Murdock and Marvel: 1977

Comics Over Time

Episode 15 - Murdock and Marvel: 1977

Its 1977, and this week we see the dawn of a number of very influential independent titles, and Marvel and DC continue to try to bash each other into the ground. Comics are gaining in popularity on TV, with THREE superhero shows now on the small screen, and Marvel catches a tiger by the tail as it agrees to do a comic book adaptation of a movie that is about to change everything for geek culture in America.

Preshow

• Murdock & Marvel on a break for Duane’s move.
• Next Show should be June 5th.
• Marvel Unlimited Show will return in the meantime.

The Year in Comics

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Eagle Awards

The Year in Marvel

Overall it was a rough year, as delays and problems are rampant. This is evidenced by our own Daredevil, who only managed to get out 9 issues this year, after a decade of monthly releases.

New Titles

Series Ending

New Characters

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Mike Zeck

The Year in Daredevil

Appearances: Daredevil #141-149, Iron Fist #11, Marvel Team-Up #56, Avengers #159 and Marvel Comics Super Special #1

• Marv Wolfman starts the year as writer, but Jim Shooter takes over with issue 144.
• Bob Brown also starts the year as artist but like Wolfman, would leave after issue 143 with 30 artist credits in the series. Later in 1977, Brown would lose his battle with Leukemia. Artist credits from 144-149 include Lee Elias, George Tuska, Gil Kane and Klaus Jansen.
• The year starts with Daredevil taking down Maxwell Glenn’s assistant Stone after he takes a shot at Foggy Nelson. If that wasn’t enough, Bulleye is back in town, captures Daredevil with the cunning use of a paper airplane (“In my hands anything is a deadly weapon”) and ties him to a giant crossbow arrow and fires him towards New Jersey. Though Daredevil is able to escape the death trap with the help of Nova.
• Next Daredevil must take on Cobra and Hyde who are again working together and trying to steal a new serum recipe from a couple who have a rooftop jungle (and a pet lion) in the middle of the city.
• The Owl breaks Man-Bull out of prison and asks him to be his bodyguard and kidnap a doctor who can help him regain the use of his legs. Once captured the doctor gives the Owl an exoskeleton which allows him to walk and fly. But it also has (unknown to the Owl) a flaw that Daredevil is able to exploit to defeat the villain.
• Next, we see Bullseye again set his sights on Daredevil. This time challenging him to a duel at a TV Studio while broadcasting it. With Daredevil’s radar sense on the fritz due to a golf ball, Daredevil takes a beating (and being shot) Daredevil is finally able to take down Bullseye in the Studio’s wrestling ring. When pressed who hired him, Bullseye says the name “Glenn”.
• Daredevil goes to confront Maxwell Glenn and he confesses to several crimes (including kidnapping Deborah Harris, Foggy’s Fiancée) without much resistance. We learn that Killgrave was pulling the strings and after Harris is rescued, Maxwell Glenn is arrested. Daredevil realizes something is up and upon returning to Glenn’s office he finds a secret door leading to Killgrave and a group of entranced business leaders. Killgrave escapes while Daredevil has to fight through the group.
• On the search for Killgrave and a way to clear Maxwell Glenn’s name, Daredevil runs into Death-Stalker instead. Death-Stalker creates a new Smasher in an attempt to take down his foe. The two have fight on a rooftop and then a final battle in an alley where Daredevil causes Smasher to drop a garbage bin on himself.
• As the year ends, Heather Glenn decides to leave Matt Murdock because he wasn’t there for her during the whole ordeal with her father. And Debbie Harris will not see or talk to Foggy as she’s still in shock from her kidnapping.
• As a preview at the end of issue 149, we see the message: Next: Daredevil’s Landmark 150th issue, introducing the power of Paladin and possibly the most shattering shock ending ever!

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #146 June 1977 “Duel!”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Marvel is in a lot of trouble

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [e-mail] 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.