The Saga Of--And Apology For--The Much-Delayed Mysterious Trunk Story!!

The last panel of the lead story from Daredevil Comics #4 (1941):

Well, that was interesting. It was pretty rare in those days to get a specific story advertised in a "next issue" blurb back then. Sure, you'd get a generic "follow Captain America's further adventures against the Nazis next month." But a specific story? Much of the industry was still too slapdash and poorly organized for such advanced planning.

Well, along comes issue #5 (1941):

I have absolutely no well of telling, but I'll bet this was the very first apology to readers in a comic book! And you have to love all the mystery and portent implied as to why the promised story wasn't presented.

One month later, in #6 (1941):

Again?!?! 

Well, let's jump ahead a month, to Daredevil #7 (1942):

Hurrah!! "At last!!"

But is the story actually inside? And why the delays?

I'll tell you what--that is probably the best explanation for delaying a comic book story that I've ever seen. Sure, it's almost certainly 100% BS, but man, it sure beats "the dog ate my homework" or "it was the Dreaded Deadline Doom!"

[Also note...the caption is using the cover dates for the issues in question, not the street dates, so the story is even more transparently flimflam. Daredevil #4 was cover dated October, but hit the streets September 5, 1941...and therefore must have been produced in August, if not earlier! So the blurb that says the killer was executed in December streeted in early November, and would have had to have been written in October, two months before the first alleged stay of eexcution!! Flimflammery!!]

Of course, we are left with why the story was actually delayed in the first place. Did Charles Biro come up with a nifty title for the next issue blurb, but then find trouble coming up with the actual story? Was the story farmed out to other uncredited hands, who failed to get it done in time? Were the stories in #5 & #6 so awesome and so pressing that Biro decided he just had to print those first? [SPOILER ALERT: no, they weren't.]

A mystery that will likely never be solved...

Daredevil And The Minority Report!!

Fake news:

"Death detector"??

Yup:

SCIENCE!!!

Well, this presents kind of a moral and philosophical quandary. Is the machine predicting/seeing the future? Analyzing a persons psychology--or soul, if you will? If it says yellow, does that mean that you absolutely can never, ever commit a murder--or is that just a reading of you now? Can you be yellow one day, but red the next when the Cubs blow a three run lead in the 9th inning?
 

You know how this really works? Because the newspapers told us!

Yes, the press never, ever plays up anything that turns out not to be true!! Cough. Cough.

Well, a thug murders the professor, so the device result in his being caught for murder!!

Somewhere, Professor Erskine is saying, "Join the club, Professor Roe!"

But Daredevil now has the device, and uses it to flush him out!!

Well, what happened to the device? Why is there still murder?

Daredevil, at the government's request, turned the death detector over to the FBI. And it was never, ever heard of again. Ever.

It's probably rotting in some warehouse along with the Ark Of The Covenant...

From Daredevil Comics #5 (1941)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--When Punching Hitler In The Jaw Just Isn't Enough!

Why settle for knocking Hitler in the jaw...

...when you can knock him in jaw, hit him in the jaw with a boomerang, fire missiles at him, etc.?

Yeah, that's Daredevil, the guy who dresses like Frank Gorshin on a Star Trek episode, with a bonus spikey belt, and boomerangs!! When does he get his own Netflix series?

Daredevil had debuted in another Lev Gleason publication, Silver Streak, and he rapidly became a hit.

So when they gave him his own book, they decided that what was good enough for Captain America Comics #1 was just a tiny trickle compared to what they wanted to do.

The book essentially functioned as "Daredevil Team-Up," as all the stars of other Lev Gleason comics teamed up with DD. And all 68 pages were dedicated to humiliating Hitler and other Nazi leaders!

For example, we start of with...

DD and Silver Streak joining forces to help Winston Churchill kick Hitlers ass. [BTW, you have to love Hitler's rat shadow there...]

We got a look at Goebbels' propaganda office...

...we see where the Nazis got the swastika idea form, because when Hitler gets excited...

Then Daredevil teamed up with Lance Hale, a "great white hunter/immortal jungle fighter" type, to protect Africa!

And if you're going to humiliate Hitler, well, this is one way to do it...

Then it was time for Daredevil to meet...

Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor! Created by Jack Cole! 14 year old mental giant!

Then we take to the air...

Cloud Curtis had invented "the fastest plane ever" by putting the propeller in the middle of the plane, instead of the front. I know, I know, but try telling that to Otto and Jack Binder, his creators! This story featured and awful lot of "Goering is fat" jokes...

Then DD teamed up with the Pirate Prince. Yes, his strip was set in the 18th century, so we're not sure how he got into the 20th, but he and Daredevil sure put the kibosh on Admiral Von Roeder!!

We then launch into a multi-page biography of Hitler, written and drawn by Bob Davis:

...

You left "suicide" and "burned to death by the Human Torch had his brain transplanted into the Hate-Monger" off the list...

From Daredevil Battles Hitler #1 (1941)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Comics ARE Educational!

Before Daredevil (the original, Golden Age guy) was sidelined by--and eventually written out of his own comic by--his cute kid sidekicks, he had a little feature every month:

Yup--teaching the kids of America how to beat the crap out of each other. COMICS!!

These examples from Daredevil #3 & #5 (1941)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--The Youth Of Today Is Too Smart For Your Crap?!?

Lev Gleason Publications is pretty damn sure that their comics are better than yours:

Wait, what was that line again?

Hmm...if only that were true in 2014. (Insert snarky comment about how popular but unworthy writer and/or artist disproves this theory...)

From Daredevil #45 (1947)

Great Moments In WTF Covers--Daredevil Comics #27

Sometimes you just look at a comic book cover and just go, "What in the Sam Hill is going on here?!?"

This is one such cover:

Let me mention that, in the actual story...

A) No beautiful and somewhat exposed damsel is tortured...a man is their victim, as the bad guys try to find out where some stolen jewels are.

B) While the bad guys are about to give him the "Iron Foot," they never actually do so. They do use the whip in the story, though.

C) Our torturers were neither bare-chested nor behooded. They were suits and ties!

D) Yes, Daredevil's young pals, the Little Wise Guys, do indeed participate in the beating up of armed Nazi spies. Yes, some of them do use boomerangs.

I'm glad I was able to clear up any confusion.

Daredevil Comics #27 is from 1944.