusher Hogan by breaking his neck.
So the police come to arrest Flash for, y’know, murder (technically manslaughter, I guess? Wrongful death in any case) and he decides instead to jump out the nearest window, break into a nearby costume store and disguise himself after very visibly ending the life of a minor celebrity in front of a crowd.
If the regular Spider Man is a threat and/or menace, imagine what JJJ is gonna say about this guy.
Also, the costume shop has a complete Spider-Man costume in stock, and that raises all kinds of questions this comic isn’t prepared to answer. He just uses a domino mask instead of the kind that covers his entire face.
Now in the garb of Captain Spider, Flash decides to start fighting crime to make up for the murder he already committed, and defeats Chameleon and Tinkerer, by punching the ever loving hell out of them. And then he winds up confronting the Vulture, who, unlike those guys, can fly.
And also, unlike 616-Spidey, Flash doesn’t have web shooters.
So Vulture just picks him up, flies really high and drops Captain Spider… Which kills him.
And Peter Parker finds the completely smashed up corpse of Captain Spider, unmasks him, and has a reaction of “Huh… didn’t think Flash was Captain Spider. Weird.”
And as Uatu notes; that story was pretty unsatisfying all told, so let's instead see what happens...
if BETTY BRANT WAS BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE SPIDER
This one adheres a lot closer to Spider-Man canon, and I'm not sure if Donald Glut just hates Ms. Brant in particular or what, but WHUFF. You could write a whole thesis on this one.
This time, Mr. Jameson is in attendance of the demonstration, as well as his verbally abused and overworked secretary Betty Brant; and he wants her to make sure she's taking really good notes about this demonstration, as the professor is a personal friend of his and Jameson promised him a good article.
Why the editor and the editors secretary are responsible for this, I have no idea.
Anyway, spider bites Betty this time.
And because women are weak timid creatures, she screams and faints, as opposed to saying "Ouch, but now I'm as strong as a spider".
Peter, who is sympathetic to a secretary being hassled by her boss and also fainting in public, decides to ask her on a date, and she says yes, even though Peter is in high school and she's an adult woman and that has NEVER not been sketchy to me.
To be fair, over the years Marvel has done its due diligence to make it at least as non-objectionable as possible. Whether they have succeeded if up to you.
Over burgers, Peter raises the question of what Bettys boss is like, and she's so frustrated she punches a hole through the table, leading them both to realize that the spider-bite must have given her the strength of natures mightiest animal; the Spider.
She also apologizes to the owner of the restaurant, by saying that her snapping a diner table in half was a nutty publicity stunt, and the owner doesn't stop to question this at all after the fact.
Pete and Betty decide to team up, he'll design a costume and gadgets for her, and she can use her powers to make cash and fight crimes, and so SPIDER-LADY is born. And Betty immediately rejects that name because it makes her sound too old, so instead SPIDER-GIRL is born!
And she has an absolutely terrible costume;
I'll give it a *slight* not over Silks original costume, but that's about it.
Betty apparently read the last story, and is concerned about using her strength to fight crime, since she has no idea what her limits are, and has no actual training on how to pull a punch and would likely kill anyone she came to blows with, so she relies almost entirely on her webshooters. And Peter is able to get steady work taking photos of her exploits; mostly because she's an attractive woman in a low-cut swim-suit.
Anyway, after a slow day of Crime Fighting, Betty and Pete decide to at least take a bunch of shots of her doing spider-stuff to sell, and, as a result, winds up using up all her web-fluid on that, leading her no means to stop a robber who was running by, short of killing him with a single blow.
Naturally, this robber was the same one who would then go on to kill Petes uncle, Ben later that night, leading to a repeat of Amazing Fantasy, with Spidey tracking the robber through an abandoned warehouse and discovering his identity at the last moment.
Originally, this revelation taught Peter Parker that his great power must be used with great responsibility, as his cavalier attitude cost his uncle his life. In this case, Betty was behaving responsibly since she didn't want to splatter a guy across an entire city block for stealing the money out of a ticket booth, but she takes it to heart anyway and decides to STOP fighting crime.
Good job, Betty!
Okay, let's do this one last time.
IF JOHN JAMESON WAS BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE SPIDER...
Sidebar, but why they didn't go with J Jonah Jameson, I don't know, I want to read that story SO BADLY.
Same deal again; JJJ barges to the front of the crowd at the lecture, with his astronaut son in tow. Presumably because... radiation is a kind of science, and Astronaut is a kind of scientist, so he and the professor must have a lot to talk about.
For the record, they don't, and John gets bit by a spider, gets strong, yadda-yadda-yadda.
John shows off to his dad that he's a straight-up superhero astronaut now, and JJJ immediately decides to go ALL IN on celebrating people who wear masks to fight crimes, because his son (A HERO ASTRONAUT) wants to do it, and BY GOD, there's no way any son of J. Jonah Jameson could make a wrong decision.
You can fault JJJ for quite a lot of things, but the dude is a *really* supportive father. And he immediately has a custom suit and jet-pack made for his son, which was somewhere between Flash Gordon and Spider-Man and slapped a football helmet on there too. It's just as ridiculous as Bettys but it really works in this case; and so is born, crimes greatest enemy SPIDER-JAMESON: THE SUPER ASTRONAUT!
The name is 100% Jonahs idea.
Johns career as a Super Astronaut is apparently successful, but tragically short-lived (coming to an end roughly in the middle of Spider-Man #1), when he witnesses NASAs new space-plane, with the Astronaut who replaced him, gets into trouble and he has to fly off to save him. Once again, the lack of web-shooters really don't help him in this case, and John has no choice but to use his own body and natural strength to try to redirect the space shuttle to make a safe landing.
To his credit; he succeeds at this and lands the ship with nobody on board getting so much as a scrape. But there's room for improvement since he wound up completely smooshed to death by the space shuttle landing on him.
Win-Some. Lose-Some.
Jonah, to his credit, takes his son sacrificing himself pretty well, and decides that his son should be a inspiration to all, and decides to dedicate himself, and the Bugle to praising superheroes of all stripes and backgrounds instead of just the ones he's directly related to.
And as an epilogue, Uatu notes that in all three of this pocket timelines, Peter Parker winds up returning to the science lab to study the radioactive spider that gave Flash, Betty and John their powers, and learned how to replicate that and turned himself into Spider-Man afterall.
BUT DID IT HAPPEN?!?!
Yup! Or at least "Pretty Much". Nature of Spider-Verse and its sequels means that all these stories are definitely canon (and Spider-Jameson factored in heavily to Spider-Geddon). And in the main 616 continuity, Flash was also bonded for the Venom symbiote for a while, so he had all of Spider-Mans powers in addition to spouting teethtacles and super-healing. John also became a Werewolf God and lives on the moon with his wife, which is more impressive than having a jet-pack and big muscles, honestly.
NEXT TIME: Kind of thought that was common knowledge, honestly
It also occurs to me that Donald Gluts last story in this book had a delicate espionage mission collapse because Hydra troops noticed that they don’t hire curvy babes like Sharon Carter, so… yeah.
Think we might have a new standard for worst writer for female characters
Think we might have a new standard for worst writer for female characters
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Was Betty around for Spider-Island? Because she would have got spider-powers there.
I don't think she appeared in the story, but that's true; she'd likely have briefly gotten spider-powers and then turned into a giantbug monster
Wasn't there also a brief period where The Avengers all had Iron Man-esque armour?
Apparently it happened (is still happening?) this year. Geez. It's so hard to keep track.
Left to right:
Transmetal Optimus Primal (Beast Wars S2), Juggernaut, Optimus Prime (TF: Armada), either Silverbolt (Beast Wars S2) or Tigerhawk (Beast Wars S3), Ravage (Beast Wars comics), and then I don't recognize the last three but I swear Widow's mech has the Transmutate's face. Marvel's mech looks the most mecha anime of them all.
Written by Don Glut, Art by Alan Kupperman and Jim Mooney
Letters and Colors by Karin Mary Ellen
Also Scott Shaw did a backup feature
Y’all, I’m going to be completely honest, Daredevil is kind of a blind spot (no pun intended) of my Marvel knowledge, and what I know is Mainly the basics (blind lawyer has super senses to compensate, uses acrobatics to fight gangsters). Any other details I know come from the Marvel by the Month podcast.
I genuinely didn’t know that Daredevil being blind was supposed to be surprising. I mean… his costume has no eyes. That should have been a hint that he can’t see well!
Also, don’t worry, Don glut isn’t overtly misogynistic this time. He’s pretty ablelist however. Stretching out his legs a bit, I guess.
Anyway, diverting form the usual cold open, this time we open with Uatu just… revisiting the events of Daredevil #2; wherein Matt foils an auto-theft ring run by Electro, who then decided to rob the Baxter Building and sell its contents to a hostile foreign power (Max is... all over the place in this plan), and ultimately wins through some means that Uatu doesn't go into.
And then out of nowhere, Uatu decides to INSTEAD show us how that comic would have happened if Spider-Man got involved with fighting a Spider-Man villain instead of a walking TV set with Mr. Jamesons face that month.
And the answer is not much would have changed, honestly; but having TWO superheroes up in his business meant that Electro was throwing around a lot more lightning bolts than he would have otherwise, and while he still got the mustard kicked out of him, he did make a discovery while he was getting his mustard kicked out; Daredevil didn't react to the many flashes of light his electric bolts were producing so therefor Daredevil must be blind!
And he proves it by asking Daredevil to describe his costume, and DD replies with "Uh...?"
Apparently, At his sentencing hearing Electro also just blurts this out to anyone who will listen, so now everyone in America is just talking about how New York’s… third or fourth(?) favourite primarily red superhero is blind.
Which, as The Watcher noted; barely affects this timeline in the slightest.
The chief difference being that in a fight against The Owl, the crime lord exploits knowing that all of DDs senses are heightened by unleashing a secret weapon; a really smelly stereo that confounds his heightened hearing and smell, and Daredevils so distracted by the Smelly Stereo that he accidentally blurts out the name of his secretary Karen when she rushes into the room to see whose got a radio that smells so bad.
After DD beats The Owl and his goons (not hard because Owl was bringing a smelly stereo to a ninja fight) Karen realizes that her boss and Daredevil are the same person, as she’s not an idiot, and also because she can’t conceive of there being two different functional, blind people. And then they fall in love, because why not.
Foggy Nelson sees this, and is distraught, and then disappears from the comic.
So a few more Daredevil stories progress in the exact same way because the world knowing Daredevil is blind is not a drastic change, and eventually Karen convinces him to see a surgeon Who specializes in curing people who have The same kind of blindness Daredevil is afflicted with, and despite his apprehension about possibly losing his heightened other senses he agrees to it.
Which also requires first freeing a small Eastern European country from a cruddy Dr. Doom knockoff named Klaus, presumably because this story was not possibly going to hit the page quota otherwise. But before he’s hauled off to jail (or more likely, a public execution, given that his country was in open revolt), Klaus activates a radioactive doomsday devil, which DD then shuts down.
As it turns out, getting a massive dose of cobalt salted radiation is the cure for blindness, and Matt can now see again, but lost his radar senses; justifying his earlier fears in the most roundabout way imaginable.
Also, both Klaus and the surgeon work out that Matt is really Daredevil the same way Karen did; there being two functional blind people is too implausible an explanation for anyone to consider.
Back in the states, The Owl wants a rematch against Daredevil and also revenge against the judge who sentenced him to jail just for being a crime lord who has a bird motif, and DD obliges, after obliging Owl for a while with a fake trial based on accusing the judge of the crime of thinking the Owl was a criminal, and the fight goes DDs way again, even when Owl brings out his Very Smelly Stereo again, as it’s only really annoying when you have average-level senses, not debilitating.
So Daredevil beats up the Owl and hauls him off to jail (after exploding an owl themed giant robot that He had, and figured was less impressive than his smelly stereo), and figures that since everyone is putting together the fact that he’s actually Matt Murdock anyway, he might as well dispense with the secret identity all together and decides to run for District Attorney on a platform of… I guess… putting on a mask and anonymously beating the hell out of criminals.
Also, aren’t District Attorney and Public Defendant opposite jobs?
Well, Uatu says it’s a happy ending, and he’s watched the entire multiverse, so who am I to argue?
And to wrap up the last few pages, because all that nonsense didn’t fill the comic enough, there’s a back-up feature that asks “What if A Spider Was Bitten By a Radioactive Human.” And it turns out, it’s Spider-Mans origin again, but with a lot of weak animal puns.”
…kinda wanted to see more of Porkius the Living Hampire, I’ll admit.
But Did It Happen?
Like I said up top, I genuinely thought this was the status quo anyway. Someone with more knowledge of Daredevil than me can field this question. Kinda hope that The Owl actually has a smelly stereo he uses in his crimes, though.
Next Time: Prevenging
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I mean, Matt Murdock has been exposed more than once. During the Bendis run, everyone knew he was "allegedly" Daredevil after an government agent in desperate need of money spills the beans to a newspaper after he finds out. Foggy suggests "deny deny deny" so he does but most people got him pegged, including some rando who just says "Hey, Daredevil, what color is my shirt?" After Matt Murdock goes to jail, he gets his identity back and then I think surrenders it yet again and more officially during Mark Waid's run (which I suspect you would like based on what I hear about it).
It would be harder for a blind lawyer to keep his secret identity as a superhero if that superhero also was known to be blind!
As Johnny said, Matt was outed during Bendis' run, but under Brubaker, Iron Fist masqueraded as DD for a while when Matt was in jail and that helped restore his secret identity. Matt later outed himself during Waid's run, but Soule's post-Secret Wars Daredevil was black in the closet, and his solution was revealed in a flashback story involving a machine that harnessed Purple Man's powers to cause mass hypnosis.
Daredevil is one of the most consistently good Marvel comics of the last 20 years.
As Johnny said, Matt was outed during Bendis' run, but under Brubaker, Iron Fist masqueraded as DD for a while when Matt was in jail and that helped restore his secret identity. Matt later outed himself during Waid's run, but Soule's post-Secret Wars Daredevil was black in the closet, and his solution was revealed in a flashback story involving a machine that harnessed Purple Man's powers to cause mass hypnosis.
Daredevil is one of the most consistently good Marvel comics of the last 20 years.
There was a storyline back in the 60s where Matt tried to convince the world that Daredevil was actually Matt’s sighted twin brother Mike (who was actually Matt wearing a different pair of sunglasses).
It was perhaps the most baffling and convoluted means to maintain a secret identity if ever heard of
It was perhaps the most baffling and convoluted means to maintain a secret identity if ever heard of
How about this: Mike is now a real boy
[miles]WHAT?!?[/Miles]
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I mean, Matches Malone turned out to be real, so...