Daredevil #6

DAREDEVIL #6 (1964)
by Stan Lee & Wally Wood

One of the biggest mysteries of Marvel is how Mister Fear didn’t automatically become Daredevil’s nemesis. Not only he has a fantastic design, but come on, he’s the perfect villain for “the man without fear”! It’s right there in the name!!!

According to the very first page, Mister Fear should remind us of Purple Man. I don’t see it.

We begin with Daredevil foiling a scheme of a couple supervillains: committing crimes while pretending to be a camera crew. Wait, does it mean that in 1964 you could shoot a movie in the middle of New York City without any kind of permit?

One of said villains is the Ox, the kind-of-superstrong member of the Enforcers.
He’s actually the only member of the Enforcers with real powers and the only one who is kind of a threat to Spider-Man.

Emphasis on “kinda”, since it was clear from the start that Ox isn’t as strong as Spider-Man.
While I didn’t mind the Enforcers in the Ditko era of Spider-Man, I can see why they were phased out. They are a pretty bad match for Spider-Man, but I can see them working better against Daredevil! In case you don’t know them, the other Enforcers are Fancy Dan who is a martial artist and Montana who… has a rope. Okay maybe they wouldn’t work with Daredevil either.

The other villain is the Eel, who works FAR better as a Daredevil villain than against the Human Torch.

But naturally the main attraction is Mister Fear, who shows up to shoot Daredevil with his patented Fear Gas™.

The Fear Gas™ is a very simple but very effective weapon. You might think it’s nothing new since Scarecrow predates him by more than 20 years… except Scarecrow didn’t start to use his own Fear Toxin™ until 1967!!!

It’s also apparently much more potent than whatever chemical is responsible for Purple Man’s powers, because Daredevil was basically immune to that one.
Also: Matt Murdock simping for Karen is really insufferable in this period.

Now we learn the origin of Mister Fear, which is… just the most random thing it could be.

First of all: he’s the owner of a wax museum that specializes in giving artists something more fun than Daredevil to draw.
Second: his real name is Zoltan Drago. Yes. ZOLTAN. DRAGO. Which already sounds like a supervillain name!!!

The real kick is that Drago is OUT OF HIS FREAKING MIND: he’s obsessed with the idea of coming up with a chemical formula that can bring statues to life!
Note that, as far as we know, he has no background in chemistry whatsoever. He’s the supervillain equivalent of “I do my own research”.

Now if this was DC, he would miraculously come up with a formula that works. And Marvel does have a supervillain with a premise that is exactly the opposite: Grey Gargoyle, a chemist who accidentally discovers a formula that gives him the power to turn people into stone.

But Mister Fear is FAR more random: HIS CAT accidentally discovers the Fear Gas™ !!!

And that’s the origin of Mister Fear: a guy turned into a supervillain by his cat.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always loved the Mister Fear costume… honestly, I put it in the top ten best Marvel supervillain designs. Maybe the top five.
Unfortunately the modern digital version of the issue doesn’t give it justice, making the colors look washed up. The printed version is MUCH cooler!!!

At this point you might wonder: why exactly is this guy working with Ox and Eel?
It’s LITERALLY because they are the dumbest supervillains he could hire.
SERIOUSLY.

If you’re wondering how the heck could he possibly have wax statues of all these supervillains, some of which shouldn’t even be known by the public (like Diablo)… he probably ripped off some designs from Alicia, the Thing’s sculptor girlfriend.

Mister Fear’s plan is to lure Daredevil to his wax museum… because he has a statue of Daredevil.

AND IT WORKS.

Okay at this point either Karen and Foggy have figured out Matt has super-senses or they’re jackasses, because they keep inviting THE BLIND GUY to look at stuff he can’t freaking see!!!
“Oh Matt, this thing you can’t see is exactly like that guy you can’t see!”

I’m sure Mister Fear is not regretting selecting his minion based on how stupid they are.

And just what is Mister Fear’s big plan for when Daredevil eventually falls for his trap?
Have Ox and Eel fake being statues!!!

SHOCKINGLY, Daredevil doesn’t fall for it.

You might think this is the time for Daredevil to save the day… but nope, it’s FOGGY who saves him from Mister Fear, after returning to the wax museum to make sure he actually did see Ox.

Ox might be a lightweight as a supervillain, but he’s still way too strong for a regular human: Foggy gets knocked into a wall so hard he’s seriously injured.

Remember last time I complained that Foggy was about to propose to Karen despite the fact that A) he’s her boss B) she’s never shown any interest in him?
Just to show how different the 60s were, she’d accept in a heartbeat if she wasn’t simping for Matt.

The soap opera side of Daredevil is just unbearably tiresome. Contrast with Spider-Man’s, which at times was arguably far more interesting than the superhero stuff.

Since Foggy had a look at Mister Fear behind the mask, his goons go after him at the hospital. So we now have the exciting scene of Daredevil fighting a couple of people dressed as nurses.

But even THAT is too interesting for this comic, so Daredevil switches off the lights and the fight takes place completely in the dark.

We are now in the final act: Mister Fear is back to his lair, where he demonstrates he’s actually even dumber than Ox.

Now don’t be too surprised, but it turns out that making a supervillain team composed entirely of incompetent idiots is actually a bad idea.

And that’s the ending of like 99% of the first fifty issues of Daredevil.

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Historical significance: 4/10
Mister Fear has left a surprising legacy, but it’s mostly thanks to other people taking the mantle.

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
On the Marvel scale, sure but… just to put things into perspective.
This is the story of a crazy guy accidentally turned into a supervillain by his cat, recruiting the dumbest supervillains he can find to stage the stupidest trap for a superhero… and failing miserably at it.

Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
It’s not ENTIRELY without merit… it’s blatantly obvious that Stan Lee is going for a more tongue-in-cheek idea behind a supervillain. But still, if the intention was to make a parody of a traditional supervillain, it doesn’t exactly work. Mister Fear as a concept managed to survived thanks to the strength of the gimmick and to a lesser extent to a great costume… but that’s about it.

How close is this to the modern character? 3/10
Strap in, because Mister Fear has a surprisingly complex history: there are FOUR of them!!!

Zoltan Drago has only this appearance as Mister Fear, before he’s murdered in 1969 by the SECOND Mister Fear: Starr Saxon.
He lasted only a couple of issues as Mister Fear, before his presumed death.

You might be more familiar with the NEXT identity of Starr Saxon… Machinesmith!
Yep, the Captain America supervillain roboticist actually started out as a Daredevil villain with an entirely different gimmick!!!

The third Mister Fear is the one with the biggest legacy on Daredevil: Larry Cranston, who was actually a law school classmate of Matt Murdock.
He ALSO lasted just a couple of issues in 1972, before his presumed death. As of 2022 he’s still around, though.

It took several years before we discovered Cranston was still alive, so in 1980 we were introduced to the FOURTH Mister Fear… his nephew Alan Fagan.
He’s fought Spider-Man about as often as he’s faced Daredevil, and as per Mister Fear tradition he was ALSO believed dead for a while.

There’s also Shock, a woman who took Fagan’s DNA and used it to turn herself into a supervillain in a couple of lame 1993 Daredevil issues.
We don’t talk about her.

Out of all of these, the third Mister Fear is BY FAR the best one… not only he’s a fear-themed supervillain facing “the man without fear”, but in his civilian identity he’s a lawyer!!!
I fully expect to see him in live action as some point.

I wouldn’t dismiss Zoltan Drago from showing up again: he’s the ONLY Mister Fear who managed to stay dead so far!!!