FAVOURITE COMICS OF THE PAST - PART ONE...

A comic I well-remember buying back in the '60s (and which I re-acquired many years ago) is DAREDEVIL #53, entitled "AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING..." As you can most likely guess by the title (and if you can't, then take two demerits), it's a re-telling of ol' Hornhead's origin, drawn by Genial GENE COLAN and Gallopin' GEORGE KLEIN, with most of Smilin' STAN LEE's original dialogue (or paraphrasing of), book-ended by some new exposition by Rascally ROY THOMAS.

Apart from seeing Daredevil in his original red and yellow togs again (a colour scheme which I've always preferred, despite the all-red apparel being more suited to the character's devilish demeanour), one of the things that appealled to me about this issue was the snow-covered rooftop setting of the present-day aspects of the story, as MATT MURDOCH, in his superhero outfit, reminisces about how he first became the crime-fighting nemesis of evil known to friends and foes alike as THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR!

It seems to me, if my recollective faculty is functioning properly, that I purchased this periodical (the shop from where I bought it still exists) at a time when the snow likewise
lay 'round about (but not quite so deep and crisp and even) on the ground of my own little part of the world in the Cimmerian-like wastes of Caledonia.

Perhaps, 'though, the old memory is playing tricks, and it's simply the case that the comic's wintry scenes are so evocative - and made such an impression on my young psyke at the time - that my mind has rewritten the past to accommodate the story's setting. (Sometimes the way we remember things is far better than the way they actually happened, I'm sure you'll agree.)  

Who can know for sure? And does anyone apart from me actually care one way or another? (The answer is undoubtedly "No!") For myself, however, I prefer to think that the atmospheric ambience of the comic coincided with my own part of the country's then-current climatic conditions, thus enabling me to imagine that the events of the four-colour terrific tale
transpired at the same time and in the same world as the one I happened to inhabit.

Anyway...trust me, it's a comic well-worth having in your collection.

Another favourite comic of the past coming soon. Don't dare miss it!

     

See Part 2 at http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2012/02/favourite-comics-of-pastpart-two.html

See Part 3 at http://kidr77.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-three-of-favourite-comics-of-past.html