“... and Daredevil Makes Three!”

THE HUMAN FLY — Issue no. 9, February 1978

Book: The Human Fly

Issue No.: 9

Published: February 2, 1978

Title: “... and Daredevil Makes Three!”

A fun thing about Marvel comics of this era was they always had a short history of the title character at the top of the first page, in the box where it stated “Stan Lee Presents: (in this case) The Human Fly!” Based on my limited knowledge of the Fly character (I think I had one of his comics back in the day) and the handy character history presented on page one of this book, I’m gonna guess he was inspired by Evel Knievel, a stuntman with a flair for the dramatic who was hugely popular with kids in the late 1970s (he even had his own motorcycle-riding action figures). See, the Human Fly comic character is a stuntman who has a little cape and a baton, and Evel Knievel was known to wear a cape and carry a baton. And, like Knievel, the Fly character had survived his share of broken bones. That said, the Human Fly’s costume includes a cool mask and Knievel’s did not — advantage Fly on that point.

This particular issue is basically wall-to-wall action. (A nice change of pace after that Dracula book.) The splash page sets it up nicely, establishing the heroes — the Human Fly (“the wildest stuntman ever!”), the White Tiger (“the world’s first Hispanic superhero!”), and Daredevil (we’ve seen him a lot in this week’s books) — and the villain, Copperhead, who wears a suit of metal armor and also hisses when he talks, so he is kind of doing a copperhead snake thing while also literally having a copper head (or at least a copper-colored metal helmet). Apparently Human Fly is not interested in crime-fighting, though he gets in a few punches. I’ll be curious to see how that plays out in future issues — if a costumed comic book character in a 1970s Marvel book doesn’t fight crime, then what exactly does he do?

Week One Wrap-Up

And with that, I have read all of the Marvel comic books that came out the first week of February 1978! At least according to the Fandom.com Marvel wiki. And not counting a couple of UK reprint books — Rampage (The Defenders reprints) no. 16 and Complete Fantastic Four no. 19.

If you’re doing the math at home, the total cover price for the week’s books is just under three bucks — $2.80. Adjusted for 2022 inflation, that’d be about $12.50.

Next time — I get started on the Marvel books released the second week of February 1978, of course!