You’ll recall that at the end of the second installment of “Daredevil Meets The Claw” our hero captured the nefarious Claw and the villain was left cooling his heels in the slammer. When readers of the day plunked down their hard earned dimes a month later to buy Silver Streak Comics #9 (the book adopted a monthly publishing schedule with its ninth issue), they discovered a much tighter continuity than was seen in most comic books of the day; issue nine begins exactly where #8 left off. There’s also a reference to a previous meeting between The Claw and Daredevil about three-quarters of the way through the tale.
This third part of the saga doesn’t appear to have been written or drawn by Jack Cole; there’s no credit on the story, the art is of a lower quality, and the writer let his imagination run wilder than even Cole’s usual flights of fantasy. The result is, well, not great. But it’s a fun read regardless, and it sets the stage for what’s to come – as you’ll see in this story, the battle between the two antagonists is about to become very personal.
So let’s rip right into this tale as Bonus Battle October continues! Here’s the third part of “Daredevil Battles the Claw” from Silver Streak Comics #9, with page scans courtesy of The Digital Comic Museum:
Have fun! — Steve
Copyright 2012, Steven A. Lopez. All rights reserved.
Oct 19, 2012 @ 00:14:32
Great stuff! I have one question, though: you said that the publishers were in rare form, picking up this issue right where #8 had left off. Was there a reason that continuity was loose, in general? Was it to appeal to more readers who hadn’t started from issue #1, so that they could pick up any issue and jump right in?
Oct 26, 2012 @ 07:29:03
You’re exactly right. Most books of the time were 64-page anthology titles, with multiple stories which typically ran (at most) 16 pages. “Done in one” was the general rule of the day; while a few books did carry a tale over from one issue to the next, most stories were complete in one issue. In those days many publishers were afraid they’d lose readers if they “forced” them to buy the next issue; competition was pretty fierce, with scores of comic books on the racks each month, and it was really easy for a reader to “jump ship” and start reading a competitor’s book.