Thank you for staying with us as we missed another week last week. Edward is traveling with his family this summer, making recording difficult. We still have a half dozen episodes recorded and we will trickle them out over the summer months, but there may be a few weeks this summer without an episode. But we have some fun ones coming! This one made me laugh while I was editing it… Enjoy!
In this episode:
Mike and Ed discuss Daredevil’s recent loss to Stilt-Man. Does Daredevil even have any super powers? If not, is he just a crazy man who swings from building to building with a grapple hook? And what’s up with Stilt-Man? Did he choose his own name? Why doesn’t he have extendable arms as well? Is this all a joke? And if so, how did the “joke” defeat Daredevil?
Behind the issue:
This is the first appearance of Stilt-Man, who goes on to try out names like “Stilty” and “Daddy Long Legs”. By the end of the issue, Stilt-Man is defeated and shrunk into nothingness. That does not stop him, though, as he comes back to be active in the Marvel Universe through to the present day (he is killed by the Punisher at one point, but his clone continues to use his stilts for villainy).
In this issue:
A new villain appears on the scene - Stilt-Man - and he starts his career of villainy by robbing a helicopter mid-flight. Seems complicated for a heist, but there you have it. In any event, Daredevil tries to take Stilt-Man down after the heist, but does not succeed. Back in his civilian guise as Matt Murdock, Daredevil takes on a new client, Wilbur Day, who hires Matt to sue his boss Mr. Kaxton, who has stolen his patent. As the case goes on, Stilt Man continues his crime spree. It is eventually revealed that Wilbur is Stilt-Man. He goes on the run from Daredevil, and eventually, he is hoisted on his own petard when he accidentally turns his shrinking ray on himself, shrinking him to apparent nothingness.
This episode takes place:
After the short reign of Stilt-Man comes to an end.
Assumed before the next episode:
People did not really think much about Stilt-Man.
Full transcript:
Edward: Mike Daredevil is not dead, but he has been pretty badly injured, and I think this is what you get when you have someone who's just a vigilante with no real powers trying to take on super villains.
Michael: Well, wait a minute. I don't know if he's spoken about this before, but is he a normal guy?
Just in a funny costume, like he seems fine. He define seems similar.
Edward: Well, define normal. You say normal to what does normal mean?
Michael: Okay, so Spider-Man isn't normal, right? We know Spider-Man. Spiderman isn't normal. Climb balls and he's swinging from building to building. But what do we know about Daredevil? He fights on rooftops and kind of swings down from rooftops. Like, I could not,
Edward: but he swings on a grappling hook. You could swing at a grappling hook.
Michael: No, there's, there's a, there's a zero chance, even in the best shape of my life, would I use a grappling hook to swing from one building to another without a net?
Edward: I'm not saying is something, I'm not saying it's a smart thing to do, but I'm saying you could do it. I think if push came to shove, I have faith in you, Mike. I think you could swing from a building to building. It's in a rope. You could, all you have to is hold onto the rope. Just hold onto the rope.
Michael: Ed, have you ever gone to a cottage on a lake in the summer we're gonna a swimming hole and there's a rope? Yeah. And the rope it's tied to a branch overhanging in the water Sure. And the rope. And you grab the rope and you swing out. Yeah.
That is still scary. Cause if you don't let go in time and you go back to shore and you let go, then you land on the rocks. Yeah. That's bad. As opposed to the water. So would I swing like that without the water? No,
Edward: well, I'm not saying you would do it because you, cuz you have more sense than Daredevil does. Are you saying Daredevil's superpower is he's unafraid
Michael: The man with no fear. I mean, he is. Pretty fearless, I suppose. But my point isn't that, that's what you would say is his superpower, is my take is that he, I think he has, he must have a superpower. He can't just be a regular guy in great shape who's like, no, cuz like, it seems like swinging from building to building isn't necessary to do what he's doing either.
It's like, you know what I mean? It seems like, it seems like almost like an add-on, like gratus gratuitous shit. Gratuitous. Yeah. Like, and it would be exhausting, think about Ed. I don't know the last time you tried to do a pull up or a chin up, but imagine that and
Edward: I can do pullups and chin-ups.
I can do that.
Michael: Okay. They're hard cause you're lifting your full body weight up. Now imagine you're doing that a few times through the evening and then you fight. Super villain. I mean, it does seem that's,
Edward: I'm saying he's making poor choices with his life.
Michael: Okay. Okay. So either he's making poor choices and he has no fear, or he's got some kind of superpower. So anyways, you and I were talking about that, but you mentioned Daredevil and
Edward: yeah. And then you went off on how superpowered he is and I don't know if he actually is, I think Thank you. He, he clearly has exceptional abilities, right? Whether those are super abilities or not, it feels like he's in the Captain America style. Then Captain America some sort of super soldier. Yeah. But, but he's not, he can't breathe fire. He can't fly, he can't stick to walls. And I think Daredevil's in the same class, he's Clearly very athletic. But man, is he athletic take on super villains. What's just happened is he was very soundly defeated by, basically a guy in battle armor with really long legs.
Michael: You know what? They're calling him, ed,
Edward: they're calling him the stilt man. The villain, the stil man.
Stil man.
Michael: It's just, it, it's just, it's just ridiculous. I don't mind, I love, and you and I, obviously we have, we have a show about this. I do love how humanity is evolving in these new things we're seeing, but, Doesn't it seem like we're scraping the bottle of the barrel for the influences, where you're naming yourself and your whole persona, your super villain persona is based on, in this case, stilts.
Edward: Well, did he name himself stilt matter or did the media name him Stilt Man? Well, I don't know, but they, but that's what he has. He wasn't having a press, he wasn't having a press release. He was just going out and robbing things and the poor guy got labeled as a stilt guy. Well, okay, but we got it. It should have . Called him, I don't know. Armor Battle man.
Michael: It'd be better, but he's clearly got some kind of body armor. That's fine. Yeah. And bullets, power bullets off him. Right.
Edward: And he can got that he stole from a helicopter. He used his well, his stilts to extend upward and then, stole from a helicopter that the helicopter thought they were safe.
They're like, nobody can get us up here because there's no such thing as a flying villain. Oh, wait a minute. Or a stilt villain that just came up and sell.
Michael: It's just, that's the defining. Feature of it is that whatever you wanna, like stilts is what they are. He has these extendable stilts and it just seems so stupid. It's just, I don't know, for all that technology, first of all, it's impressive. It's an impressive engineering feat to say if a helicopter is 500, a thousand feet in the air, To basically be able to extend your stilts up a thousand feet and not fall over.
Edward: And then, and then, yeah, balance.
Look at the balance on that guy.
Michael: It's incredible. It's incredible technology. It's just that
Edward: I would argue he probably more impressive than a grappling hook.
Michael: I would give you that, but The Thing is, but why would you do that? Why would you spend all that engineering, why would you direct your energy towards that engineering feed where he could have created something else?
Except, unless he's just going for the sort of the whimsy of, I'm a guy that has stills. I'm like really tall.
Edward: He built like these hydraulic extension things that are, I think are really if you built this hydraulic extension technology and you decided you wanted to go and use it for crime?
What type of battle suit would you maybe I'd have extending arms too. I'd have like extension arms to go.
Michael: The arms are way more practical. Yeah, but the think with the power you'd have. Bam.
Edward: But they can do the same thing with his legs. He just kick people with like his big extension. Legs and kicks are more dangerous than arms.
Michael: He's not, he's extending the stilt so that he can perfectly time getting in front of a helicopter and hoping the helicopter doesn't just turn around or just,
Edward: if it does, he can, can chase after climb. They go fast. He can run, his steps per minute could be very low and he could still achieve very high velocity.
Michael: We haven't seen any film of this, and I'd like to because that would be interesting. But anyways, the point I'm making though is I hate it. I hate the idea that we've gotten to the point in this marvelous age of heroes and villains and super scientists and aliens and gods, and it's like, you know what? We've kind of run our course. Let's have. A stilt based hero or villain? Villain. Villain. Like a psychic ladder. Ladder boy. Like any, you know, like tall guy.
Edward: I think you can be cynical on his name, but clearly Daredevil has a better name than stilt man, but like this guy defeated Daredevil. And so whatever superpowers you think Daredevil has, apparently they were not powerful enough to defeat this poor villain that you're mocking.
Michael: Oh no, I agree with you on that. Even though I think the daredevil must have some powers, powers are not, he's probably exhausted by the time he flipped around and grappled through the city to then fight the stilt guy.
Edward: But he has to grapple up the stilt man. You can't even get to him with those grappling hook that grapple is doing a lot of lifting,
Michael: silly. Whether you're defeated daredevil or not. I just find it so silly. And I, maybe I'm okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like you and I put a lot of energy into our show talking about these amazing people, good and bad, and then along comes still, it kind of just undercuts everything we're talking about where that's what it is.
It just seems so silly.
Edward: He's not undercutting anything. He's way up high in the sky. Everything is below him.
Michael: I just like to take his legs out cuz it just bothers me.
Edward: Take his legs out.
E205: They Don't Make Villains Like They Used to (Daredevil #8) -- June 1965