After having repeatedly failed to be good Thor villains, the Cobra and Mister Hyde try a more achievable goal.
Daredevil #30 (1967)
by Stan Lee & Gene Colan
“Guest-starring the mighty Thor” is overselling it, as we will soon see.
The villanous duo is back to committing crimes…
…and despising each other.
Hearing that they have escaped from jail, Daredevil has the dumbest possible plan to lure them in the open… dress up as Thor.
I AM NOT JOKING.
Among the many, many, MANY reasons why this is incredibly dumb… Daredevil is wearing a mask of Thor’s face over his OTHER mask.
Is Daredevil left-handed?
This couldn’t POSSIBLY get dumber, right!?
YES IT CAN, because this is the Mike Murdock era!!!
Specifically, Matt was pretending that his identical but non-blind nonexistant twin Mike was actually Daredevil.
Which means that, right now, Matt is pretending to be Mike pretending to be Daredevil pretending to be Thor.
In addition to be a dumb idea, Mike Murdock is INCREDIBLY annoying.
One of my best friends grew up on this run and thinks highly of this idea.
I just want to punch Mike on the face every time he’s on panel.
The cover promised Thor, and he does show up after hearing about an impostor.
YOU THINK, MATT???
Thor’s involvement in the story is to strip down Daredevil.
Because ABSOLUTELY NOBODY EVER demanded it: Thor versus Daredevil.
Thor is so impressed by Daredevil’s agility (???) that he agrees to let him fight Cobra and Mister Hyde.
Provided that they never speak of this ever again.
Disguising himself as Thor ACTUALLY WORKED, and the criminals decide to teach him a lesson. Notice that Hyde says he’s stronger than before… I wonder if it’s supposed to be the power-up from Loki.
Yeah Thor was right in thinking Daredevil has this.
Until we have the most unexpected plot twist ever: the Cobra actually DOES SOMETHING!!!
Hyde, whatever you have in mind, Daredevil will not be as helpless as he could be IF YOU KILLED HIM RIGHT NOW.
Sure enough, once Daredevil follows them into their lair…
…he hits him with a chemical that is INTENDED to blind him, but instead removes his super-senses.
Daredevil #31 (1967)
by Stan Lee & Gene Colan
You guys lost to Thor without his hammer in less than 1 minute.
How long will you last against Daredevil without his super-senses?
Since I’m concentrating on Cobra and Hyde, I’m skipping most of the scenes where Daredevil has to adapt to being blinder than before.
Reason #742 why Mike Murdock is a dumb idea: doesn’t Foggy know that Matt is blind because of an accident???
As for our villains, they’re not really thinking about Daredevil.
Gene Colan is one of the greats, but unlike Kirby he doesn’t really showcase the creepines of the Cobra’s contorsionist abilities.
Once again I must ask: what does the Cobra bring into this relationship? I still don’t get why Hyde needs him.
He doesn’t even LIKE the guy: their entire dialogue is Hyde insulting Cobra!
Conveniently, the duo ends up robbing a place right next to Matt’s office.
The people don’t have the most faith in Daredevil.
I wonder why.
The villains believe their plan to make Daredevil blind didn’t work, because nobody could possibly be dumb enough to attempt this stunt without being able to see.
Not really sure why they care about facing both him and the cops… they defeated Daredevil quite easily, and isn’t Hyde immune to bullets?
Later that night, Foggy is walking Daredevil home.
Forget super-senses… REGULAR hearing could call the Cobra’s bluff!!!
Daredevil #32 (1967)
by Stan Lee & Gene Colan
You guys have had multiple two-parters against Thor, but for Daredevil you need THREE issues???
WHY DON’T YOU JUST KILL HIM???
In the Thor issues, the Cobra was the one driving. Now that Hyde can also drive, Cobra is even more useless.
Their latest lair is in a lighthouse…
…I assume because Gene Colan wanted to draw a scene set at sea.
No complains here, Colan is great.
If you thought these two morons couldn’t get more incompetent: they can’t HOLD A BLIND HOSTAGE.
Daredevil switches out the lights, because very few people draw better scenes set in the dark than Gene Colan.
Daredevil has no chance whatsoever to defeat Mister Hyde, darkness or not…
…but he has a secret weapon: THE COBRA’S IDIOCY.
Yes, the Cobra sucks, CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON???
During this mess, Daredevil manages to find the antidote that restores his super-senses.
The Cobra’s career in a nutshell.
Daredevil tricks Mister Hyde into dropping into the sea…
…while the Cobra gets arrested.
Historical significance: 0/10
This adds nothing to the Cobra, Mister Hyde or Mike Murdock. Except making me detest the latter, but that ship sailed much earlier.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
On the Marvel scale, Daredevil pretending to be Thor is peak nonsense.
Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
Exclusively on the shoulders of Colan’s artwork, especially in the second issue, although his Mister Hyde is not the best version.
Other than that… man is this a dumb story. It’s full of contrivances, everyone is at a different level of stupidity, and while the dynamic of Hyde insulting Cobra was unique at first, it gets old when it’s the only way they seem to interact.
At no point during these three issues I had any clue why they work together.
While conceptually they can work as Daredevil villains, they do nothing worthwhile here.
Having been so harsh on the story, I feel like I should say something nice about Mike Murdock.
…
…
…
Nothing comes to mind.
Daredevil #61 (1969)
by Roy Thomas & Gene Colan
cover by Marie Severin
The duo wouldn’t make another appearance until 2 years later, at which point Roy Thomas is the writer. Will he manage to handle the villains better than Stan Lee?
The duo is back to rob the Guggenheim Museum.
Hey at least Hyde now cares enough about Cobra to get him out of prison! That’s something!
They’re working for a third villain, who would be a surprise if he wasn’t on the cover.
At this point in the series, Karen knows that Matt is Daredevil and they’re a couple.
In fact, in this issue he’s decided he’s going to ask her to marry him.
I wonder why their relationship isn’t going to last.
After some Matt Murdock subplots, he learns from a client that the Cobra and Mister Hyde are working with Jester, a.k.a. Discount Joker.
The Cobra and Mister Hyde have graduated from fighting Thor… to help Jester sabotage a roller coaster. Now that’s just depressing.
This is particularly bad from Mister Hyde. At no point you get the idea that he’s significantly stronger than all of Daredevil’s typical villains.
You guys are playing second fiddle to the Jester, for crying out loud! THE JESTER!!!
I’m guessing Gene Colan really wanted to draw a car scene.
As if this hadn’t been humiliating enough: Mister Hyde is defeated by a single punch from Daredevil…
…that leads him to run into a mirror.
And we close with Daredevil’s love life being a mess. Unsurprising, considering that Karen will leave him a few issues later.
Historical significance: ???
I’m not familiar enough in this era of Daredevil to make the call, but aside from concluding a Jester subplot I don’t think this is influential.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
I skipped the Matt Murdock scenes because they don’t involve Cobra and Mister Hyde, but they’re REALLY solid and Gene Colan is at the top of his game.
That being said… man does the superhero side of the story suck.
This is probably the lowest Cobra and Hyde ever get… they’re basically henchmen for the Jester.
THE JESTER!!! No wonder they call the team-up off for a while after this!!!
That was the end of the first era of the Cobra & Hyde team-up: they will both fight Captain America separately, only to return as a team against Daredevil in 1976.
That will be the subject of the next review.
It’s interesting that both the Cobra and Mister Hyde are considered dumb muscle in the Jester story, despite both being super-scientists earlier. It was pretty much irrelevant to Cobra’s character, so it makes sense that it was dropped, but Mister Hyde invented his serum, so it’s odd that there wasn’t any acknowledgement that he’d become less intelligent due to it or something along those lines. Ultimately I don’t think anyone cared about character consistency for them because, well, they’re the Cobra and Mister Hyde.
Interesting–are there any other stories, before or since, in which DD’s possible left-handedness is mentioned?
I believe he is canonically left-handed now, but I’m sure it’s not always shown consistently.
Just in case his fight with Doom didn’t prove it – or just very existence of Mike Murdock – Original Stan Lee run on Daredevil is particularly goofy and insane. It can be jarring to people used to his later versions.
As for DD#61, it came from a brief period when Marvel tried to push for done-in-one stories for all their books. It was a failed and quickly abandoned experiment as almost all ended forgettable and irrelevant.
Cobra started his career with POISONOUS DARTS as part of his arsenal.
He could’ve just hit Daredevil in the back.
It could’ve been revealed that somehow the radiation that made Matt blind also made him resistant to venom?
Man, these stories should go into a book: “How to stupid at crime, for Dummies”!